April 8, 2025 • 25 mins
Swyft Cities has developed a revolutionary transit concept called Whoosh that combines the benefits of gondolas with autonomous vehicles to create a flexible, efficient transit solution for short urban trips.
• Not a traditional gondola but an autonomous vehicle system using overhead cables
• Vehicles operate independently, picking up passengers at ground level and traveling directly to destinations without intermediate stops
• Costs approximately $5-20 million per mile compared to billions for light rail
• Developed while solving mobility challenges for Google's corporate campuses
• Fills the transit gap between bus capacity (1,200 passengers/hour) and light rail (8,000+ passengers/hour)
• Perfect for 1-5 mile trips which represent 50-55% of all daily travel
• Modular design allows systems to start small (3-4 stations) and expand incrementally
• Can be constructed quickly with first operational systems expected by 2027
• Works best in commercial corridors, entertainment districts, and medium-density areas
• Enables development of walkable, mixed-use districts without car dependency
If you're interested in learning more about Swyft Cities and the Whoosh system, visit swyftcities.com or find them on social media platforms X, YouTube, and LinkedIn.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Woosh, looks like a gondola.
It is not a gondola.
A gondola is a cable that goesback and forth, usually just
between two points.
The vehicles are pretty dumb.
They grab on and just go backand forth all day.
This is an autonomous vehiclesystem that happens to go across
cables.
So, yes, you have cables onpoles stretching across an area
(00:21):
of the city, but the vehiclesaren't traveling along the same
path.
They're independent, they'reautonomous.
They pick you up, usually atground level, take you up to the
main level where the cables are, take you wherever you need to
go across the cable so they canturn, they can switch, they can
take different paths.
You're going to go right whereyou're headed nonstop trip every
time.
And then it pulls off to theside, goes down to ground level,
(00:43):
drops you off and now thatvehicle is free to move somebody
else.
So it's, from an infrastructureside, very lightweight, the
lowest cost way of addingcapacity in a crowded area and
from a user perspective, it'sjust a wonderful trip.
You've got a view, you've gotthis non-stop travel.
It's everything you could dreamof, probably doors are closing
(01:18):
dream of probably this episode.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
we meet with a special guest to talk about a
revolutionary transit conceptthat might find its way into a
city or suburb near you.
Is it a gondola, an autonomousvehicle or something entirely
new?
Find out on this episode ofTransit Tangents.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Hey everybody and welcome to this episode of
Transit Tangents.
My name is Lewis and I'm Chris,and today we have a very
special guest joining us todayGerald Poskey from Swift Cities.
Chris and I found Swift Citiesonline.
I think I was scrolling throughTwitter one day and I saw the
amazing animation of what lookslike a gondola I know it's a
(01:58):
little bit different, we'll getinto the specifics of that later
Kind of floating above the cityand I was like, wow, this thing
looks really cool.
You know, one thing led toanother.
We ended up reaching out and weactually found out that you all
at Swift Cities had beenlistening to some of our
podcasts, which we're verythankful for.
Really cool concept.
And again, yeah, the thing thatreally drew me in the beginning
(02:19):
was, yes, this thing looks suchlike a gondola, but yeah, the
concept of it being able to godirectly from point to point and
essentially traveling betweenthe different stations and going
exactly where the user wants togo is pretty amazing.
I'm curious.
I know a little bit about yourbackground, but do you want to
share with us what made you comeup with this idea?
What were you working on?
(02:40):
Where you were like this isgoing to be the solution to the
problem that I'm currentlyfacing.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
I think there were two starts to the story.
The first start of the storyhappened a few miles from
probably where you are now, atthe UT undergraduate library.
When I read about people makingautonomous monorails, like this
sort of on-demand vehicles, ona monorail setting, I fell in
love with that and havededicated my career, across
multiple paths, to making thathappen.
(03:06):
But the real turning point camewhen I was in Google's real
estate division.
We were building out millionsof square feet of office.
I'm now adding in residentialand mixed entertainment areas
and open space to make thesereally incredible corporate
campuses.
And it turned out you can't dothat if you just built it all
for the car.
We're in a suburban setting.
We Google I'm no longer withGoogle, but we were in a
(03:29):
suburban setting.
It's an area where 90 somethingpercent of the people drive and
you just can't build that typeof environment and build
thousands and thousands ofstructured parking spaces to
make it all happen.
It just doesn't work.
So we were given the challengeto go find something new,
something that was out.
There was the original thought.
(03:49):
There's so many self-drivingcars and flying cars that we
assumed that we just go find theright new technology and we
will solve our problems.
And it turns out nobody issolving the problem of the short
distance, one to five milecongestion problem.
I think a lot of people arereally hooked on the 20-mile
commute.
That's maybe 3% of dailytravels.
Billions of dollars are goingto solve that 3% problem.
(04:10):
In reality, 50% to 55% of alltrips are in this little smaller
district area type travel andnobody was touching it.
So then we got permission totry something new and we sat
there with goals of it needs tobe cost effective, it needs to
be environmentally sustainable,it needs to be very flexible,
expandable, great for the user,needs to really attract people.
(04:34):
And we just started with thosebasics, had a few different
ideas and this one just soaredto the top.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
Right now you've been talking with cities to try to
get them interested.
Where are you making headway inpotentially deploying the Woosh
system?
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Yeah, half of the people weS, as well as certain
private sorry also in the publicsector, mostly in the US, and
the public sector and I wouldsay the trends tend to be a
place that has a little bit ofan entertainment space.
It could be a ski resort, couldbe a more urban entertainment
area, and they want to movepeople around.
(05:25):
They don't want to build asmuch parking, but they also need
it to be a little bit specialof a trip In every single case.
They also then imagine a futurephase.
So I didn't talk about theexpandability before, because
it's not a traditional gondolawith those two fixed endpoints.
It's made more like Legos youcan add on, you can subtract,
you can expand, you can expandthe system.
(05:47):
So they're picturing it,starting small and then growing
over time.
