I agree about the climate control issue. No power means no AC, though they have holes in the fairing that can open to provide a breeze at the cost of some drag. Heat could be provided both from the rider if you insulate it, or from a propane heater attached to the unit. There are some low-tech AC approaches. For example there could be tank in the unit with a lid that opens up. In the station, position the tank under an ice dispenser and fill it with ice. (Drain the leftover water first of course.) Allow a flow of air (while moving) through the ice. Needs a more insulated pod. Or pump cold water through the seat and seatback (tap a bit of pedal action to run the pump.)

The name is funny, they took it from the German word to float but they may regret it.

One design for this I speculated would be a bit roller-coaster like. Deliberately route the pods up a hill with escalator or tow, and then release them to a long gentle grade. With the fairing and steel wheels, you could coast (or pedal very gently) for a long time on a very gentle grade. However, having to do this regularly would be jarring and people would not want to put the track up really high so you can't climb a long hill this way, but you could go upriver.

In a true mountain city (like you might see on the mountainous coast) I could imagine a system where track zig-zags down the mountain in long switchbacks, but there is an escalator going up along one or both sides, and a special down-track with brakes somewhere as well. To get anywhere you either go downhill all the way, or go downhill to the switchback turn, get on the escalator, go up above your destination and take one segment downhill to it. (I have thought such a system would be good in general for bicycles or unpowered cars on towns that have streets like this.)

However, there is no doubt that a system like Shweeb is not for every city. It will be best for fairly flat cities in moderate climates. But there are enough of those.

I explain that in the very next sentence.

The bulk of us need exercise, and so if we can get our transportation from our exercise, then that's a green way to get our transportation. For the few of us who don't need more exercise, it does turn out that humans are less efficient than electric motors and both pure joules spent, and on fossil fuels burned with our typical agriculture.

When Lance Armstrong cycles for transport it's not very green. When I do it, it is. For Armstrong, the Shweeb workout would not diminish the amount of training he has to do as a cyclist (well, I guess he has retired now) because it is not enough of a workout.

While I don't think Shweeb is a universal replacement transit system -- well nothing is, but this perhaps even less so -- I do notice people are comparing it either to a PRT or a bike and finding it wanting. I think it's a new animal.

I am not sure why it doesn't work over 35. I ride a recumbent, I think they are much more comfortable than regular bikes. I see lots of over 35 bike commuters. Yes, you can see their butts, though the regular exercise keeps more of them in better condition. What of it?

All transit lines constrain where you go and don't let you stop and buy a sandwich (without getting off the line) and need you to build the infrastructure, and the rail ones are shut down by breakdowns. These are issues for all these systems but no more so for this than other transit.

They plan for this one to ride a little lower. I would hope they will put a small rope ladder in each unit but right now they just claim they have had no breakdowns at all. That won't last and will be an issue, as is the case with all elevated rail and monorail and gondola. This is only if a car seizes up, because otherwise any stopped car which can still roll is pushed by the next pod to come up behind it. They have not revealed how their switch will work, but I am expecting the computer will be able to control it so that it's easy to push the pod to the next station.

It is their belief that everybody will just go the same speed, because forming a train is such a win for everybody. If somebody ahead of you is going slow, they say you will just form a train with them and both of you will go faster together with the same effort than the faster person was going before, within limits. Trains are a big win, as drag is the largest energy use of cycling, especially on steel wheels.

If I were designing it, I would have the computer measure the effort of each rider. Those who don't do the minimum effort (unless disabled) when there are riders behind, or in a train, would get charged extra, and the computer would beep at them. This is not to say that if Lance Armstrong comes up behind you that you have to go to his level, but that you can't go below the minimum for long, which would be a walking level of energy (which they claim solo will produce 20 km/h and will keep a train going at the max speed.) In trains, it probably would be the case that some people could take turns just resting.

I doubt the systems will get really long at first, long enough to demand rest stops. If they do, they will have to consider putting in sidings where people can rest or slow down. You can also pause at any stop, but typically only by changing cars, at least in a simple station design. In a more complex station design you could have pause-and-rest stations.

