Transport in United Trowo

Transport in United Trowo is diversified and is facilitated by road, air, rail, waterways and space. Intra-city transport primarily occurs through public transport, with an average of 55% across most cities in United Trowo (excluding colonies) of passengers travelling using some mode of public transport. Depending on the distance, most inter-city transport occurs through air and rail, this percentage being 82% (excluding colonies). For the purpose of this article, transportation figures will be from the planet Trowo , unless specified otherwise due to majority of citizens living on this planet.        

Regulation and Ownership

Intra-city transport infrastructure is built by and maintained by the taxpayers of that city. This includes roads, bridges, rail, ports and other miscellaneous infrastructures. In general, inter-city transport infrastructure is maintained by the planetary body council, built by and maintained by the taxpayers of the planet/space-station.

Core Worlds

Due to the population density of the core worlds, most political division have multiple levels of hierarchy. For example, the city ofAlto Risé has up to 6 levels of divisions. In such systems, each specific level may have their own administrations to manage their transport infrastructures. Due to the rate of wear-and-tear in these systems, higher political divisions may have to allocate funds to the lower divisions if they are unable to raise enough taxes to cover.

Non-core worlds

On non-core worlds, specifically in the colonies, most cities resemble cities on Earth with populations less than 700 000. Most of these cities are typically car-reliant and do not feature intra-city public transportation other than heavy rail to facilitate movement of goods. In such cities, all the roads and managed directly by the state or planetary body council. There are exceptions, of course, such as the capital city of Sento Nüli on the planet Dekadin (system Sýklasen ), which has a population of 9 million. It features a comprehensive public transport system with subways, bus services, taxis and ferries. As a rule of thumb, most cities in United Trowo have a public transport system once their population exceeds 1 million.

Roads

One of the most important forms of transportation in United Trowo is road travel. They can range from dirt and gravel roads, to well-maintained tarmac, to high-strength room-temperature semi-conductors.

Motor Vehicles

Most vehicles in United Trowo are electric due to the scarcity of oil and cheap prices of electricity and batteries. As a result, pollution due to motor vehicles are next to non-existent. ICE (Internal combustion engine) vehicles do exist for driving in outback terrain, where most electric vehicles are unable to drive due to voltage issues. Moreover, almost every vehicle comes with an autonomous driving system, able to take the vehicle to its respective destination without assistance from the driver. Manual interference is not allowed especially on busy roads, due to the potential for terrorism.

The road system on the planet Trowo is highly developed and mostly well-maintained; with a system of super-highways and highways linking cities across different continents. The total network of this road system was estimated to be 2.2 billion kilometers (1.37 billion miles) as of 201. Most road networks also contain free solar-powered electric charging stations, along for long-distance travel by electric vehicles. These autonomous stations are maintained by robots, and the whole system itself is overseen by near-AIs which deploy maintenance packs if necessary. This system, known as the Trowo Electric Charging Port System, requires virtually no human assistance, and is run by a group of 4500 people across Trowo (compared to 112 billion people living on Trowo). In cities, buildings are required to have electric charging stations, though the electricity consumed by them is sponsored by the state.

In the densest cities, they may be up to 5 levels of parellel running roads stacked atop each other. The highest deck has the least coverage and only covers the densest parts of the city, while the lowest deck is typically some sort of hybrid between a highway and a main road. Deck exchangers are found every 500m along the road and operate in a cascading manner - i.e. moving up from deck 1 to 5 in a smooth manner without waiting 500m on deck 2,3,4. All buildings (on Trowo) are required to have vehicle entrances in the following manner:

If there is only 1 road deck - Buildings have to have a vehicle entrance there (obviously)

If there are 2 road decks - Buildings are required to have an entrance on the 2nd deck, and an entrance on the 1st deck if the area/building is heavily patronised.

If there are 3 road decks - Buildings need only an entrance on the 2nd and 3rd deck.

if there are 4 road decks - Buildings need only an entrance on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th deck.

If there are 5 road decks - Buildings need only an entrance on the 3rd, 4th and 5th deck.

The largest bridges in Trowo may hold up to 5 decks at once, though these bridges are rare in seismically-active regions.

On the lowest road decks, vehicles are permitted to cruise at 300km/h (186 miles/h), which steadily decrease with the upper decks, being 70km/h at the top deck. Similarly, speed limits on the lowest deck drop with the decreasing number of decks above. 

