Although the construction of a totally new infrastructure for transportation is financially unrealistic considering the power structure now devoted to the current system the concept of substituting balls for wheels might have some utility if the ball direction control could be mastered. A car that could move sidewise into a parking space would certainly be useful. A 180 degree turn capability incorporated into normal wheels would also do the job and probably be more technically feasible.

There will be no cars in this system, the motorised tracker balls will be embedded in the 'road' and will be used to push objects on top of them, which you sit on, along. Its not difficult to control these units, you just need two electric motors, one to rotate the ball in the backwards/ forwards direction and one to rotate it in the left/right direction. If you want to turn around it can handle this also with a bit of software control and you could add and extra 'rotate' function onto the control box to signal the MRTBs below to turn whatever you were surfing on around. You could build a small road system like this say between a new housing development and the store to see how well it worked and to get people used to the idea. I have some diagrams and text which describes this more fully, if you want a copy I will email to you.

To get into it a bit more, the problems of control of a "vehicle" moved by a dynamic surface are extensive. An automobile must not only be moved but it must also relate to the road for very positive braking. The pile-ups of objects moved but not effectively stopped could easily become catastrophic. Air cushion vehicles have much the same problems but require no outrageously expensive infrastructure.Individual motors for each ball would require not only a huge original financial outlay but maintenance for each motor that would surely remain extremely high. And how would each vehicle manage getting into personal driveways? Or do you envision any convenient flat surface as a vehicle, come any kind of inclement weather? How would pedestrians get across the roadways? How would cleaning and removal of litter be managed? It seems to me it would become exceedingly messy and unwieldy.

I would hazard to guess that snowplows aren't going to be part of the picture any longer because the balls could be programmed to spin the snow off the transport system. . . Or would the heat generated simply melt it??

No matter how close the tolerances are on such a system just dealing with the weather would likely render it unusable in short order.

"Always with the negative waves Moriarity... you gotta think that road will be there and it'll be there, its a mother beautiful road".

This is a 'Blue Sky' idea and people will find it strange and consider it unworkable initially because they have been used to using cars for so long but you have raised some good points about its practicality.

The braking problem could be solved by coating the MRTBs with a material which has a high coefficient of friction,similarly the flat surface being used to surf the road could also have this material on the underside, when you wanted to stop you issue a stop command from the control box and it instructs the MRTBs to stop rotating. You could also have 'brake pads' which were pedal operated and hydraulically power assisted which contacted the surface of the MRTBs with increasing pressure the harder you stepped on it. I dont think this will be a huge problem to design it so that its stops in a reasonable distance.

>>Individual motors for each ball would require not only a huge original >>financial outlay but maintenance for each motor that would surely >>remain extremely high.

At the moment this is true but they are starting to develop new manufacturing systems like 3-D printers and Nano tech so in future the cost may not be so high. The cost of building railroads and freeways is huge but it does'nt stop countrys from investing in this type of infrastructure, and dont forget that all the money saved on cars,buses, taxis, trucks gasoline, insurance etc can be used towards the cost.

>>And how would each vehicle manage getting into >>personal driveways?

you build the individual MRTB units into pre-fabricated lengths or sections and drop them onto an existing road, bolt them down and connect them to the power supply, do the same thing for your driveway,not an insurmountable problem.

>>Or do you envision >>any convenient flat surface as a vehicle, come any kind of inclement >>weather?

I figured that people could build their own vehicle as long as it has the friction material on the underside and the braking system, they would be free to build it how they wanted it,even design it like the ones they have at the burning man festival if they liked, if they want weather protection they can build for that.Again not a problem

>>How would pedestrians get across the roadways?

how do they get across now? by pedestrian crossing, you build these into the design.

>>How would cleaning and removal of litter be managed?

They already have street cleaning operations for the current road system but I agree you would need to have a larger operation for this type of system, perhaps it could be done by automated vehicles.

>>It seems to me it would become exceedingly messy and unwieldy.

and the system we use now is'nt?

>>No matter how close the tolerances are on such a system just dealing with the weather would likely render it unusable >>in short order

Yeah I wondered about weather too, rain would likely destroy it but you could also design for this

Think small at first. Would this be useful in hospitals? Factories? Campuses like the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories? It would have the best chances if it were used indoors, if it had a responsible user base (no teenagers!), and if there was very high value to transportation under the circumstances.

I guess you could use it indoors as a multi directional conveyor system to move goods and boxes around inside a warehouse or similar it does get round the problem of the traditional conveyor belt where things can only move in one direction because thats the way the belt is going.

What if the system was compromised and a malicious user caused colisions? The lack of directional controls by the users would be dangerous!

Most systems are vulnerable to being hacked and compromised but we still use them, it's a case of trying to keep the security and encrypytion one step ahead of the people who will want to subvert things.They are interfacing mobile phones to the comms networks in cars now which have the engine Power Control Module, the Anti Lock Braking module among around forty to fifty other networked devices on higher spec cars so you should expect to see these being hacked and causing accidents when they roll this technology out but people will still use their cars.

Oops, one of the balls is out of order. We're all screwed.