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After his morning planning session, Jan Eirik decided to go down town for a demo of what hopefully would save him for most of the reminding housekeeping tasks!

As he cleaned up after the breakfast, Jan Eirik spoke to the speech controlled screen again: “Kitchen screen, tell DPT I want to go to Amazing Stuff, and I am leaving in 15 min.” Amazing Stuff was the name of the Demonstration Arena he had chosen to go to. He was not obligated to inform the Dynamic Public Transport information system, but by telling it when and where he wanted to go, this could influence the size of the Entrance Train Set he would enter when he arrived the station not long from where he lived, and as credit for this information he got a 10% discount on the price he normally paid. The system knew the time he normally used from home to the station from earlier measurements of this. His smart phones position was traced by the system and made this possible. The system was also able to figure out which station he had to the leave the train on to reach Amazing Stuff, and he would be guided according to this during the trip.

Jan Eirik pulled on a jacket and picked up his Protected Space Helmet. On the way out he locked his door by holding his thumb to the fingerprint reader. The door lock send out a validation request which the smartphone could answer with a message to the door which said that it had validated Jan Eirik’s face the same morning and thus confirmed that the thumb really was part of the correct guy. The door then locked up and enabled the alarm system.

The DPT railroad system was built with one track in each direction, with the trains always driving to the right. The tracks were surrounded by a kind of tube made of a transparent sound damping polymer which made it possible to make the railroad on pillars up above the existing roads without generating too much noise for the neighbors of the railroad. The other purpose was to protect the tracks from snow, leaves or obstacles like falling trees; and prevent animals and people from entering the tracks.

Jan Eirik reach the DPT station just as the Entrance Train Set left the station in the direction he was going. The set consisted of 2 wagons, where the first contained the motor/generator. Entrance Train Set was actually a virtual name, since it is only the name of the part of the train which at any time is used to get the new passengers on board. And to become an entry set, it first had to work as a leaving set.

About 15 seconds after the Entrance Train Set disappeared out of sight the main train passed the station in its march speed of 120 km/h. 30 seconds after this the Leaving Train Set braked up at the station. The few passengers on board left the train through the doors and gate before the new passengers could enter the train. Through the gate, the trip end was automatically registered for the passengers leaving the train by registering their smartphones, and the trip start for the boarding passengers was registered the same way.

Trains going in direction out of the city often had more passengers leaving the train then entering it. In opposite direction the opposite situation. In this case leaving trains could be routed over to the opposite direction after the passengers had left it, and thus work as additional entrance trains in the opposite direction. This of course required that the original entrance train in that direction already was present so it could be joined with the redirected one before the passengers were allowed to enter it.

The light above the doors in the gate was showing a red light and a standing person. Jan Eirik waited until it turned into a walking blue person, he then walked against them. His smartphone responded the request from the gate, the doors let him through and his starting point of the trip was registered in the DPT system.

On the way through the gate Jan Eirik was scanned and sniffed for explosives, weapons, radioactivity and poison. In case of a detection of any of it, all doors would open both in the gate and the train, the DPTs in the stations direction would be stopped, the DPT information system would tell all passengers to leave the Entrance Train Set and station area, and an alarm to nearest police station would be sent together with all known data about the person(s) triggering the alarm.

Nothing was detected and the passengers entered the Entrance Train Set.

The train had doors on both sides of the wagon. Inside, the Entrance Train Set had a walking field in the middle divided in two by a black line in the floor, the left part seen in forward direction had arrows pointing forwards, and the right had arrows pointing backwards. Each field was wide enough to let two wheelchairs meet without any conflict. The wagons had no walls between them, making it possible to walk through the whole set. At the sides in the wagons, seats were mounted, except where the doors were. The seat arrangement consisted of three seats besides each other on each side, the inner seat a half seat depth more forward than the next, which in turn was mounted half a seat depth more forward than the outer seat. I.e. a line through the center of gravity of the seats would make a 45 degree angel to the wall. This made it possible to make the seats narrower, thus position the seats closer to each other, since this way the passengers on second and third place only needed space for their legs next to the one further against the wall of the wagon, instead of the whole body. The seats on each side very pointing in the same direction as the walking arrow, thus half of the passengers would sit heading in the speed direction, and the other half against.

Jan Eirik found himself a seat. The screens positioned in the ceiling showed 7 minutes 25 seconds before startup. They also announced that passengers who had stations on line 7, 9 or 10 should prepare for moving backwards as they connected with the main train, and that exactly this train set was supposed to stop next at Origo station on line 15. This information was also announced through the speakers. The screens and loudspeakers together were called the DPT Guidance System, or short, the Guidance System.