As for the question of sweat, I agree that is unanswered. They say that pods will be sanitized between uses but don't say how. They may plan initially to have a worker at each station. They claim it really is very easy exercise and will not make people sweaty, at least at their constrained max speed of 25 kph. (On their test track at higher speeds people do get a workout.) That's a claim they need to prove. Of course, in gyms, they have the same issue with workout machines, and have rules you must clean the equipment you use, and they have staff for extra needed cleaning and end-of-day. I don't know how readily Shweeb affords staff at every station, though it can have staff who clean all the pods at night, for example. But this remains to be seen.

When you look at this as a bicycle transit system, you can either not like it because it has some of the disadvantages of transit systems combined with some of the disadvantages of bikes. Or you can like it because it has some of the advantages of transit systems (particularly PRT) combined with some of the advantages of bikes.

The one big new thing is the advantage of trains on steel wheels. Serious cyclists all know the huge advantage of drafting, but it's exacting riding, less safe and you must swap out the leader frequently. Not every cyclist knows the advantage of faired recumbents but it is also large.

I don't think Shweeb is really about energy. It's about simplicity. The human power is nice and looks and feels good (as least to a certain demographic) but mainly what it does is make it cheap, and make some of the negatives of it acceptable. You don't mind that it does not go very fast. You don't worry about control and collisions because a human is operating the vehicle and they are allowed to hit one another at low speeds. Obviously I think robocars are the long term solution. My interest in Shweeb is it can happen now (moreso than motorized PRT) and we'll learn interesting things from it.

The use of guideways is an interesting trade-off. Normally I am skeptical about them -- they are expensive, and it's hard to convince people to let them run in front of their 2nd story windows or even down their streets blocking the sun. Nobody wants to live right next to the elevated train, it's the classic low-rent scene in the movies. On the other hand guideways are cheap, and immune from traffic and many obstacles and don't have stop signs, which turns out to be a huge win for cycling. I love bike trails but the reality is that bike trails still run into obstacles, and have pedestrians on them.

25 kp/h is not fast, I agree, though many bike commuters do less, and as noted they stop frequently for all the things on the road that stop you.

I believe they have chosen this speed because they need to allow collisions and make them safe -- it's how you form a train -- and because everybody is on the same line and must go a similar speed. If you want to do 35 kp/h (which the track can physically do just fine) you are going to be coming up behind people. You might be able to push the first or second one but eventually you will slow. Though if everybody works, it seems a train with one strong cyclist and some average one could maintain the better speed. But some will have the goal of not working up a sweat, and so will resist any push to harder work.

Down the road one could imagine the money for two tracks, or perhaps 3 tracks, one of which reverses direction mid-day, allowing a fast track and a slow track. But the system would have to get a lot more mature before that would happen. You can't have both tracks go inwards during the morning because pods have to come back and there are people who commute the other way.

Anyway, 25 kp/h is way ahead of all surface street public transit (buses and street cars.) So people will be OK with that I think.

What Shweeb claims but has yet to prove is that when this happens the two form a train, and the train goes faster for the same effort as the slow rider was putting in, because trains are more efficient.

They even claim that the rear rider can go almost as fast with the effort that was being put in solo, though that would not apply uphill.

I think they might want to have a small computer measuring the torque being put on the chain by each rider, and penalize riders who don't pull their weight in trains to at least the level they were doing before if needed, or who go way too slow too often. Penalize could mean cost or it could mean they have to leave trains briefly at sidings/stations, or it could mean they are eventually not welcome any more.

Yes, some people think this combines the problems of cycling with the problems of PRT, but I think it goes the other way and combines many of the advantages of cycling with the advantages of PRT.

Now it truth it is a mixture, it has some of the advantages and disadvantages of each. If you are not the sort of person who would cycle commute in the first place, you will probably see all the bicycle aspects as downsides. If you are not the sort of person who would transit commute you might see those aspects as downsides.