gine cars, electric cars can never solve the problem of road congestion and traffic. Roads and cars simply take up too much space. This report shows that SkyTran can solve this seemingly difficult problem while doing what the free market is meant to do best: making people money.
The hypothetical grid system that could be built in San Francisco has unprecedented predictions. The first predictions are "bare bones" predictions, which don't take any complicated statistics or effects into account. They simply look at 1. building cost, 2. running cost, and 3. revenue. The most notable thing about the predictions is that SkyTran would actually make money. This seems trivial, but no other large-scale transportation system has ever accomplished this without heavy government subsidies. The second most notable thing about the predictions is that the system would pay off in less than 6 and a half years if charging the suggested 10 cents per mile. After this, it would make almost $32 million per year. Of course, charging prices around the price of riding BART or taxis would allow the system to pay off much faster - as much as 20 times faster (at taxi rates, the system would pay off in 2 months, assuming that the obscene price doesn't affect ridership...).
If you're not that interested in its benefits for the city as a whole, you might like to know how SkyTran could benefit you personally. Any average SkyTran user would save almost $500 per year - almost $15,000 after 30 years. However, an ex-driver would save more than $5500 per year, which is upwards of $160,000 after 30 years. Not to mention that these SkyTran users would save almost 250 hours or 10 days of their life per year - this is equivalent to more than 6 working weeks. On average, people waste 5% of their lives driving on the road - 18 full days per year. Imagine having an extra five waking-hours every week.
Right now, San Francisco uses more than $340 million per year on mass transit. SkyTran's running costs would be less than 15% of that figure - around $50 million. While this is a very small fraction of the current spending on mass transit, in addition SkyTran would be faster, more accessible, and would have more possible destinations than the current mass transit system in San Francisco. After considering the money saved on mass transit and other savings, SkyTran would provide more than $350 million of benefit per year and pay off in less than 7 months. In addition to this, San Francisco would have less use for large roads, and could sell a large amount of road space for other uses. Inner city land is a premium, and if half of it were sold (leaving plenty of road-space for cars and transport), almost $10 billion of land could be unlocked and sold for city profit.
That was all public benefit - and similar effects would happen to the private sector. Ex-car users would save large amounts of money per year, and private parking lot owners could sell more than $6 billion of parking lot space. After 30 years of this system, at the same ridership, the city as a whole (public and private) would have incurred $28 billion of benefit - a staggering 13,700% return to investment. Keep in mind that a system like this maintaining a constant ridership is highly unlikely - it is much more realistic that more and more people would use the system as time went on - increasing profit and total benefit and making this incredible return to investment an underestimate.
The system provides more than just monetary benefit. It also would save more than 21 million man-hours per year - enough to build 3 Empire State buildings. The Golden Gate bridge was built by 25 million man-hours, and the Empire State building was built by 7 million man-hours.
One might disbelieve the estimated $1 million per mile, and that's fine. If SkyTran instead cost 10 times as much ($10 million per mile) the benefit drops from $28 billion to $27 billion after 30 years. The reason for this is that SkyTran's benefit lies in its operating costs - not its upfront cost. SkyTran can save the money we spend on gasoline, roads, re