Since Jan Eirik did not have any need of privacy on the way downtown, he left his PSH in its bag. 3 minutes before startup a sound and voice message announced that the gates would close in 2 minutes, and 1 minute before startup the gate doors and the train doors closed. The space between the doors was scanned for living creatures or goods, which this time obviously gave no indication since a countdown started on the ceiling screens. If the result had been that something was stacked between the doors, a break command would have been send to the main train heading up from behind in its 120 km/h speed, and the main train had to stop on the station until the person or peace of goods was removed.

The last 15 seconds were counted down also by voice. As the countdown started, the view from the 3D cameras in front of the Entrance Train Set came up on the operators screen at the operation central. Until the sets were connected, the operator would see both these cameras and the ones of the main train on a split screen for being able to predict if something looked like irregular and required manual interruption. Each operator handled two trains at the same time on two different monitors and control sets.

At 0 the entrance train started accelerating and reached the same speed as the main train exactly as this caught up with the entrance train. The main train consisted of a collection of Entrance Train Sets. As the two trains unite the wagons were connected with a mechanical connection and a flexible ceiling was coming out from wagons to join. The doors in each wagon split at the middle, moved to each side and opened for trespassing. Some of the passengers who were either travelling a short trip and thus needed to get back in the train fast to get off again, or people who were shifting to line 7, riced up and started walking backwards in the train. Jan Eirik were supposed to shift to line 9, but awaited the instructions from the Guidance System. And it did not tell him to move yet.

As the train arrived new stations, the Guidance System showed where each of the new Entrance Trains Sets where supposed to stop again, which made it possible for the passengers to move over to their correct Leaving Train Set as soon as possible. After three stations the Guidance System announced that passengers for line 9 had to move backwards to at least the foremost train set meant for line 9. As he walked backwards, he met some people walking to his right forward in the train, obviously people who should continue their journey on line 15. As he walked through the train sets, the Guidance System showed each sets line and station destination. As he came to the first of the sets for line 9, he continued of experience of what would come up next, to the last of the line 9 sets. One station later the circle doors between the first line 9 set and the rest of the train locked up allowing the train to split up. The backmost part of the trained lowered the speed relatively as much as the first part riced its speed. This created the necessary distance between the trains to let the first part continued on line 15, and in between have time to shunt the second part over to line 9. 30 seconds later the sets redirected to line 9 connected to the corresponding main train on the line. The Guidance System in the wagon where Jan Eirik was located listed the new sets’ destination lines and stations. The list showed that the part of the train Jan Eirik belonged to had come in on the line in front of the main train. This was not obvious; dependent of how the lines interconnected, minor inaccuracies in schedule etc., the main train could have been in front of the subpart. This flexibility was one of the properties defining the “Dynamic” part of the transport system. One of the others was that the train sets was powerful enough to pull them self and one extra set which made the regularity higher. In case problems with the power line occurred, the wheel axels on the wagon with problems were mechanically disconnected from the transmission and was pulled and pushed by the other train sets. In case the fault was of an art that required the set to be taken out as soon as possible, short side-tracks with normally unmanned service stations were made with regular distance were the faulty train sets could be redirected and put on hold until a service team arrived.

Jan Eirik found on the list the set meant for Crywater station and walked backwards to this set. Not many other people were moving in any direction, something Jan Eirik assumed was because the next station after Crywater station was Central East station, the first of the main stations were the passenger exchange were so big that it required the complete train to stop, and that a big part of the other passengers had this station as their destination.

As the train passed Alamis station which was the last station before Crywater station, the Guidance System announced the last change to enter the leave train set for Crywater station, which would be isolated from the rest of the train in one minute. After one minute the doors locked between what now was the last wagon set of the train, and the main train. Immediately after, the set disconnected from the main train and the set started to retard and came to full stop at Crywater station. There Jan Eirik grabbed his PSH and left the train though the door closest to him. He went through the gate, where the trip was confirmed as given in in forehand, and booked off his DPT account.

Amazing Stuff was only 5 minutes away from the station. It was a huge building with 24 different departments with everything from sport equipment, to computers or housekeeping machines; which was the department Jan Eirik was come to visit.

After Jan Eirik had got his new house keeping machine demonstrated, he left Amazing Stuff, ordered his trip back home with the DPT by telling his smartphone to do so. As he arrived the station Jan Eirik took out his PSH and placed his smartphone in the helmets docking station in a room at the back of the helmet. Afterwards he put it on. It was formed as a bubble fixed to a stand fitting to his shoulders. As the position felt correct he announced: “Helmet, in position”. An inner collar was automatically blown up to seal against his neck making the helmet air tight. Since there were no known dangerous deceases announced lately, Jan Eirik chose to tell the helmet to bypass the air filters. He did not want to make himself to sensible to the outer worlds bacteria flora. On the inner surface of the helmet information was projected by the two wide angle projectors positioned in the top of the helmet. The two projectors projected their beams with angel and target surface in such a way that the left eye saw the beam from left projector and the right the right beam. In addition the polymer on the inside of the helmet had crystals reflecting the left beams part the overlapping area to the left eye and the right to the right eye. This way the information was shown in 3D. Now the time reminding before the Entrance Train Set at the station would close the gate was shown; he had 1 and a half minute to get himself on board.

