On January 23 through 25, come see, sit in, and provide your input on what may be the future of transportation here in Potsdam! Individual pods travelling on a monorail can take you directly to your destination, protected from the weather – no need to find a parking spot.
SWIFT Rails founder and CEO, and Clarkson alumni Kevin Neumaier ‘86 and his colleagues will talk about a sustainable transit solution that is fast, practical, inexpensive, and the surprising way he got there.
The pod will be on display Thursday until Friday afternoon in the ERC, it will then move to the CAMP atrium. Friday afternoon, Neumaier will give a joint Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Institute of a Sustainable Environment seminar called “Transitioning to Sustainable Transportation Future: From a UN Speech, to a New type of Transit” in CAMP 178. After the seminar, the pod will move to Cheel for the weekend hockey games.
SWIFT Rails is a new type of transportation that has been designed from the ground up as a better way to travel. It shares many similarities to transit and some to an autonomous car. Call the vehicle via an app and it will be ready to go when you are. It will ride over congestion below, and there are no stop signs or red lights to slow you down. Typically, it will be 4 to 6 times faster than conventional transit. You can ride by yourself or with friends and family in 2-4 rider vehicles. The space is comfortable and has state-of-the-art equipment like an interactive map, games, and music. They run on electric batteries and have no emissions so they are ultra-energy efficient. The vehicles are also safe; with one-way tracks, elevated to go above traditional transit, and they are locked on the track with 12 wheels so it won’t come off and hit something.
Kevin is a professional engineer and has a degree from Clarkson in civil and environmental engineering. Kevin worked for much of his career on solving environmental and energy issues at global engineering and environmental consultancy, Ecology & Environment, Inc. Prior to becoming its CEO, he had many roles including SVP of Sustainability and CIO. Among other things, he led the firm’s work consulting on tens of thousands of MW of renewable energy and developed an early ridesharing system called GreenRide, several years prior to the formation of Uber. As an innovator, Kevin has numerous awards including CxO of the Year from InfoTech Niagara, the Gold Medal award from Climate Change Journal, Project of the Year from NY-ITS, Top 50 Hottest Small-cap companies and “Green Pioneer” designation from Fortune magazine.
Plans are to build a showcase project at Clarkson and then potentially connect the larger Potsdam community. For more information on the project, or to watch a video about the vehicles, click here: https://www.swiftrails.com/
Click here for a shareable link: https://www.clarkson.edu/news/clarkson-alum-bring-future-transportation-campus-during-cogo-weekend