Urban Communication

Israel Fried Articles and Ideas

| | | | | | | | | |

Urban Communication

Urban Communication - Letter and Article

Note:
In the following I bring my letter of 25 September 1971, to the President of the USA Mr. Richard Nixon - I proposed an Idea for Urban Communication. This includes controlling all the traffic in a city, a complete halting of traffic accidents, total organization of urban and inter-urban communication and the possibility of make all driving automatic, without the need of drivers. My proposal was to put small transmitters and receivers in every car in the city. The signals from the transmitters will be received by small receivers along the sides of the roads, as well as in large receiver stations and communications satellites. Using big computers may allow the control of all the traffic in the entire city, and avoid accidents, by sending warning signals to the drivers in each car. The answer of the US Embassy in Tel Aviv to my proposal was that the engineers in the US had checked my idea and concluded that it was not feasible. I answered then that I believe that within 30 years the idea will be implemented. Today, after 30 years, many parts of my idea are implemented in cities all over the world. However, I believe that it may take 5 to 10 years for all aspects of the idea to be implemented completely. The needed technology exists. It is now a matter of making the proper decisions. I believe that such control over urban communications is even more important now, after the awful terror attack in the New York City and Washington DC, on 11 September 2001. If a tall building is suspected to collapse within seconds, as happened with the World Trade Center, all the cars in the city should be warned immediately - within seconds, so that the all traffic in the city could changed immediately. Only a system based on urban communications, such as I had proposed, may be useful in critical situations such as that one in New York. It can warn of collapsing bridges during earthquakes, major floods or huricanes, and many other catastrophes. I think that one relyin on traditional radios in the cars for such situations is not appropriate. There should be a specific warning system in each vehicle for emergency use only.

In the following I give the scanned pages of the letter to the President of the USA and thereafter - the Article that includes my Idea for Urban Communication.

Letter - Page 1