So first it may be on theirproperty and then they want to
reach the train station, or thenthey want to reach hotels that
are some one or two miles awayand they want to make this
tighter district network.
It turns out the cities thinkthe same way.
Actually, a lot of them arefast-growing cities that are in
a more sprawling environment andthey're having a hard time
(06:09):
figuring out how to retrofittransit.
It's like, wow, what's going tobe the right transit for us in
our less dense land use?
Or it's cities that have trainstations that could be effective
, but the actual end use is likea mile or two away from the
train station is perspective,but the actual end use is like a
mile or two away from the trainstation is um, I sometimes tell
the story and you have a texasaudience.
I took uh dart from the airportdown to downtown dallas and I'm
(06:32):
familiar from that area andthere's a university of dallas
station like oh, that's cool,it's got a tower it'd be awesome
to look at.
Then you get to that stationand realize I don't know where
the university of dallas is fromhere, but it's not at this
station.
Station I realized I don't knowwhere the University of Dallas
is from here, but it's not atthis station.
Turns out it's about a mileaway but it was.
You know you got to get thatlast mile and sort of Texas
weather, texas heat.
You need something else to makethose last mile connections.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Absolutely, and I think Dallas is such an
interesting example because, youknow, while they do have some
decent transit orienteddevelopment happening around
some of their stations, once youget a certain radius away from
that it turns into kind ofsprawling suburbs very quickly
that are currently verydifficult to serve by transit.
And something that's reallyunique about the Woosh system is
(07:17):
that it can kind of solve someof the issues that buses can't
in a lot of cases where awinding bus route through you
know, a bunch of cul-de-sacs andwhatnot through a neighborhood
are difficult to do, whereas ifyou can, you know, implement
this system into the right areas, feeding folks into those train
(07:37):
stations, feeding folks intothose other destinations that
are more suburban.
It feels like a perfect kind ofcomplement to those existing
systems, something I appreciatethat you all kind of talk about
in a lot of your onlinepresences.
Whatnot is that?
And correct me if I'm wronghere, but you're not saying that
this is like the solution totransit everywhere.
But it's a piece of the puzzle,right?
Speaker 1 (07:59):
There is no the solution to transit.
We are not it either.
Yes, we are.
We are the piece that fits ifyou think capacity-wise.
Trains, I really feel like,need a good 8,000 to 10,000
passengers per hour to beeffective.
Buses it's about 1,200passengers an hour is where you
could really peek out a busroute.
In most places in the US that'sa huge gap between transit
(08:22):
systems that are effective at1,200 versus 8,000.
We're in that middle range tofill that massive, massive gap
of opportunity.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Absolutely, I'm curious.
I know that in Sugar Land,Texas is one spot that this has
kind of been talked about.
Are you able to talk about kindof where things are or how that
project kind of came to be?
I know, like you mentioned, wehave a lot of folks.
We're based here in Austin,Texas, but Sugar Land's not too
(08:52):
far away, a suburb of Houston.
I'm curious if you're able toshare anything about that
project.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Well, yeah, it's a problem that is.
What they have is what we calla barrier problem.
Sometimes that's a river,sometimes it's a railroad track,
but in Texas it's often just afreeway and you can have
development on four corners andit all looks dense, but you
can't get from one corner to theother without a lot of hassle,
basically without a car, and sothat's the origin.
(09:18):
They have a nice central sortof downtown community center
area.
They have some other pockets ofdensity and there's just a lot
of traffic everywhere.
But there's a lot of trafficinterconnecting and I really
think there's a lot of averted.
There's like trips that aren'thappening.
If you could just get from oneto the other you could make the
whole area more lively.
So that's the problem they arelooking to solve.
(09:40):
They find us to be an effectivesolution and now they're in a
very that's our most I'd say,most public sector client.
So they're going through thetraditional funding routes of
checking for the different grantsources and such.
So I like that system, I likewhat it can do Really and also
bring people into.
They've got some BRT typeroutes that go into Houston and
(10:02):
that direction, so helping servethose routes would be ideal for
us.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
We'll jump right back into the episode in just a
second, but first, if youhaven't liked this video or left
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It helps us out quite a bit andwe also have some exciting news
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Speaker 3 (10:16):
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Go check out our store whereyou can get hats, t-shirts,
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New designs for that all goingto be coming up in the next few
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Speaker 2 (10:28):
Lastly, if you want to support the show directly and
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But without further ado, let'sjump right back into the episode
.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
One thing that I'd be interested to hear.
So Lewis and I, when we firstbecame obsessed with gondolas,
when we first started talkingabout this podcast, it started
with a happy hour discussionwhere we spent a long amount of
time talking about Austinspecifically and how, if Project
Connect, our current light railinitiative, didn't happen, we
were like, oh, just replace itall with gondolas.
(10:56):
Didn't happen, we were like, oh, just replace it all with
gondolas.
One of those reasons that wewere worried about Project
Connect is just the sheer cost.
Do you have kind of an estimateon how you would compare the
cost of deploying a system likeWoosh in a metropolitan area
versus what we see with lightrail, which can cost billions of
dollars per mile?
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Well, they're not apples to apples.
I mean, that's number one.
We're not trying to replacelight rail.
We're not going to serve your25 mile route from downtown to
Georgetown or wherever no, butwhat we look at are these
pockets where our infrastructurecost is $5 million a mile.
Adding in vehicles, adding inother things you're planning,
(11:40):
other things you're planning.
I think an early system isprobably $20 million a mile for
the first one or two.
Everybody really has talked tous.
It's like just give me three orfour stations to start.
We do have one client in the USwho's likely to be one of the
very first.
That's doing 12, which is great, but most people want just that
small, like a 40, 50, $60million system.
Let's prove that out and thenwe can start expanding from
there, because the economies ofscale it gets more cost
(12:02):
effective as it grows.
So getting that first onechecked off, proven, tested out,
is really how people arestarting to think about it.