Bus Services

Transport by bus is a widely used system not only on Trowo, but other core systems and primary dependencies. Buses may be powered electrically or by the use of fuel-cells, and typically come in 3 types: Normal, Double-Decked and Bendy. The normal variant can hold up to 80 passengers and the Double-Decked and Bendy versions may hold up to 150 passengers. The total ridership values for Trowo for the year 200 was 154 billion rides a day. The bus services are used in tandem with the intra-city rail services, as bus service coverages are usually more dense than rail. Designated bus lanes and sometimes whole road decks are devoted to buses.

Bikes/Bike sharing

Bike sharing is not a popular means of transport in comparision to other modes of public transport by nonetheless recorded 21 billion kilometers of rides per day in the year 200. Bike sharing is facilitated primarly by 6 private companies, though most local government do provide publicly-shared bikes. Bike lanes and in some cases bike roads may be designated/built to facilitate the most travelled lanes.

Air

Air travel is very popular in United Trowo, with many opting air travel as their primary mode of inter-city transport. The majority of planes are powered with syn-oil, a type of kerosene artificially produced through the capture of carbon dioxide. Airplanes may also be powered with bio-fuels, a controversial fuel due to its competition of land with food crops. Supersonic travel up to 2 mach is allowed in the denser parts of the continent, with speeds up to 5 mach possible when travelling in the upper stratosphere. Innovations in aerodynamics and airplane body design have made it possible to deflect the majority of sonic booms upward, meaning that supersonic travel over land is actually quieter than conventional airplanes here on Earth. This however, also entails that airplanes are not allowed to fly within 5km above/below each other, due to noise and turbulence.

Airports

Airports serve as the arrival/depature point of air travel. Some airports are combined with mixed-rocket spaceports to facilitate movement of passengers. The largest and busiest of these airports are, in order of number of passengers serviced:

1. Horai Hyai Airport and Spaceport (Alto Risé) - 821 million passengers
2. Suaes Chandrayana Airport - 573 million passengers
3. Alto Risé Rennililyn Airport - 554 million passengers
4. Indira Maalikam Airport (Suaes) - 512 million passengers
5. Sothis Airport (Alto Risé) - 498 million passengers
6. Konavue City Airport and Spaceport - 476 million passengers
7. Tengoku International Airport (Sento Dian) - 460 million passengers
8. Ya'akos Airport (Sentokado) - 390 million passengers
9. Hithikyin International (Alto Risé) - 341 million passengers
10. Langit Bulao (Skopjesoundé) - 311 million passengers

Throughout Trowo, there are over 8140 airports, managed by the Aviation Authority of Trowo. Unpaved airports do exist, but these are mostly private landing strips for crop dusting or aerodromes in extremely inhospitable terrain. 

The total ridership for air travel was 12 billion flights per day in the year 200. 

Ports, Shipping and Waterways

Trowo has over 10,000 ports, however the majority serve their local communities and less than 10% serving inter-city routes. The major ports are located at Rahozhyalyn, Najenlyn, Hithikyin, Skopjesoundé, Dammasèr, Sentokado, Kalkyest, Kalksyran, Kado'An, Azires, Teknolytez, Syailrithan, Ente, Samudrama, Sento Dian and Cie-Uthado.

Up to 94% of cargo is transported around Trowo through the use of ships due to their capacity and low cost. Most ships are powered by a mixture of wind and fusion, with the majority coming from wind during coasting. The largest ships have a displacement of 1 000 000 tons when fully loaded and are powered solely by fusion. 

Several important shipping routes are protected by the naval and coast guards at piracy hotspots. Many shipping routes also pass through the Grand Dammasèr Canal, a man-made canal 212 kilometers long (131 miles) built in the year -213 to connect the Far-East to the Central. 

Cities such as Skopjesoundè, Sento Dian and Konavue also have a complex system of intra-city canals used by settlers in the past to ship goods around. Some of the canals have been built over/back-filled by some are still used for touring visitors around the city. In particular, Konavue has expanded its canal system to incoporate locks to facilitate intra-metropolis shipping of goods by barges, especially to the port of Kado'An, as Konavue lacks a port.

Rail (Heavy and Light)

Rail in United Trowo is divided into the following categories:

1. Conventional rail (or just Rail) for conventional trains - Transporting goods
2. High-speed rail (or HSR) for high-speed trains - Transporting people and goods
3. Intra-city rail transit/rapid transit; includes subways and elevated rail - Transports people
4. Monorail - Transports people
5. Maglev - Transports people and goods
6. People mover - Transports people

Space

Main article: Space Travel in United Trowo