Jan Eirik had in the setup of the helmet, chosen to keep the default two way transparency of the helmet.

The gate and train doors closed up, the scanning of the area in between them showed a cleared space, and the 15s countdown for start stared. Jan Eirik got this information both visualized on his helmets inside and through the helmets loudspeakers. At 0 the train started accelerating and after approximately 30 seconds the set connected to the main train. Jan Eirik saw a person starting walking backwards in the train as soon as the doors between the sets opened, and he assumed it was someone that would travel only a short distance. This was actually the only weakness in the transportation concept. It was not possible to travel only one station because it was not possible to reach the Leaving Train Set starting from the Entrance Train Set; before the Leaving Train Set for the next station disconnected from the main train. The solution was therefor to travel 3 stations in the direction the destination station was, and then traveling 2 stations back with the first train in that direction. The billing part of the DPT information system was programmed to handle this, so the passenger was only charged for the one station travel.

The PSH reminded Jan Eirik on his appointment with Guy at 13.55. Without the helmet on, the reminder would have come from his smartphone at 13.30, early enough for him to interrupt in a proper way what he eventually would be into, and get his helmet on. Jan Eirik replied he was ready, and at 14.00 the helmet turned into nontransparent mode and connected with Guy automatically.

Guys face came up on the inside of the helmet, filmed by the cameras in their conference room.

After Guys summary of the changes he had done based on their earlier discussions, Guy started the movie which replaced Guys face in the helmet. It was 10 minutes long, and the intention was to watch it once without any interruptions and then afterwards go through it piece by piece. But as soon as Guy started it, the helmet came up with a message from the DPT Guidance System to the both of them that Jan Eirik was supposed to shift train set in 6 to 7 minutes and that would require that the helmet went into one way transparent mode, making the watching of the movie less effective. Since it was the last time they were supposed to evaluate it, they decided to wait until Jan Eirik had found his new set, and they discussed an eventual new job in the meantime.

The part of the train Jan Eirik had entered on the way back home, was part of the sets going into line 5, the line which Jan Eiriks “home station” was part of, which meant he did not have to shift set to get to the correct line. 6 minutes later a pre-warning about moving was given both by the DPT Guidance System in common for all passengers to Wainop station and by the PSH to Jan Eirik personally, and he was told to walk backwards to the set meant for his end station.

The reason why it still was time to watch the movie before the train reached Jan Eirik’s station, was that the guide system to avoid rushes through the train, moved the passengers to the correct sets as early as possible. As soon as Jan Eirik found his new seat, Guy started the movie again. Jan Eirik had a few questions to a couple of scenes, but accepted Guys answers and they agreed that the movie was ready. Jan Eirik thanked Guy for the job he and his team had done, and ended the conference.

Right after the guide system gave a message that last change to enter the Leaving Train Set for Wainop station was within one minute and that the set then would be isolated from the rest of the train. After one minute the doors locked between what now was the last wagon set of the train, and the main train. Immediately after, the set disconnected from the main train and the set started to retard and came to full stop at Wainop station.

Jan Eirik locket himself into his apartment the same way as he left it. His smart phone then announced he was home, and Jan Eirik received a request if he would be available for receiving his new house keeping machine the next two hours. A request he confirmed.

Jan Eirik was hungry and asked the central kitchen unit what he should eat for dinner. The unit pulled up the suggestion from the common data base, made by comparing the contents of his last day’s meals with his needs in his health profile. “Fish again!” Jan Eirik complained, even if the premade meals tasted much better than he had ever managed to make himself. “Mother kitchen, please prepare the suggested meal” he ordered the kitchen unit. The meal went automatically from the freezer to the owen were it was heated up according to the specifications coded on it. The replacement of the meal was automatically entered to the order list the kitchen would send the food drugstore next Friday.

Jan Eirik had just finished his meal as the delivery of the house keeping machine arrived. Since it was short before his meeting with Mr. Spock he just unwrapped it to confirm nothing was broken, and then prepared for the video conference. The conference took more than 2 hours but he received a very positive feedback from Mr. Spock and his colleges. Part of the presentation was the time schedule for implementation and live testing of the algorithm, and after some few adjustments they agreed on the content and timeframe of the delivery and the order was placed directly.

Afterwards Jan Eirik was quite tired and did not really want to start on the task training his new Personalized Unit, but on the other hand he was very excited about the new machine, and decided to start the training this evening anyway. It would not take that long to train the new personilized unit.

At 11 o’clock in the night Jan Eirik was satisfied with the training result, and started cleaning of the living room. He went to bed very satisfied with his day.