And for comparison that $40, $50, $60 million in the transit
world is not much, and that'swhen we have real estate clients
, private sector clients.
A parking garage is going tocost you $50 million, just to
(12:22):
start.
I think the most expensive oneI've worked on is $386 million
for a single parking structure.
So this is small dollars, evenin public sector, but it's also
even small dollars in the realestate world.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
I think a good comparison in the urban setting
is sort of again, I understandyou're trying to connect sort of
point to point service, gettingto larger transit lines, but I
think of like streetcars.
In a lot of cases cities havedeployed streetcars where they
only move so many miles, youknow, five miles of streetcar
line and I feel like this iskind of could be a good
alternative for cities if we'relooking for a cost effective
(12:57):
measure.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
I almost want to disagree with you on the street
car a little bit.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean Ithink.
So we just left kansas city iswhy we're mentioning the street
car and I, I, I get, I get thepoint you're trying to make, but
I almost think, like, like thisisn't gonna be something that's
like replacing, like a fixedline service, and like I like in
kansas city, like that is, thatgets quite a bit of things, but
to feed people into the streetcar, maybe more so I don't know
(13:19):
Kansas City is a bad examplebecause it's a good streetcar.
A bad example, because it's sogood.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
Yeah, but think about what we experienced in Dallas
where we went from South Dallasinto downtown.
That's a use case where you'recrossing a large river.
Maybe the light rail wasn't thebest solution.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Whether you're facing you're hitting a problem where
transit brains struggle withfiguring out where to put us,
because our whole lives havebeen trained on.
It's a, it's a line, it's a busline, it's a train line and the
idea of something that operateseither as loops or even as a
spine, with spurs, buying withSpurs.
(13:57):
It's a little bit of a.
It's not a one-to-onereplacement for any of those
things, which is both atremendous advantage but also a
little bit of a curse whenyou're trying to make apples to
apples comparison or just fit itinto a brain that's always been
trying to figure out where todraw the lines.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Totally Again.
I think to me, like I love theconcept of, I really do think
that this can help fill a voidin the end of the line
connecting into the suburbs,like more difficult to fulfill
areas where, like, traditionaltransit is kind of lacking.
I'm curious, though so whooshis just the the name of this one
(14:33):
piece of Swift cities?
I'm curious, why?
Why the name Swift cities?
And is there kind of somethingelse you're going for with this
whole thing?
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Yeah, when we were at Google and it was originally
Project Swift, we had thosegoals we tried to figure out
there was a solution.
We had several companies underengaged to try to find the right
solution.
A company called home solutionsout of New Zealand came up with
this switchable cable-basedsystem, and so Woosh is their
name for the cable-based system.
(15:04):
The hardware, Swift Cities ishere to put in the software.
That's the magic behind thescenes to run it all and keep
the vehicles getting where youneed to be, when you need to be
there.
And also we are there becausein doing implementation, we're
not here to be Swift TransitCompany and just put in the
system.
The fact of why Google neededthis is there's a maximum
(15:27):
density you can build out.
When you have a car-based world, there's only so many cars.
When you start to add insomething like this, you can now
make a different style ofdevelopment, you can make a
different density of the city.
That's basically impossible tocost effectively do today.
So we are Swift Cities, notjust to deliver the
transportation but to enablethese like cool six to eight to
(15:49):
12 story type density where youstill have your coffee shops,
you're not overwhelmed byskyscrapers, you still have open
space, you still have the worldof Paris, of barcelona, of
those places that you want to goto on vacation.
You can get that by having theright mix of transportation and
land use, and that's a mix thatjust it's hardly it's rare for
(16:11):
it to be cost effective today,because the transportation is
just so hard to get rightabsolutely no, I, uh, I I can't
stop.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
I said to chris just before you came on, I was like I
can't stop thinking about this.
I know, I know you're I'm nothow not sure how familiar with
austin you are, but I would loveto see this as a uh, a
connector from the muellerneighborhood and connecting into
the red line, which currentlythe red line goes so close, but
not close enough to really beable to walk to connecting
mueller to ACC, to that red linestation, to a few other areas
(16:44):
and they're just like.
I mean, there are a millionplaces in my head.
I'm like, wow, this would besuch a cool piece to the puzzle
to really solve some transitproblems.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
Well, I think Austin and a number of just so many of
our, of our sprawling citiesthat have been built really
without being planned fortransit.
The phrase transit orienteddevelopment means the transit is
there.
How do we put developmentaround it?
In most of those cities, it'smore like the development is
already there.
How do we bring transit to it?
So I would call usdevelopment-oriented transit
(17:12):
because, unfortunately, the shiphas sailed where the
development's going to be.
Now.
How do we provide a transitsystem that will work with
reality, not with what we wishwould have happened, you know,
30 years ago, 50 years ago,absolutely.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
I'm curious have you had any direct conversations
with people in some of thesecommunities that have expressed
interest in a solution like this, and what's some of the
feedback you've gotten, evenfrom people that aren't
necessarily on the governmentside or the planning side, but
actual community members?
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Yeah, I think it's been.
We've been 100% responsive.
We haven't been going out andknocking on doors.
We've been responding to peoplewho have a problem and so by
the time they come to us,there's been a bit of a problem
identified.
And when you talk to the people, I think the number one concern
is around where is that goingto go?
Aesthetics do I want that?
And so.
(18:02):
I'll take Dallas as an examplewhere we use them.
We took a map and you draw redlines over all the parts of the
map that are single family homesand tree line streets and all
the places you don't want to go.
You don't want this kind ofthing and I'll say that took off
85 percent of the city, butthat remaining 15% is 70% of the
economic activity in the cityof Dallas.
(18:25):
So we're not trying to goeverywhere.
In fact, most places we're notneeded.
But then you look at the placeswhere we do fit, where people
aren't going to screen thatyou're going over my swimming
pool, that's fine.
There's a tremendous amount ofopportunity.
That's the places where we wantto be.
That's the places you need tomove people.
