Having long taken care that walking slowly and tiresomely, man adapted animals as a vehicle. Now bicycles, motorcycles and have become a familiar means of transportation.
But the possibilities to show imagination in transport are far from exhausted. Here, for example, a dozen fairly non-standard solutions.
10. Individual overhead
Back in 1867, the American inventor Charles Harvey offered the inhabitants of New York an individual means of urban transport in the form of motorcycle tires that move along a railway laid over city streets.
For all its madness, the idea had a rational justification. Urban transport was in crisis. In the field of land rail transport, the monopolies of the owners of the horse-drawn car and the nascent metro fiercely competed. Charles's proposal did not fall under licensing restrictions and aroused keen interest. Although not developed, cars soon resolved the issue of personal transportation.
9. Bicycle monorail
Nevertheless, the curious “personal rail transport” still found application. True, purely entertaining, in a recreation park. The New Zealand Bicycle Adventure Park complex, along with other attractions, also contains a monorail. Suspended individual booths with pedal drive move along it.
Interestingly, the "personal overhead" of Charles Harvey also stopped at the stage of manual trolley. But “cycle monorail” not only acts, but also enjoys steady success among visitors to the park.
8. Armchair with motor
Self-propelled wheelchairs are no longer news. But they, nevertheless, are not intended for public roads. On the other hand, since the beginning of the last century, car builders have been experimenting with microscopic cars, or motorcycles with a cab.
The famous Toyota Corporation took up the matter thoroughly. Calling on modern materials and technologies, engineers designed a full-fledged individual vehicle in the form of, in fact, an armchair with a motor. And this is not a "disabled woman". On such an apparatus, you can quite seriously accelerate on a park path or in a shopping center.
7. Walking boots
It would seem that further there is nowhere to reduce individual transport. Less mopeds will be, perhaps, mopeds and bicycles. But these are quite familiar mechanisms. But what if we realize the fabulous idea of "boots-walkers"?
No sooner said than done. "Anti-gravity shoes" develop the idea of children's entertainment "grasshopper" and the "jolly jokers" that grew out of it. But this non-motorized vehicle looks just like boots. A cunningly designed system of springs and shock absorbers allows the “pedestrian” to develop the speed of the cyclist with about the same physical effort.
6. Jetpack
Absolutely spy thing that allows all sorts of Jamesbands to cross borders and evacuate from special missions. They tried to do something for a long time, but it turned out only now.
Finally, the production technology of miniature turbojet engines has been debugged. Maintain balance in flight helps modern miniature electronics. Previously, both were “on the brink of science fiction,” and today, merchants have already begun to develop DIY-jetpack packs.
5. School bus on steroids
As soon as it came to jet engines, we can mention that they are sometimes put on cars. It was the "jet engine on wheels" that set the speed record, exceeding the speed of sound without taking it off the ground.
Americans are very fond of the most-most-car show. The fastest car. The biggest wheels. The most vicious tractor. So they made the “most-most” school bus, having thrown out almost all the seats from the passenger compartment, and placed the turbojet engine from the fighter and tanks with a fair amount of fuel there. Almost 600 kilometers per hour! It is unlikely that students will be happy with such a quick arrival at school. But the audience of the auto show is satisfied.
4. Floating bus
Excursion on the "water bus" is unlikely to surprise anyone. Bus excursion and even more mundane business. But around the world there are a lot of wonderful places in which the islands alternate with backwaters, river views with fascinating journeys through the parks.
The first amphibious buses appeared shortly after World War II. The Americans were left "out of business" with many universal amphibious landing amphibians. And if the caterpillar did not find other uses, except for geological lots, then the wheeled ones were bought up in large numbers by entrepreneurs and were converted into sightseeing “floating buses”. For their characteristic appearance and some clumsiness on land, they were nicknamed "lame ducks."
Those cars have almost all outlived their lives. But demand remained, and today amphibious buses are already designed and manufactured specifically for tourism needs.
3. Private submarine
Once on the water, the tourist sometimes wants to see, "what is under us?" Partially solves the issue of a transparent bottom of a pleasure boat. But you want even closer.
Having looked at the experience of Colombian criminals who have long and successfully exploited homemade miniature submarines, enterprising shipbuilders are developing projects for individual submarines.
Unlike purely “utilitarian” Colombian boats, here the user is offered, first of all, a great view in all directions and the ability to dive for a couple of tens of meters. Alas, "peaceful tourists" are still showing interest in projects, but for some reason they are not in a hurry with orders.
2. Motosurfing
Wonderful fun on the water - slide on the board! And fun, and spectacular, and a good sport. Here's the trouble: for such a glance very specific conditions are needed. Far from everywhere, the surf creates sufficiently large, smooth and, most importantly, stable water shafts. And the weather depends on the weather very much.
For residents of calm ponds are offered surfs with a motor. Now, to slip on the water surface, a water mountain is no longer needed. And with some skill you can show tricks.
1. The bus tunnel
Returning to public transport: it’s very crowded now on the streets. Many large cities are trying to reduce tension by introducing draconian restrictions on finding cars in the city. Alas, and this does not help, buses and trams are already beginning to push in the streets.
This problem is especially well known to the Japanese and Chinese. And if the Japanese are forced to adjust their decisions to the already existing architecture of megacities, then the Chinese acted decisively. Having the opportunity to design the streets of their cities, growing by leaps and bounds, they took and designed a bus, literally hovering over the street.
No fantastic technology, all within the framework of reality. The bus moves on high "legs" with wheels. It should occupy the entire width of the street. At the same time, the wheels drive along specially designated paths (not at all wide and not interfering with the usual traffic flow). An extensive interior literally hovering over several lanes, passing under his belly not only cars, but also simple buses and trams. Large scale!