The Internet Revolution of Railway that Will Bring Railway into a Big Golden Age

[daohai]

The Internet Revolution of Railway that Will Bring Railway into a Big Golden Age
by Master Daohai

Abstract
Changing the large-scale transportation business mode of current railway, replacing current large-scale trains by large number of small railway high-speed intelligent driving cars, The railway passenger transportation capacity could be improved greatly, and provide passenger better service of “depart at any time” and “point to point directly”.
In China, this reform at least can make the railway passenger revenue double, from 248 billion RMB in 2014 increased to more than 500 billion RMB per year, freight revenue will increase too.
For current low passenger revenue American railway, this reform will enable railway to provide better services than highway and civil aviation within 2000 kilometers, so that the American railway will come into a golden age of generous profit, total passenger and freight revenue will increase to over 150 billion US$ per year soon.
All countries’ railway will come into a Golden Age by this reform.

1, Existing Technology
The existing railway passenger transportation mode has a major shortcoming: the railway utilization rate is very low. You can see most of the railways are no trains running on it. We found the reason through careful deliberation: since the railway was invented, the railway system has been influenced by the thought of public large-scale passenger transportation. The mode of public large-scale passenger transport has two significant defects:
First of all, as public large passenger vehicle, the time and routes are fixed. Then fixed frequency and fixed line make the scheduling management of railway train very complex, it greatly limits the addition of railway frequency, and it’s inconvenient for passengers. Why railway can’t be the same as highway, there could be many rail cars running on track just like road cars? It will be more convenient than before for passengers: you can depart at any time and to anywhere, and you can choose the shortest route without stopping.
On the other hand, the thought of public large passenger transportation leads to higher demand to railway weight capacity, so the railway construction cost is very expensive. Existing high-speed railway construction costs more than 100 million RMB 1 km in China, urban light railway also needs 100 million RMB, and the subway is more expensive. It is difficult to actuate the heavy trains to the speed of 300 km/h; operation cost is also very expensive. The passenger carrying capacity of high-speed train is about 600 passengers , and its power is 8800 kilowatts approximately, which can drive 300 ~ 400 railway high-speed intelligent driving cars run at speed of 200 ~ 300 km/h(weight 1 ~ 1.5 tons and carrying capacity is 6 ~ 12 passengers ).
2, The design of the railway high-speed intelligent driving car
We can design two kinds of model of railway high-speed intelligent driving car: 2 * 3 meters, 2 row of seats (2 meters long); this is small-size model that two people can lay on it or 6 people can sit on it. Or 2 * 5 meters, 4 row of seats (2 meters long), this is middle-size car that 4 people can lay on it or 12 people can sit on it. As is shown in the graph 1 and 2.
Seat is face to face, small table in the middle, its door is between each pair of seats, and this not only can reduce the installation of doors , but also can facilitate passengers playing cards, computer games, drinking tea, chatting, and etc. A boring journey can turn into a leisure entertainment. Headstock is equipped with engine, the on-board computer, the power, control system and other core components.
If the existing car companies want to produce the fuel rail car, it’s as easy as winking. The process is mainly about replacing the robber tire with the steel wheel and installing computer networking intelligent driving system. Small-size rail car (2 *3 meters, two row and six seats) is equipped with fuel engine, On-board computer networking intelligent driving system and automotive air conditioning, cruising speed is 200 km/h, and the maximum speed is 250 km/h. It weights about 1 ton. The cost of mass production of this rail car is an average of about 60000 RMB each one in China. Middle-size rail car (2 *5 meters, 4 row and 12 seats) weights about 1.5 ton are about 80000 RMB each one on average. Small-size and middle-size rail cars are suitable for providing “depart at any time” and “point to point directly” service.
Because there are many small cars in America, we can produce a specialized rail car used to delivery road cars, 2 *5 meters, weight about 1 ton, loading capacity is 2.5 tons, cruising speed is 200 km/h. The price is about 60000 RMB each one. There will be a lucrative market for this delivery car.
The United States has the world's most massive railway. After changing business mode into this small car transportation mode, by the improvement of speed, better service mode of “depart at any time” and “point to point directly”, there will need 500,000 small or medium-sized rail cars, 250,000 rail cars (weight 1 ton and loading capacity is 2.5 tons) and 250,000 railway freight cars (weight 5 tons and loading capacity is 10 tons). Cruising speed of all these rail cars is 200 km/h.
3, The cost of turning railway into i-railroad
This railway small vehicle must achieve computer networking management and automatic driving, otherwise it is difficult to operate. There is no overtaking on the tracks, if everyone operates manual driving without considering other people and railway traffic condition, it is easy to cause jam and will lead to big decline in the overall traffic efficiency.
So Railway must carry on Internet reconstruction, the following is the estimated cost：the price of 1G optical fiber is around $0.5 / m, 1G optical fiber / wireless data communication base station (Cisco’s) is about $2000 each one(the price will be cheaper if order in volume), 1 km railway needs two 1G optical fiber lines and four base stations, the total communications equipment cost only about $10000/ km. The communication control units of existing rail switch machine will be change too (forming a set with new stations). The total cost of installing and equipment is about $20000/ km; 200000 kilometers railway is about $4 billion.
In addition, 1 million cars need networking management; it means there should be about 100 computer integrated optimization transportation management centers, including computers, network hardware and research of network integrated optimization transportation management software, and so on. The cost is about $2 billion in total.