So I think as long as we comeout and tell people we're not
(18:45):
going over your backyard, it's atrue.
NIMBY.
I mean and I would be the firstto agree with them.
Not in my backyard, but there'splenty of places to go across
the city.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
that is not in anyone's backyard, absolutely.
I've got one more question foryou and then I don't.
Chris, if you've got anotherone, go for it.
Uh, can you walk us through?
Like, how are you envisioningthe rider experience?
Like, kind of, you know, youwalk up to a station, how do you
tell it where to go?
Like just, you know what, whatare the?
And I know you don't, you knowit's not, we don't have it yet
(19:16):
but uh, what is the?
The interface, the system thatyou feel will kind of the end
user will be able to experiencewhile they're riding this?
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Yeah, I will say that most of our early customers are
imagining it being free attheir site, their ski resort,
their development, and so youjust get on and push a button.
But the long-term what you'd bepicturing is the Uber app.
You're telling it where you'regoing, you don't need to be
looking at a route or a schedule.
The stations are generally atgreat, so you just go up like a
(19:47):
bus stop.
You're going to wait for itthere on a sidewalk.
You step into a vehicle, tapyour phone to enter the vehicle.
That tells it the stationyou've already picked out, so
you know you're in the rightvehicle and then at that point
you're done.
You sit back, it takes you upinto the air, it does whatever
turns and switches it needs todo, and you're not going to stop
again until you get to yourdestination.
(20:09):
And so you don't have to worryabout missing your stop or
falling asleep.
It only stops when you're atyour destination.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
It feels similar to like the Waymo.
I don't know if you've had it.
We've had Waymo here in Austinfor a while but that's to me how
the Waymos kind of operate.
You fill it in ahead of time,you press a button, the doors
open and then you're just kindof getting whisked away where
you're going.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
But you're stuck in traffic.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Waymo without the traffic.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
Yes, yeah, I think the only thing I can think of in
the US that I haven't reallypersonally experienced, but the
only thing I can think of that'ssimilar to this, would be
something like the PRT system inMorgantown, west Virginia,
where you have a car that Ithink that will take you point
to point destinations.
It's obviously a pretty smallsystem, but you know, they're
the small cars.
I don't think they're on railbut they run through a track.
(20:56):
That's the only thing that Ican really think of that's
similar.
Are there any other types ofsystems that even come close to
this?
Speaker 1 (21:04):
No, not I mean there's.
There's a similar system atHeathrow airport and one in Abu
Dhabi, but uh, nothing that'slike this.
There's no word port in thetransportation lexicon, so uh,
whooshes is it?
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Awesome, uh, I guess.
Uh, is there, is there anythingwe haven't covered that you'd
like to get to, that you've gotcoming up, or anything like that
.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Well, I mean listening to some of the past
episodes, the tie in betweenland use and transportation.
I think just we just have tobeat that drum that the two are
intricately tied and it's hardbut not impossible to kind of
undo I'm going to say mistakes.
It depends on your point ofview.
(21:46):
But I think many, many, manycities are to the point where
they say, ah, traffic is farworse and it's far worse than
was expected, Way worse thanwhen I moved here.
You know, everybody says that,whether you've moved here two
years ago or 50 years ago,traffic is so much worse than
when I moved here is whateveryone says and it's just
going to keep trending that way.
(22:07):
I think all of our cities aregrowing and some are growing
exponentially fast.
So what do you do?
I think I've already given youthe line of development oriented
transit.
But I think everybody who's outthere Project Connect being a
good example, Everybody who'sout there, Project Connect being
a good example, Great, you canput in transit.
The easiest place to put railis on old freight lines, except
(22:31):
they're not really where anybodyever wanted to live is along
your freight line.
So the rail is kind of in thewrong place.
But building it from scratch,as you said, is now billions of
dollars to take over, right ofway.
So finding that mix isimportant, but I just go back
and say it is a land use problemas much as it's a
transportation problem.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Absolutely.
I couldn't agree more, and Imean, chris and I've said this a
whole bunch of times to eachother.
But, like we, when we startedthis, we didn't think we would
talk about housing nearly asmuch as we do in land use.
And it's like I have learned somuch about land use and zoning
and all of this stuff in thelast year or so, since a year
and a half, since we kind ofbeen doing this so well.
(23:11):
Thank you so much for takingthe time.
I'm curious where can folkslearn more about this?
You know social media website,that sort of thing website, that
sort of thing.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Sure Online, it's Swift Cities, s-w-y-f-t, and
your usual places your internet,your Instagram, your LinkedIn,
and then very soon, and we'rerecording this.
One thing I didn't emphasizewas how quickly we can build.
So we have several clients thatare lining up for 2027
(23:42):
operations we're recording thisin early 25.
Yeah, this is full operations,from planning and design but not
construction started tooperations in 27, with even the
first vehicles moving in 2026.
So, in 13 months, fromconstruction start to having
vehicles moving.
So very, very soon.
(24:02):
Soon we're going to have acouple of announcements on the
two leading locations, uh, andthen we look forward to you
being able to come to a sitenear you or maybe not so near
you and uh, and actually take aride on a system to get a, get
that sense of what it's reallylike, because it's.
I think a lot of people justfeel like we're fairy tale, good
(24:24):
idea, hypothetical, and don'trealize, uh, how close it is to
reality.
So hopefully we'll be on theshow.
Maybe we can all go together tovisit one of these places
absolutely.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
We'd love that love the gifts of a firsthand
experience absolutely well.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Uh, gerald, thank you so much for taking the time.
We really appreciate it Forfolks who are watching.
If you have questions, thoughtsabout this episode, please
leave a comment down below.
We'll.
Maybe we'll take some of them.
We'll make sure Gerald getsthem and we can maybe get you
some answers.
We'd love to be able to, in thefuture, be able to come and
ride one of these things soon.
So, thank you so much fortaking the time For folks
watching.
If you have not liked this videoalready, please consider doing
(25:02):
so.
It helps us out quite a bit.
