Airporters, baggage, and runways

Sophisticated baggage handling systems operate effectively in all major airports but it is still a relief to safely retrieve your baggage.

Airporters whisking passengers with their baggage from one gate to another would only be an extension of existing luggage technology by making it

   
» people friendly with comfortable seating and good visibility; 
» fast with gentle acceleration up to 85mph; and  
» extensive between terminals, runways, airports, and main transport hubs.

That's what I imagine in Loose Ends.

Elder Adok

Airporters or skyTran runway links?

SkyTran is seeking crowd funding to get their 100mph pods up to speed. Do check out their site for more details. 

This scheme shows that the idea of airporters introduced in my first post is a practical option.

Could Heathrow and Gatwick cooperate and use their wasted campaign budgets (competing for a new London runway) on airporter investment instead?  We might end up with an amazing transport hub which would be the envy of the world.

Here's to new ways of thinking,

Elder Adok

Boris Island and HS3; a runway and airporters

September 2014 post updated August 2015

Boris Johnson's vision for a brand new hub airport (with four runways) in the Thames estuary has been turned down for now. Perhaps one day Prime Minister Jeremy Corbyn might have more success. Why not build it with HS3?

The Guardian ran an excellent piece on population densities which I used to argue for an HS3 route under London shown in blue below.

A loop shown in purple linking with Boris Island airport, also purple, would be practical for the following reasons:
 1) Spoil from tunnelling could be delivered via the tunnels to create the island.
 2) Stations on route would serve additional high density populations.
 3) Excellent communications would result north and south of the Thames estuary.
 4) Smart timetabling would give HS3 trains great flexibility on parallel routes.

The idea is picked up in the second Buffalo Future novel which is in structural edit and should be published by the end of the 2015.

Meanwhile another runway at a site that is best for the environment, and connected to other airports or transport hubs by airporters makes sense.

That might have to wait for Corbyn, PM too!


Elder Adok

Gatwick obviously for a 2nd runway, + airporters?

An imaginative campaign is being run by Gatwick to make sure another runway goes there

but Heathrow is also arguing for an additional runway, built perhaps above the M4.

Which airport should be chosen?  Certainly there is more space at Gatwick and the rail connections are good, although the Crossrail project will eventually include Heathrow.  Any additional runways will need fast interconnection to all transport hubs.

And that's where airporters come in.  Their speed around an airport site, or between airports interconnects them into one hub, so it doesn't really matter where the runways are.  It is an idea assumed in my second Buffalo Future novel.

Airporters could increase runway capacity for the Chinese

Airporters could connect between airports and around airports, thus forming a hub.

They could connect to other transport hubs too.  That might please the Chinese who recently criticised Heathrow for being short of capacity!

The excellent site myDestination.com has a simple map of London airports.

These could be interconnected by an airporter network. I haven't shown all the links.

But why stop there? Already HS1 has security checks in place, so why not check into the London Airports hub there? Airporters could connect to any transport centre so long as it had appropriate check in facilities.  For example the new railway station at Reading would be a fantastic connection for traffic from the west.

Again, I haven't shown all the links.

Corny, but I think it's an idea waiting to take off, and I've written it into the draft of my second novel in the Buffalo Future series.

What do you think?
Elder Adok

Airporters connecting runways?

For years and years there has been talk of extra runways to expand Heathrow as our London hub, and the latest idea is to bury the M4 in a tunnel with a runway above.

But what would happen if we introduced the humble airporter?

It can take ages to get around these massive hub airports and the chance of luggage going AWOL is increasing, so imagine an airporter into which passengers and luggage are security checked.  It can whisk both around the airport in no time at all.

Each airporter would take up to a dozen passengers with their luggage securely stored at the rear.  Larger groups would simply use consecutive airporters.

Now imagine that I want to travel to another London airport for a convenient connecting flight; simple, the same airporter is picked up by an overhead monorail which can travel at 80mph.  In 20mins I'm at Gatwick.  Thus all the London airports become the hub.



The monorail system could be quiet light and hung beneath inverted J stanchions.  This would mean routes could be nearly as the crow flies.  A number of airporters would be grouped to form a string.  Air slide bearings could keep noise low.

Its one of my ideas and will feature in the second of the Buffalo Future novels