Bike sharing programs have started popping up in cities all over the world, and now similar car sharing plans are making commuting easier for urban travelers. Given their relative size and complexity, however, loaner cars are understandably more difficult to manage than bikes. Toyota is hoping to overcome that hurdle with a car sharing program that will employ electric cars to simplify that “last mile” journey from the public transit station to work or school.

The scheme, called Ha:Mo (harmonious mobility), offers up two types of cars that can be rented in 15 minute increments. The i-Road is a funky three-wheeled car that seats just one, and the COMS features four wheels and seating for two. You can reserve a car and have it waiting for you when you get to your station. Rental rates for the cars vary from around €3 ($3.89 US) for 15 minutes to €5 ($6.50 US) for 30 minutes. The plan is being tried out in Grenoble, France, where 27 charging stations will be set up around the city. When a user is done with a loaner car, they just drive to a charging station and plug it in to end their trip.

Ha:Mo is an experiment in convincing commuters to use eco-friendly public transportation for most of their commute and electric cars for the last leg of the journey, negating the need to drive their own (probably gas-powered) vehicles the entire way. The Toyotas are tiny and nimble, making them ideal for Grenoble’s notoriously narrow streets. Hopefully that will be even more motivation for people to use them rather than their own cars to navigate the city.

The post Toyota’s Tiny EVs Bring ‘Last Mile’ Green Transpo to France first appeared on Gajitz.

If you’re tired of passing cyclists in your car or don’t like seeing precious road space taken up by bike lanes, then you might get on board this idea. You’re ideals might be a bit counterproductive, as the health and environmental benefits outweigh the problems, but a recent “cycling utopia” concept by a British architect may change your mind.

Norman Foster of architecture firm Foster + Partners, along with landscape architects Exterior Architecture and transport consultant Space Syntax, recently presented an idea that would build a 3,300-mile network of expressways that would hover above London’s railways. They call it SkyCycle, a progressive idea that comes on the heels of 14 cyclist deaths in the city’s streets in 2013.

SkyCycle boasts some impressive projected stats. It would include 200 entry points around the city, serving 12,000 cyclists per hour and cutting travel time by up to 30 minutes. But the human factor is what drives the idea. “I believe that cities where you can walk or cycle, rather than drive, are more congenial places in which to live,” said Foster. “To improve the quality of life for all in London and to encourage a new generation of cyclists, we have to make it safe.” The routes hope to be in place in as little as 20 years. Cycling utopia, indeed.

The post Riding High: New Idea Would Build Elevated Cyclist Roads first appeared on Gajitz.

With traffic on both the ground and in the air becoming more congested, alternate forms of transportation are vital. The Horizon System is a completely electrical plane/train hybrid that will hopefully alleviate the crowding at major hubs worldwide.

The Horizon System would include pods that would carry passengers to the aircraft while both are in motion. The entire ship would float along mag-lev rails, meaning it never touches the ground. The aircraft is also entirely remote controlled, which would make it the largest drone plane on earth.

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If you’ve ever ridden on a city bus, you know what an…um, “interesting” assortment of people you’ll find there. And that’s just on a regular city bus – imagine how many more extreme personalities could fit on the Superliner Youngman JNP6250G, the world’s largest public transport bus. At 82 feet long (39 feet longer than standard buses), the monstrosity can fit 300 passengers.

With two accordion ribbed sections, the bus can turn on the same radius as a regular, non-gigantic bus. It was designed to make up the entire Bus Rapid Transit service in both Beijing and Hangzhou, cities with large and ever-growing populations that demand sensible public transportation solutions. And since the mega-buses will have their very own highway lanes, urban travelers will have another reason to leave their cars at home and let mass transit take them wherever they need to go.

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When summoning a taxi in a busy urban center, waiting for a driver who is available, paying attention and willing to pick you up can get frustrating…not to mention the annoying “upstreamers” just waiting to snag that ride before you. This curbside taxi communication system was created by a group of design students at the Xi’an University of Design and Technology and recently won the Red Dot Award for a public space concept. It uses a system of lights, tactile curbside buttons and driver interaction to make hailing a taxi quick and easy.

When a customer needs a cab, they just step onto the pressure-sensitive plate on the curb. The damage-resistant transparent top layer fits over a polypropylene lower layer that is equipped with a color-changing light. When the station is idle, the light is blue (it turns off during daylight hours to save energy). After a passenger stands on the plate for ten seconds, his location information is sent to the nearest taxi. When a driver accepts the fare and begins to travel over to the passenger, the light changes to green. The system seems like an altogether civilized way to summon a taxi, but it would have to be limited to those cities without mischief-loving citizens who would activate the plates just for fun.

The post Conceptual Taxi System Puts Civility Back in Urban Transport first appeared on Gajitz.