You can also subscribe or youcan support the show directly
via our patreon.
We also have a brand new merchstore, so if you want to support
the show that way, that isanother way to do it.
Uh, gerald, if you, if youdon't mind playing along with us
here, we always end the show bysaying uh, enjoy the rest of
your transit tensions tuesday.
If you don't mind joining usfor the transit tensions tuesday
(25:24):
, um, awesome, so, uh, thank youall so much for watching and
enjoy the rest of your transittangents that's gonna be a funny
one with zoom, but that's okay.
Woosh, looks like a gondola.
It is not a gondola.
A gondola is a cable that goesback and forth, usually just
between two points.
The vehicles are pretty dumb.
They grab on and just go backand forth all day.
This is an autonomous vehiclesystem that happens to go across
cables.
So, yes, you have cables onpoles stretching across an area
(00:21):
of the city, but the vehiclesaren't traveling along the same
path.
They're independent, they'reautonomous.
They pick you up, usually atground level, take you up to the
main level where the cables are, take you wherever you need to
go across the cable so they canturn, they can switch, they can
take different paths.
You're going to go right whereyou're headed nonstop trip every
time.
And then it pulls off to theside, goes down to ground level,
(00:43):
drops you off and now thatvehicle is free to move somebody
else.
So it's, from an infrastructureside, very lightweight, the
lowest cost way of addingcapacity in a crowded area and
from a user perspective, it'sjust a wonderful trip.
You've got a view, you've gotthis non-stop travel.
It's everything you could dreamof, probably doors are closing
(01:18):
dream of probably this episode.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
we meet with a special guest to talk about a
revolutionary transit conceptthat might find its way into a
city or suburb near you.
Is it a gondola, an autonomousvehicle or something entirely
new?
Find out on this episode ofTransit Tangents.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Hey everybody and welcome to this episode of
Transit Tangents.
My name is Lewis and I'm Chris,and today we have a very
special guest joining us todayGerald Poskey from Swift Cities.
Chris and I found Swift Citiesonline.
I think I was scrolling throughTwitter one day and I saw the
amazing animation of what lookslike a gondola I know it's a
(01:58):
little bit different, we'll getinto the specifics of that later
Kind of floating above the cityand I was like, wow, this thing
looks really cool.
You know, one thing led toanother.
We ended up reaching out and weactually found out that you all
at Swift Cities had beenlistening to some of our
podcasts, which we're verythankful for.
Really cool concept.
And again, yeah, the thing thatreally drew me in the beginning
(02:19):
was, yes, this thing looks suchlike a gondola, but yeah, the
concept of it being able to godirectly from point to point and
essentially traveling betweenthe different stations and going
exactly where the user wants togo is pretty amazing.
I'm curious.
I know a little bit about yourbackground, but do you want to
share with us what made you comeup with this idea?
What were you working on?
(02:40):
Where you were like this isgoing to be the solution to the
problem that I'm currentlyfacing.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
I think there were two starts to the story.
The first start of the storyhappened a few miles from
probably where you are now, atthe UT undergraduate library.
When I read about people makingautonomous monorails, like this
sort of on-demand vehicles, ona monorail setting, I fell in
love with that and havededicated my career, across
multiple paths, to making thathappen.
(03:06):
But the real turning point camewhen I was in Google's real
estate division.
We were building out millionsof square feet of office.
I'm now adding in residentialand mixed entertainment areas
and open space to make thesereally incredible corporate
campuses.
And it turned out you can't dothat if you just built it all
for the car.
We're in a suburban setting.
We Google I'm no longer withGoogle, but we were in a
(03:29):
suburban setting.
It's an area where 90 somethingpercent of the people drive and
you just can't build that typeof environment and build
thousands and thousands ofstructured parking spaces to
make it all happen.
It just doesn't work.
So we were given the challengeto go find something new,
something that was out.
There was the original thought.
(03:49):
There's so many self-drivingcars and flying cars that we
assumed that we just go find theright new technology and we
will solve our problems.
And it turns out nobody issolving the problem of the short
distance, one to five milecongestion problem.
I think a lot of people arereally hooked on the 20-mile
commute.
That's maybe 3% of dailytravels.
Billions of dollars are goingto solve that 3% problem.
(04:10):
In reality, 50% to 55% of alltrips are in this little smaller
district area type travel andnobody was touching it.
So then we got permission totry something new and we sat
there with goals of it needs tobe cost effective, it needs to
be environmentally sustainable,it needs to be very flexible,
expandable, great for the user,needs to really attract people.
(04:34):
And we just started with thosebasics, had a few different
ideas and this one just soaredto the top.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
Right now you've been talking with cities to try to
get them interested.
Where are you making headway inpotentially deploying the Woosh
system?
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Yeah, half of the people weS, as well as certain
private sorry also in the publicsector, mostly in the US, and
the public sector and I wouldsay the trends tend to be a
place that has a little bit ofan entertainment space.
It could be a ski resort, couldbe a more urban entertainment
area, and they want to movepeople around.
(05:25):
They don't want to build asmuch parking, but they also need
it to be a little bit specialof a trip In every single case.
They also then imagine a futurephase.
So I didn't talk about theexpandability before, because
it's not a traditional gondolawith those two fixed endpoints.
It's made more like Legos youcan add on, you can subtract,
you can expand, you can expandthe system.
(05:47):
So they're picturing it,starting small and then growing
over time.
So first it may be on theirproperty and then they want to
reach the train station, or thenthey want to reach hotels that
are some one or two miles awayand they want to make this
tighter district network.
It turns out the cities thinkthe same way.
Actually, a lot of them arefast-growing cities that are in
a more sprawling environment andthey're having a hard time
(06:09):
figuring out how to retrofittransit.
It's like, wow, what's going tobe the right transit for us in
our less dense land use?
Or it's cities that have trainstations that could be effective
, but the actual end use is likea mile or two away from the
train station is perspective,but the actual end use is like a
mile or two away from the trainstation is um, I sometimes tell
the story and you have a texasaudience.