4, The realization of the railway high-speed intelligent driving
Computer networking management + automated driving = intelligent driving
Since the core of i-railway is computer networking transportation management system, feasibility and efficiency of the system will determine the feasibility and efficiency of the whole i-railroad system. So person who isn’t computer professional may question whether the network communication speed of this system which manages lots of cars at the same is fast enough? Is this system needs a "big data" technical support or not? So the following is the detail answer to this question:
For example, there are about 1 million cars on 200000 km railway in America; actually the amount of data communication in system’s daily management is not big.
The data communication is somewhat big only during setting car’s driving program: car’s driving plan set by on-board computer according to user’s destination, then report to traffic management center to check and approve, the required amount of data communication is not very big, and it doesn’t matter that even the operation take a few seconds.
During the process of driving, on-board computer controls automatic drive, on-board computer just needs report the speed and position to traffic management center every second, a 512 - byte (0.5 K) data packet is more than enough. There are 100 traffic centers on 200000 kilometers railway, a traffic center only needs to control 10000 vehicles on average, so per second communication data which ensures the system’s daily effective operation is only 0.5 k x 10000 = 5million bytes, but our construction standard is 2G.
The optimization of transportation management also has corresponding algorithm, and mainly calculating in setting driving plan, which has no very real time requirement, so it is not difficult at all. So for computer experts, this reform is completely feasible. In terms of data communications requirements, it’s just a general application and we don’t need "big data".
2G optical fibers/wireless networks leave some leeway which is to ensure that the system can operate as usual when one optical fiber or one base station broken. In addition high-speed network always is useful, more data communications may be used on additive applications, such as passenger surfing the Internet in the car or public security bureau checking the face of passengers in certain car when someone missing, so car should upload on-board camera video, then the amount of data is more.
In order to ensure the safety and efficiency of the transportation management system, we can let transportation communication management be the priority for system by hardware. Data and process operation in this aspect are not affected by the influence of Internet data.
The following is the main content of railway car automatic driving:
1, Controlling the speed, especially in the corner, reducing the speed according to the bending of corner, inclination of track and weight of car, if the speed is too fast, it’s easy to go off the track. Calculation conducted by the on-board computer is more befitting than conducted by passenger; On-board computer can control speed by regulating engine’s oil supply or power supply, on-board computer can control the brake to reduce speed in emergency circumstance.
2, Controlling shunt, on-board computer achieves shunt by controlling track’s switch machine wirelessly. In fact, this operation is achieved by reporting driving routes to the wireless transportation base station in advance, and then the base station controls switch machine; in short, it can be easily operated by computer.
3, Self-location, there are two ways: 1, As a result of the car is driving along the track and on-board computer stores railway map, we will know the car’s precise location on the track by calculating distance that the car driving on the track (the most simply way is calculating how many circles the wheel rolled) 2, We can get precise location through measuring distance by wireless base station and locating by railway map too.
4, Determining the driving routes. Driving routes is determined by passengers and the railway management center, assisted by on-board computer. For example, passengers input the destination, on-board computer can calculate the route immediately and then report to the central computer of railway management center, the central computer will approve immediately as long as the route isn't too crowded, then you can start automatic driving, if the route is too crowded, central computer will provide more appropriate route.
5, Addressing emergency situations, such as avoiding collision. First, every car keep in high speed data communication with the cars in front and behind, when the car in front brakes, it will immediately notify the car behind, the car behind can slow down immediately according to the distance between cars or brake urgently or slowly, so it can basically eliminate traffic collision. As for the other cars or people, because the railway is operating closely which doesn’t allow the other cars or people passing railway optionally, you can’t cross the railway without approval of network management center. Therefore, traffic accidents couldn’t happen at usual. But in some places there may be animals which rush to the railway suddenly or foreign objects which are thrown on track, so the rail system can establish a small scale ( 1 ~ 2 people) monitoring maintenance station every 10 kilometers which monitors the whole railway situation with cameras. Monitoring maintenance station will immediately inform management center and base stations and cars in this region when find foreign objects on tracks, and go to exclude foreign objects.

