New transportation paradigm S.A.T. Project- an innovative 3D-transportation system

After giving a recent plenary session at Sharjah Urban Planning Symposium, co-organised by the Sharjah Directorate of Town Planning and Survey and the London South Bank University, Serrano Pecorari & Asociados is excited by prospect of new technology being developed in the Middle East. The Company has developed S.A.T. Project, a groundbreaking concept in the field of transportation. S.A.T. - which stands for Autonomous Transport System- is an innovative public-private 3D-transportation system that would create a radical shift, regenerating urban sceneries and breaking-up with the static-use of modern cities. The System has the special feature of working under different directions of movement; horizontal, vertical and on a gradient. S.A.T. Project opens an innovative conception of future cities based on holistic solutions and using present technologies.

Globalisation patterns are echoing in the Middle East Region experiencing rapid growth and channelled under unstable urban models. For instance, the urban population in Sharjah has increased 12% in only 3 years where in other cities in the region it is expected to triple by 2050. High standards in urban and air pollution, traffic congestions, road death and injury rates and urban sprawl along with an unsustainable ecological footprint, highlights a deficient transportation structure and infrastructure. This has mayor impacts on the urban configuration and restricts the future development of the cities in the region.

The time spent on the transmission of information, development, production, commuting and interaction between people and their habitat; define the urban dynamic and the degrees of success of cities and its organization. Serrano Pecorari & Asociados express in their Tetra-dimension Theory that ¡§contemporary cities work derived from a conceptual construction in 2D¡¨, and this explains trends in urban saturation and congestion patterns in megacities worldwide, as urban areas relay on the administration of a limited 2D-surface (ground zero plan). All known means of transportation work in 2D attaching urban landscapes to a bi-dimensional structure. This deficient conceptual organization makes cities behave as ¡¥static-entities¡¦ being unable to become the ¡¥continent¡¦ that will manage the dynamic activities that in them are conceived. Urban scenarios must be reshaped to meet present and future demands. This became the basis to develop S. A. T. System, a catalytic tool that will draw a paradigmatic shift in public transportation and a re-conception of future cities.

S.A.T. System is conformed by unitary electric-vehicles that move along two tracks, in the form of suspended tubes, requiring minimum supports and made of materials that will absorb vibrations and provide a cohesion-effect in every track section. The system is able to work describing a 3D-displacement. It is powered by an electric engine, which is also use to reduce speed and to regenerate energy. It is managed by a Central Control Unit.

S.A.T. would be the first mean of transportation working under a systemic structure in relation to the City and would transform existing means of transport by promoting the interaction. S.A.T. System works based on the interaction achieved between different types of stops and terminals and its structure is defined by ¡¥open-circuits¡¦. This means that it could change, expand or alter their original direction and destination, depending on passenger demand created upon changes in the City¡¦s rhythm (i.e. rush-hours, urban hazards, etc.). defining the system as a continuous and integrated matrix. S.A.T. System would shape the three-dimensional functional extrusion of ground-zero, increasing and up-grading present bi-dimensional urban cores. This would allow connecting different spaces that are to be found under different heights, levels and directions; an interactive 3D-commuting matrix that would build a networking-city. The ƒnSystem promotes the re-organization of the spatial-city working under an organic-structure. It could be compared to the circulatory system in the human body.

The implementation of S.A.T. Project will:

• Decrease standards in urban pollution and contamination.
• Transform the working patterns of all known means of transportation.
• Generate a paradigm shift in urban development and a radical change in the architectural typology, breaking-up with the 'vertical-dependency' found as present urban structure.
• Increase the city¡¦s rhythm in terms of productivity.
• Recover the human scale in present urban continents.
• Regenerate residual-urban spaces.
• Produce a decongestion in obstructed neuralgic areas
• Promote the optimisation of ¡¥time¡¦, by decreasing by 50% the travel-commuting periods,
• Generate the increase of green spaces in cities,
• Decrease the rate of urban accidents,
• Gain control over urban sprawl, not only avoiding the creation of wounds in the urban-grid, but also the healing of existing ones.
• Promote an efficient use of resources (natural-human resources) and a direct influence on decreasing, as well as under an economical insight).
• Produce the re-organization of the concept of present 2D-urban structure.

Since October 2002, it has been developed a Joint International Cooperation Research Project in partnership with Delft University of Technology, on S. A. T. Project. The Program is based in the gathering of data and information that will allow addressing the performance of the System and its functional parameters. The Research was undertaken at the Transportation Logistics Organization from the Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management, based on modelling and simulation studies.