I took uh dart from the airportdown to downtown dallas and I'm
(06:32):
familiar from that area andthere's a university of dallas
station like oh, that's cool,it's got a tower it'd be awesome
to look at.
Then you get to that stationand realize I don't know where
the university of dallas is fromhere, but it's not at this
station.
Station I realized I don't knowwhere the University of Dallas
is from here, but it's not atthis station.
Turns out it's about a mileaway but it was.
You know you got to get thatlast mile and sort of Texas
weather, texas heat.
You need something else to makethose last mile connections.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Absolutely, and I think Dallas is such an
interesting example because, youknow, while they do have some
decent transit orienteddevelopment happening around
some of their stations, once youget a certain radius away from
that it turns into kind ofsprawling suburbs very quickly
that are currently verydifficult to serve by transit.
And something that's reallyunique about the Woosh system is
(07:17):
that it can kind of solve someof the issues that buses can't
in a lot of cases where awinding bus route through you
know, a bunch of cul-de-sacs andwhatnot through a neighborhood
are difficult to do, whereas ifyou can, you know, implement
this system into the right areas, feeding folks into those train
(07:37):
stations, feeding folks intothose other destinations that
are more suburban.
It feels like a perfect kind ofcomplement to those existing
systems, something I appreciatethat you all kind of talk about
in a lot of your onlinepresences.
Whatnot is that?
And correct me if I'm wronghere, but you're not saying that
this is like the solution totransit everywhere.
But it's a piece of the puzzle,right?
Speaker 1 (07:59):
There is no the solution to transit.
We are not it either.
Yes, we are.
We are the piece that fits ifyou think capacity-wise.
Trains, I really feel like,need a good 8,000 to 10,000
passengers per hour to beeffective.
Buses it's about 1,200passengers an hour is where you
could really peek out a busroute.
In most places in the US that'sa huge gap between transit
(08:22):
systems that are effective at1,200 versus 8,000.
We're in that middle range tofill that massive, massive gap
of opportunity.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Absolutely, I'm curious.
I know that in Sugar Land,Texas is one spot that this has
kind of been talked about.
Are you able to talk about kindof where things are or how that
project kind of came to be?
I know, like you mentioned, wehave a lot of folks.
We're based here in Austin,Texas, but Sugar Land's not too
(08:52):
far away, a suburb of Houston.
I'm curious if you're able toshare anything about that
project.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Well, yeah, it's a problem that is.
What they have is what we calla barrier problem.
Sometimes that's a river,sometimes it's a railroad track,
but in Texas it's often just afreeway and you can have
development on four corners andit all looks dense, but you
can't get from one corner to theother without a lot of hassle,
basically without a car, and sothat's the origin.
(09:18):
They have a nice central sortof downtown community center
area.
They have some other pockets ofdensity and there's just a lot
of traffic everywhere.
But there's a lot of trafficinterconnecting and I really
think there's a lot of averted.
There's like trips that aren'thappening.
If you could just get from oneto the other you could make the
whole area more lively.
So that's the problem they arelooking to solve.
(09:40):
They find us to be an effectivesolution and now they're in a
very that's our most I'd say,most public sector client.
So they're going through thetraditional funding routes of
checking for the different grantsources and such.
So I like that system, I likewhat it can do Really and also
bring people into.
They've got some BRT typeroutes that go into Houston and
(10:02):
that direction, so helping servethose routes would be ideal for
us.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
We'll jump right back into the episode in just a
second, but first, if youhaven't liked this video or left
a comment, please do so.
It helps us out quite a bit andwe also have some exciting news
.
Yeah, if you want to supportthe show.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
We have swag, we have merchandise.
Go check out our store whereyou can get hats, t-shirts,
hoodies, a bunch of other thingscoming.
New designs for that all goingto be coming up in the next few
weeks.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Lastly, if you want to support the show directly and
get access to early episodes,you can do so on Patreon.
But without further ado, let'sjump right back into the episode
.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
One thing that I'd be interested to hear.
So Lewis and I, when we firstbecame obsessed with gondolas,
when we first started talkingabout this podcast, it started
with a happy hour discussionwhere we spent a long amount of
time talking about Austinspecifically and how, if Project
Connect, our current light railinitiative, didn't happen, we
were like, oh, just replace itall with gondolas.
(10:56):
Didn't happen, we were like, oh, just replace it all with
gondolas.
One of those reasons that wewere worried about Project
Connect is just the sheer cost.
Do you have kind of an estimateon how you would compare the
cost of deploying a system likeWoosh in a metropolitan area
versus what we see with lightrail, which can cost billions of
dollars per mile?
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Well, they're not apples to apples.
I mean, that's number one.
We're not trying to replacelight rail.
We're not going to serve your25 mile route from downtown to
Georgetown or wherever no, butwhat we look at are these
pockets where our infrastructurecost is $5 million a mile.
Adding in vehicles, adding inother things you're planning,
(11:40):
other things you're planning.
I think an early system isprobably $20 million a mile for
the first one or two.
Everybody really has talked tous.
It's like just give me three orfour stations to start.
We do have one client in the USwho's likely to be one of the
very first.
That's doing 12, which is great, but most people want just that
small, like a 40, 50, $60million system.
Let's prove that out and thenwe can start expanding from
there, because the economies ofscale it gets more cost
(12:02):
effective as it grows.
So getting that first onechecked off, proven, tested out,
is really how people arestarting to think about it.
And for comparison that $40, $50, $60 million in the transit
world is not much, and that'swhen we have real estate clients
, private sector clients.
A parking garage is going tocost you $50 million, just to
(12:22):
start.
I think the most expensive oneI've worked on is $386 million
for a single parking structure.
So this is small dollars, evenin public sector, but it's also
even small dollars in the realestate world.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
I think a good comparison in the urban setting
is sort of again, I understandyou're trying to connect sort of
point to point service, gettingto larger transit lines, but I
think of like streetcars.