•Benefits of automatic driving
Automatic driving and computer networking management is a perfect match, owing to this perfect match, the computer system can make each car run at the same speed as far as possible, and thus the efficiency of transportation will be improved greatly. Everyone drive at speed of 100 km/h or 200 km/h, that’s no problem. But everyone drive at different speed may lead to some emergency situations.
Of course, you can get benefits from achieving automatic driving. The saved cost of labor can be calculated like this: how much money do you spend on hiring people driving an hour for you? At least 8 dollars. Driving should use your hands, feet, eyes and brain, it is working time rather than entertainment leisure time, $8 /per hour is a cheap price in US; Calculating according to 100 million car owners and driving 0.5 hours per day on average, it’s $400 million per day and $146 billion a year. In addition, people don't have to learn driving and traffic rules, and don’t need to get driver's license, and don’t need to drive by themselves.

•How to solve traffic jams caused by cars broken down:
Some people may consider this problem: Although computer networking management and automotive driving can eliminate traffic jams caused by manual driving, but how about rail cars broken down? When one car broke down on highway, the car behind can easily pass to the other lane, cars can't easily bypass on track.
The answer is: If there is a broken car on track, 1, Before removing of the broken car, the cars behind will receive notice and system can arrange cars shunt to another track; 2, Every car has the function of pushing cars and be pushed, for example, there is a long piece of flat and stretchy rubber surface on the front and rear of car, when the car in front broken down, the car behind can close to the front car slowly under the computer system’s control and push the car to run. Usually there will be a temporary parking space every 5 kilometers or shorter distance, the car behind just push the broken one to the temporary parking space.

