With gas prices expected to near four dollars a gallon by the early summer, many Americans will be turning to mass transportation to get around town without emptying their wallets. In major cities with high population densities, commuters have a whole range of options, but in the suburbs - a built environment designed around private automobile usage - the pickings may be slimmer, even non-existent.  Perhaps the combi, a little-known transportation system from the developing world, could change the way suburbanites travel through their space.

While the combi itself is nothing to write home about - just a large ten passenger van with a driver and a cobrador, or conductor - the way combis are organized make them perfect for navigating the sprawling world of the suburbs. Though they follow set routes like traditional buses, combis lack specific stops, picking up and dropping off passengers at any point along their route. Because of their smaller size, a combi could go where larger buses would not be welcome, such as in housing developments and big-box parking lots. This increased flexibility could allow a combi line to be more responsive to where riders actually travel than the bureaucracy-minded municipal systems.

In a country where car ownership has long been equated with economic success, many people will have to overcome their transportation bias and get on board the bus to the future.

Terra Yachting has begun it’s search for a previously owned “entertainer” or “crew/band” bus to be the first in a series of land yachts employed in eco-friendly travel packages. Our first luxury conversion bus will be christened the “Enterprise” and it’s tentative tours for 2008 will be for musicians to ‘jam’ at a series of weekend music festivals. Musician tour participants will be expected to play acoustical instruments and sing in improvisational music sets and conduct workshops demonstrating jamming techniques in exchange for lodging (this will be ‘bunk’ style sleeping arrangements), camping fees, and festival admissions fees. These ‘jams’ will be video recorded for a documentary series to be sold on the Callahans Junction web site.

There will be four “Pole and Canvas” mobile shops (i.e. essentially like ‘craft’ shops you find at most festivals) at each corner of the “Enterprise” when the land yacht arrives at its appointed destination. In addition to the Callahans Junction “JammoRama” club where all the music takes place, there will also be a pole and canvas shop for Bus Works providing Internet access stations for daily fees and conducting eco-awareness public tours of the green energy enhancements and savings features of the “Enterprise” bus. The third mobile shop will be an outlet for EnviroPhotonics providing eco-friendly portable and installed fixture lamps like compact fluorescents lamps and LED lamps and novelty items. Finally, a mobile video production studio, Vodd Ville, where customers can act or perform in their own mini productions for a reasonable fee.

Recently, we the opportunity to travel to South America, and one of the highlights was a two day stay in Machu Picchu, Peru. The town of Agua Caliente, at the bottom of the mountain and the end of the rail line, understands the worldwise interest and desire to visit this spectacular site. To see Machu Picchu closeup, you either have to make an arduous climb on foot, or you can take the bus. We recommend the bus trip at the 7000 foot plus altitude, unless you are an afficionado of mountaineering and are in decent physical shape and have the time to burn.

R & D Enterprises is proud to announce our newest endeavor, EnviroPhotonics, a web-site dedicated to understanding and utilizing emerging technologies in the lighting industry. Worldwide, we consume 10-15 percent of our total energy production for lighting our enclosed environments and taking back the night during the daily darkness. Our world would not exist in its present form without the benefits of artificial lighting. Yet, we continue to employ, for example, incandescent lamps in great quantities for lighting. We could save a few percentage points in overall energy usage by requiring newer lighting technologies. Yes, in many instances, the cost of switching to these newer technologies is more expensive. In almost all cases the lifetime costs are lower for both lamp replacement and total energy usage.

We find it significant, for example, that buses, cars, and other road vehicles are begining to be equipped with light emitting diodes (LED’s) as the technology of choice for headlamps, and other indicator lighting. This is an example where the overall increased cost of the newer lighting technology package is easily added to the market cost of the vehicle without major impact to the consumer. The lifespans of these products in this application will almost never require replacement over the life of the vehicle. To find out more, visit EnviroPhotonics.

The prospect of a truly commercial, and likely profitable venture to obtain enough capital and sponsorships to design, build, and operate a hydrogen powered bus or motor coach seems likely to be realized soon. We’re not talking about those recent, somewhat successful wholly or partially government and/or research funded hydrogen bus projects. We’ll leave you to do the Internet searching on terms like “hydrogen powered bus” to see what we’re talking about. London, England and Iceland, and even Southern California in the good old USA, have had notable public transportation projects with hydrogen powered buses. But, are any of the hydrogen bus designers, manufacturers, lease/sales agents, and bus system operators really making good profits as companies? Perhaps, some of them are. We believe there’s an excellent opportunity for profits to be made in the high-end private custom motor coach conversion marketplace for hydrogen powered buses.

We don’t see a lot of evidence that hydrogen powered vehicles of any kind are really in the mainstream consumer marketplace. Sure, hybrid cars are available enough if you can deal with potential backlogs, and hybrid cars are even in the middle class affordability range. True hydrogen power for vehicles though, can barely be described as out of the lab. More will be needed to further mainstream hydrogen powered cars and, yes, buses too. We all know Mother Earth needs us to get our act together with hydrogen power. Her unhappy environmental messages to mankind seem to be getting louder each year. What we need are more profitable business endeavors to promote hydrogen powered vehicles. Here’s our take on the situation. Read the rest of this entry »