Google to help develop New Zealand’s pedal monorail

AUCKLAND - Internet giant Google will grant a sum of $1 million to develop a first-of-its-kind pedal-system monorail for use in “traffic-clogged, skyscraper-strewn cities” in New Zealand.

A New Zealand company, Shweeb Holdings, which has been operating a monorail at an adventure park in Rotorua since 2007, beat over 150,000 other ideas and inventions to nab the $1 million award from Google, the New Zealand Herald reported Saturday.

The monorail, designed by Australian Geoff Barnett, uses transparent pods, where travellers have to pedal their pods like bicycles while lying backwards.

The idea came to Barnett when he lived in Tokyo a decade ago. He thought that travelling on overhead cycle monorails was far better than being stuck in traffic jams or building more roads.

After six years of developing the concept in Melbourne, he chose an adventure playground in Rotorua as a venue for tourists to test-ride it.

Barnett has said potential sites were being explored in Europe, the US and Japan.

Shweeb managing director Peter Cossey said commuters would travel at a leisurely speed of 20 km per hour about six metres above the ground, to keep clear of traffic and pedestrians.

“The pods are safer than terrestrial vehicles as you don’t crash into anything and you can’t come off the rail,” Cossey said.

Google wanted the award-winning company to develop a project that would help to move “more people with less energy, greater efficiency and fewer casualties”.