In a lot of cases cities havedeployed streetcars where they
only move so many miles, youknow, five miles of streetcar
line and I feel like this iskind of could be a good
alternative for cities if we'relooking for a cost effective
(12:57):
measure.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
I almost want to disagree with you on the street
car a little bit.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean Ithink.
So we just left kansas city iswhy we're mentioning the street
car and I, I, I get, I get thepoint you're trying to make, but
I almost think, like, like thisisn't gonna be something that's
like replacing, like a fixedline service, and like I like in
kansas city, like that is, thatgets quite a bit of things, but
to feed people into the streetcar, maybe more so I don't know
(13:19):
Kansas City is a bad examplebecause it's a good streetcar.
A bad example, because it's sogood.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
Yeah, but think about what we experienced in Dallas
where we went from South Dallasinto downtown.
That's a use case where you'recrossing a large river.
Maybe the light rail wasn't thebest solution.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Whether you're facing you're hitting a problem where
transit brains struggle withfiguring out where to put us,
because our whole lives havebeen trained on.
It's a, it's a line, it's a busline, it's a train line and the
idea of something that operateseither as loops or even as a
spine, with spurs, buying withSpurs.
(13:57):
It's a little bit of a.
It's not a one-to-onereplacement for any of those
things, which is both atremendous advantage but also a
little bit of a curse whenyou're trying to make apples to
apples comparison or just fit itinto a brain that's always been
trying to figure out where todraw the lines.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Totally Again.
I think to me, like I love theconcept of, I really do think
that this can help fill a voidin the end of the line
connecting into the suburbs,like more difficult to fulfill
areas where, like, traditionaltransit is kind of lacking.
I'm curious, though so whooshis just the the name of this one
(14:33):
piece of Swift cities?
I'm curious, why?
Why the name Swift cities?
And is there kind of somethingelse you're going for with this
whole thing?
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Yeah, when we were at Google and it was originally
Project Swift, we had thosegoals we tried to figure out
there was a solution.
We had several companies underengaged to try to find the right
solution.
A company called home solutionsout of New Zealand came up with
this switchable cable-basedsystem, and so Woosh is their
name for the cable-based system.
(15:04):
The hardware, Swift Cities ishere to put in the software.
That's the magic behind thescenes to run it all and keep
the vehicles getting where youneed to be, when you need to be
there.
And also we are there becausein doing implementation, we're
not here to be Swift TransitCompany and just put in the
system.
The fact of why Google neededthis is there's a maximum
(15:27):
density you can build out.
When you have a car-based world, there's only so many cars.
When you start to add insomething like this, you can now
make a different style ofdevelopment, you can make a
different density of the city.
That's basically impossible tocost effectively do today.
So we are Swift Cities, notjust to deliver the
transportation but to enablethese like cool six to eight to
(15:49):
12 story type density where youstill have your coffee shops,
you're not overwhelmed byskyscrapers, you still have open
space, you still have the worldof Paris, of barcelona, of
those places that you want to goto on vacation.
You can get that by having theright mix of transportation and
land use, and that's a mix thatjust it's hardly it's rare for
(16:11):
it to be cost effective today,because the transportation is
just so hard to get rightabsolutely no, I, uh, I I can't
stop.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
I said to chris just before you came on, I was like I
can't stop thinking about this.
I know, I know you're I'm nothow not sure how familiar with
austin you are, but I would loveto see this as a uh, a
connector from the muellerneighborhood and connecting into
the red line, which currentlythe red line goes so close, but
not close enough to really beable to walk to connecting
mueller to ACC, to that red linestation, to a few other areas
(16:44):
and they're just like.
I mean, there are a millionplaces in my head.
I'm like, wow, this would besuch a cool piece to the puzzle
to really solve some transitproblems.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
Well, I think Austin and a number of just so many of
our, of our sprawling citiesthat have been built really
without being planned fortransit.
The phrase transit orienteddevelopment means the transit is
there.
How do we put developmentaround it?
In most of those cities, it'smore like the development is
already there.
How do we bring transit to it?
So I would call usdevelopment-oriented transit
(17:12):
because, unfortunately, the shiphas sailed where the
development's going to be.
Now.
How do we provide a transitsystem that will work with
reality, not with what we wishwould have happened, you know,
30 years ago, 50 years ago,absolutely.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
I'm curious have you had any direct conversations
with people in some of thesecommunities that have expressed
interest in a solution like this, and what's some of the
feedback you've gotten, evenfrom people that aren't
necessarily on the governmentside or the planning side, but
actual community members?
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Yeah, I think it's been.
We've been 100% responsive.
We haven't been going out andknocking on doors.
We've been responding to peoplewho have a problem and so by
the time they come to us,there's been a bit of a problem
identified.
And when you talk to the people, I think the number one concern
is around where is that goingto go?
Aesthetics do I want that?
And so.
(18:02):
I'll take Dallas as an examplewhere we use them.
We took a map and you draw redlines over all the parts of the
map that are single family homesand tree line streets and all
the places you don't want to go.
You don't want this kind ofthing and I'll say that took off
85 percent of the city, butthat remaining 15% is 70% of the
economic activity in the cityof Dallas.
(18:25):
So we're not trying to goeverywhere.
In fact, most places we're notneeded.
But then you look at the placeswhere we do fit, where people
aren't going to screen thatyou're going over my swimming
pool, that's fine.
There's a tremendous amount ofopportunity.
That's the places where we wantto be.
That's the places you need tomove people.
So I think as long as we comeout and tell people we're not
(18:45):
going over your backyard, it's atrue.
NIMBY.
I mean and I would be the firstto agree with them.
Not in my backyard, but there'splenty of places to go across
the city.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
that is not in anyone's backyard, absolutely.
I've got one more question foryou and then I don't.
Chris, if you've got anotherone, go for it.
Uh, can you walk us through?
Like, how are you envisioningthe rider experience?
Like, kind of, you know, youwalk up to a station, how do you
tell it where to go?
Like just, you know what, whatare the?