•The construction of railway small car parking lot
After adopting this business model of railway network automatic passenger car, the railway system no long need large-size railway station, building many small parking lots is more suitable. The parking lot which is used to park light and small cars (the size of 2*5 meters, weight is less than 1.5 ton) can be built above the railroad, thus it doesn't need to buy land. Every town which is a little bit important can build a parking lot, do not need to buy land, the cost is low. We just build a floor to park light vehicle. Parking lot should have security, fast food restaurant, toilet, and etc. It can also provide simple hotel service and a few small supermarkets. Anyway cost-recovering is not a problem.
5,The profit of changing railway into high-speed Internet intelligent railway
First of all, we look at how much the transport capacity will improve by this change：Now the United States has more than 200000 kilometers railway, most of the railway are two-lane, we calculate according to a total length of 300000 km tail tracks, Even if 1 million rail cars run on the railway at the same time, the average distance between cars is 300 meters, there is no problem that all cars are at speed of 200km/h controlled by computer in so capacious car distance .
According to that every car drives 12 hours a day at the speed of 200 km/h (this means there are a half cars waiting for passengers in parking lot every hour on average), Every car has six passengers, it means the passenger volume of every car in a whole day is 14400 passenger-kilometer, 500000 cars one day is 7.2 billion passenger-kilometer, passenger capacity of one year is 2.628 trillion passenger-kilometer. If only 0.05 US$ per passenger-km(Aviation is 0.08), yearly revenue is 131.4 billion US$.
There are 250000 railway freight cars delivering rail cars, according to that 125000 railway freight cars drive at the same time, the transport capacity of delivering cars is 600 million car-km every day and 219 billion car-km every year. Because the speed of 200 km/h is faster than the speed of 100 km/h on existing highway, and automotive driving is labor saving and safer than manual driving, I estimate once the small cars are put into operation, railway companies will gain significant market which belongs to highway now. If only 0.2 US$ per car-km, yearly revenue is 43.8 billion US$.
Operation mode of this small car is “depart at any time” and “point to point directly”, this is a significantly improvement on present intercity traffic. People travelling between cities needs to make a reservation whether by train or by plane now, there is still no mass public transportation which can depart immediately once the travel decision is maked. Passenger capacity of this rail car is small, by the help of current mobile networking technology, it’s easy to arrange passenger to achieve “depart at any time”. For example, a passenger wants to go to Washington D.C. from New York, he just needs to go to the nearest railway station directly and contact railway passenger transportation center by mobile phone app, then passenger transportation center will arrange a 4-person luxury soft berths car or 12-person soft seat car according to your requirements, you just wait for about 2 minutes until the car is full, then the car will depart. Some people may ask what we should do if the car can’t be full in 2 minutes. For example, if the time is midnight and there are not many other passengers. In this operation mode, if the passengers really are in emergency situation, passengers can charter a car at least. Or passengers can take car which passes through Washington D.C. by the arrangement of railway passenger transportation center, and let the car stop in Washington D.C. when passing by.
Aircraft is fast, but it needs to book flight ticket and wait for scheduled flight. After railway changes the operation into the mode of “depart at any time”, railway will win significant market which is taken over by aircraft now. When passengers can depart immediately once the decision has been made, one can arrange trip flexibly then now. For example, if there is a trip about 1800 km, you can take on car at 10 o'clock pm and arrive in the morning, it’s comfortable and convenient.
Due to a dramatic increase in transport capacity, the railway company can attract more tourists by low price, so that passengers’ travel will be convenient, flexible and cheap, it’s beneficial to both the railway company and the vast majority of passengers.

6, How to implement this reform? Implement this Internet reform of railway by existing railway companies themselves may not be the best approach, the best way is by Google, Facebook, Uber or other Internet Co, and GM, Tesla or other automotive manufacturing companies, and I (Patent inventor) to cofound an i-railroad construction company, to carry out the i-railroad construction projects, and to produce the corresponding i-railroad cars, for each railway company of the world.

Author: Master Dao Hai (Mr. Lee Qing Hong):
Buddhism Master (Auther of “Buddhism Bible”)
Computer / Management Expert
Email: [email protected]
Blog: http://daohai.blog.com/
i-railroad-car.JPG
Graph 1
i-railroad-car-2.JPG
Graph 2

[daohai]

English is not my mother language, if there is some sentence you can't understand, welcome to ask me.

And I welcome advice or question about this new innovation from you railway fan.

[daohai]

I found a mistake:
This paragraph:"
There are 250000 railway freight cars delivering rail cars, according to that 125000 railway freight cars drive at the same time, the transport capacity of delivering cars is 600 million car-km every day and 219 billion car-km every year. Because the speed of 200 km/h is faster than the speed of 100 km/h on existing highway, and automotive driving is labor saving and safer than manual driving, I estimate once the small cars are put into operation, railway companies will gain significant market which belongs to highway now. If only 0.2 US$ per car-km, yearly revenue is 43.8 billion US$."

Should be change to:
There are 250000 railway freight cars delivering road cars, according to that 125000 railway freight cars drive at the same time, the transport capacity of delivering cars is 600 million car-km every day and 219 billion car-km every year. Because the speed of 200 km/h is faster than the speed of 100 km/h on existing highway, and automotive driving is labor saving and safer than manual driving, I estimate once the small cars are put into operation, railway companies will gain significant market which belongs to highway now. If only 0.25 US$ per car-km, yearly revenue is 54.75 billion US$.