Patent ID: 8306833

Claim:
A system for the collective transport of people using a plurality of available individual vehicles without using private vehicles, within a urban territory comprising: a public transportation network having multiple lines along which are located a plurality of station stops and a plurality of transfer stations at at least some intersections of said multiple lines, wherein said territory is equipped with a plurality of parking structures, at least some of which are located at a distance from at least one of the plurality of transfer stations, said distance corresponding to a displacement by foot in a time of a same order as a transfer time required between two intersecting lines of the multiple lines, wherein each parking structure comprises a plurality of boxes for parking at least two of the plurality of available individual vehicles, said plurality of boxes forming at least two rows that provide a handling platform comprising a return area in front of a first row of the at least two rows and a pick-up area in front of a second row of the at least two rows, and wherein each parking structure further comprises a mechanism for an incremental displacement of said boxes in the at least two rows, said mechanism bringing at a level of the handling platform an empty box from the plurality of boxes in the first row and an occupied box from the plurality of boxes containing one of the plurality of available individual vehicles in the second row, wherein the one available individual vehicle is thereafter advanced on the pick-up area, and wherein, when the one individual vehicle is taken from a pick-up area of a first one of the plurality of parking structures, a second of the plurality of available individual vehicles is brought to the handling platform, and wherein, when the one individual vehicle is brought to a return area of a second one of the plurality of parking structures, said one individual vehicle is advanced and introduced in the empty box of the second parking structure at the level of the handling platform, wherein said empty box thereafter containing the one individual vehicle is raised by the mechanism and replaced by a second empty box ready to receive a further vehicle from the plurality of available individual vehicles, wherein each of the plurality of available vehicles is propelled by electricity given by batteries and each of the plurality of boxes is equipped with a means to recharge the vehicle batteries, the number of vehicles stored in each of the plurality of parking structures being based on the necessary time needed to recharge the batteries.