And I know you don't, you knowit's not, we don't have it yet
(19:16):
but uh, what is the?
The interface, the system thatyou feel will kind of the end
user will be able to experiencewhile they're riding this?
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Yeah, I will say that most of our early customers are
imagining it being free attheir site, their ski resort,
their development, and so youjust get on and push a button.
But the long-term what you'd bepicturing is the Uber app.
You're telling it where you'regoing, you don't need to be
looking at a route or a schedule.
The stations are generally atgreat, so you just go up like a
(19:47):
bus stop.
You're going to wait for itthere on a sidewalk.
You step into a vehicle, tapyour phone to enter the vehicle.
That tells it the stationyou've already picked out, so
you know you're in the rightvehicle and then at that point
you're done.
You sit back, it takes you upinto the air, it does whatever
turns and switches it needs todo, and you're not going to stop
again until you get to yourdestination.
(20:09):
And so you don't have to worryabout missing your stop or
falling asleep.
It only stops when you're atyour destination.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
It feels similar to like the Waymo.
I don't know if you've had it.
We've had Waymo here in Austinfor a while but that's to me how
the Waymos kind of operate.
You fill it in ahead of time,you press a button, the doors
open and then you're just kindof getting whisked away where
you're going.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
But you're stuck in traffic.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Waymo without the traffic.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
Yes, yeah, I think the only thing I can think of in
the US that I haven't reallypersonally experienced, but the
only thing I can think of that'ssimilar to this, would be
something like the PRT system inMorgantown, west Virginia,
where you have a car that Ithink that will take you point
to point destinations.
It's obviously a pretty smallsystem, but you know, they're
the small cars.
I don't think they're on railbut they run through a track.
(20:56):
That's the only thing that Ican really think of that's
similar.
Are there any other types ofsystems that even come close to
this?
Speaker 1 (21:04):
No, not I mean there's.
There's a similar system atHeathrow airport and one in Abu
Dhabi, but uh, nothing that'slike this.
There's no word port in thetransportation lexicon, so uh,
whooshes is it?
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Awesome, uh, I guess.
Uh, is there, is there anythingwe haven't covered that you'd
like to get to, that you've gotcoming up, or anything like that
.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Well, I mean listening to some of the past
episodes, the tie in betweenland use and transportation.
I think just we just have tobeat that drum that the two are
intricately tied and it's hardbut not impossible to kind of
undo I'm going to say mistakes.
It depends on your point ofview.
(21:46):
But I think many, many, manycities are to the point where
they say, ah, traffic is farworse and it's far worse than
was expected, Way worse thanwhen I moved here.
You know, everybody says that,whether you've moved here two
years ago or 50 years ago,traffic is so much worse than
when I moved here is whateveryone says and it's just
going to keep trending that way.
(22:07):
I think all of our cities aregrowing and some are growing
exponentially fast.
So what do you do?
I think I've already given youthe line of development oriented
transit.
But I think everybody who's outthere Project Connect being a
good example, Everybody who'sout there, Project Connect being
a good example, Great, you canput in transit.
The easiest place to put railis on old freight lines, except
(22:31):
they're not really where anybodyever wanted to live is along
your freight line.
So the rail is kind of in thewrong place.
But building it from scratch,as you said, is now billions of
dollars to take over, right ofway.
So finding that mix isimportant, but I just go back
and say it is a land use problemas much as it's a
transportation problem.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Absolutely.
I couldn't agree more, and Imean, chris and I've said this a
whole bunch of times to eachother.
But, like we, when we startedthis, we didn't think we would
talk about housing nearly asmuch as we do in land use.
And it's like I have learned somuch about land use and zoning
and all of this stuff in thelast year or so, since a year
and a half, since we kind ofbeen doing this so well.
(23:11):
Thank you so much for takingthe time.
I'm curious where can folkslearn more about this?
You know social media website,that sort of thing website, that
sort of thing.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Sure Online, it's Swift Cities, s-w-y-f-t, and
your usual places your internet,your Instagram, your LinkedIn,
and then very soon, and we'rerecording this.
One thing I didn't emphasizewas how quickly we can build.
So we have several clients thatare lining up for 2027
(23:42):
operations we're recording thisin early 25.
Yeah, this is full operations,from planning and design but not
construction started tooperations in 27, with even the
first vehicles moving in 2026.
So, in 13 months, fromconstruction start to having
vehicles moving.
So very, very soon.
(24:02):
Soon we're going to have acouple of announcements on the
two leading locations, uh, andthen we look forward to you
being able to come to a sitenear you or maybe not so near
you and uh, and actually take aride on a system to get a, get
that sense of what it's reallylike, because it's.
I think a lot of people justfeel like we're fairy tale, good
(24:24):
idea, hypothetical, and don'trealize, uh, how close it is to
reality.
So hopefully we'll be on theshow.
Maybe we can all go together tovisit one of these places
absolutely.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
We'd love that love the gifts of a firsthand
experience absolutely well.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Uh, gerald, thank you so much for taking the time.
We really appreciate it Forfolks who are watching.
If you have questions, thoughtsabout this episode, please
leave a comment down below.
We'll.
Maybe we'll take some of them.
We'll make sure Gerald getsthem and we can maybe get you
some answers.
We'd love to be able to, in thefuture, be able to come and
ride one of these things soon.
So, thank you so much fortaking the time For folks
watching.
If you have not liked this videoalready, please consider doing
(25:02):
so.
It helps us out quite a bit.
You can also subscribe or youcan support the show directly
via our patreon.
We also have a brand new merchstore, so if you want to support
the show that way, that isanother way to do it.
Uh, gerald, if you, if youdon't mind playing along with us
here, we always end the show bysaying uh, enjoy the rest of
your transit tensions tuesday.
If you don't mind joining usfor the transit tensions tuesday
(25:24):
, um, awesome, so, uh, thank youall so much for watching and
enjoy the rest of your transittangents that's gonna be a funny
one with zoom, but that's okay.
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