24 August 2002: A Vehicle Mass Transit System concept developed by Professor Andrew A Frank at the University of California at Davis would utilize large trucks that operate on dedicated freeway lanes and carry several small vehicles from one station to another at speeds of around 60mph.

Don't laugh. The simplicity of the concept makes it a real road runner. And it is a new version of 'park and ride'.

The main idea is to provide a means for substantially increasing the utilization of the existing freeway system while providing for high speed, stressless travel by persons riding in the comfort and privacy of their own vehicle.

The cost of implementing such a system would be quite modest when compared to proposals for rail transit systems because the VMTS would be able to more fully utilize the existing freeway system. Moreover, the vehicles that would be used would be privately owned and maintained and the system itself could be owned and operated by a private company.

The trailer would provide several compartments for vehicles, most of which would probably be small electric vehicles slightly less than 10' feet in length.

Professor Frank estimates that a carrier vehicle could be unloaded and reloaded at a station in 10-20 seconds. He suggests that the stations should be located about 10 miles apart. The theoretical maximum capacity is estimated to be 14,400 carried vehicles per hour.

There would be some on-board amenities, such as TV/Internet monitors, and phone/fax connections, in each 'stall', to help attract the traffic.

And a similar system for bicycles could be used for even more efficient and 'green' long distance/commuting transportation.