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vehicles have the means to re-charge.
52
Only for longer journeys would these BEVs be recharged on the
ELECAT.
The cars being ferried by the ELECAT would also allow BEVs to use a long distance version of COAST. Here
a car driver would be informed of potential passengers travelling to a similar remote destination or along their
route. For example, the passengers could be picked up in several places in one town using a BEV which then
embarks on an ELECAT for most of the journey. The BEV then disembarks of the ELECAT and drops the
passengers off at their specific locations a remote town. This system could be improved further if ELECATs
could be used to gain fast access to central metropolitan centres using the INITIATE concept that is described
later. The logistical procedure is similar to that illustrated in figure 30, however the urban part of the journey is
driven in a BEV in COAST mode.
5.4.9
Rail ELECAT: a longer term view
The infrastructure for the road version of the ELECAT could be easily integrated into the present road transport
system without much disruption to traffic. However, a much better, more ambitious long-term solution would be
to replace of the present highway infrastructure with a rail-based version of the transporter. This could be
achieved by building the track on the innermost lanes of present highways whilst retaining the outside lanes as a
conventional roadway (see figure 23)
Figure 23 ELECAT Rail Transfer Station on a 4 Lane Highway
The rail ELECAT transfer station is depicted as an elevated platform over a conventional highway junction. In
this example the ELECAT line occupies the 4th (inside) lane of the highway. A dedicated INITIATE guideway
(described in the next section) is also shown in this illustration occupying the 3rd lane
52 More convenient inductive chargers could be embedded in the ground or parking bays to avoid the use of cables in some circumstances
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