A closer look
In the 1970s, West Germany tried to solve traffic by moving the gridlock into the sky. The Cabinentaxi was an ambitious Personal Rapid Transit system featuring computer-controlled, driverless mini-pods zipping along an elevated guideway—some riding on top, others hanging underneath like mechanical bats. It actually worked beautifully during trials in Hagen, logging over 7,000 hours of automated perfection. Sadly, the entire sci-fi utopia was scrapped in 1981 because the government ran out of money, leaving us stuck in terrestrial traffic jams for the rest of eternity.
