"Zero-VMT" was crafted to provide focus on a possible solution to be incorporated into initiatives designed to directly reduce automobile vehicle miles traveled.

The big issue is to start considering this category of vehicle as serious transportation, to spur broad implementation and improvements, and start reaping the significant benefits.

None of this stuff is written in stone. Just remember, some of the first autombiles were called horse-less carriages which may not be considered a great name either. But it did describe a transition.

"WASHINGTON, June 10, 2008 – The American Council On Renewable Energy (ACORE) is joining Congressman James Oberstar (D-8th, MN) Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee announcing the classification of the bicycle as a Renewable Energy Vehicle (REV) and Renewable Zero Emissions Vehicle (RZEV)."

http://www.raceacrossamerica.org/wordpress/?p=690

Please, let's classify a bicycle and other human-powered vehicles as zero-emissions vehicles. It is a clear and easy concept to understand. A zero-VMT vehicle just sounds bizarre.

you may want to revisit an earlier post at #13 gecko:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideal_gas: "The concept of ideal gas is useful in technology because one mole (6.02214 ×1023 particles) of an ideal gas has a volume of 22.4 liters at the standard conditions for temperature and pressure and many common real gases approach this behaviour in these conditions."

Bicycles are nice. They're faster than walking, they're relatively cheap to buy and maintain, they don't require any fuel or emit any pollutants (although cyclists may eat more and fart more than pedestrians), and they're much less dangerous than cars. But they do injure and even kill people on a regular basis, they require an effort to propel (especially up hills or over bridges), and they often take longer than cars or transit, and provide less protection from the elements. Good, but not ideal.

Your latest coinage, "ideal vehicles," is similarly misleading and counterproductive. By definition, ideals do not exist in real life. There is therefore nothing to gain from taking a class of real or planned vehicles and putting this word on it.

I liked it better when you were using specific terms that focused on the benefits of the types vehicles you were promoting.

Hopefully, by now you've have had a chance to think about the purpose and usage of VMT and how it makes absolutely no sense that bicycles and similar ideal vehicles be included in this metric.

The vehicle miles traveled metric has been established to capture information on the use of automobiles at least in part to limit the destructive effects of this type of technology where ideal vehicles provide very viable solutions.

Ideal vehicles have a nullifying effect.

They currently fall short in certain things like automated and distance travel and being operated in hostile manmade and natural environments but not entirely since bicycles have been described as the Italian secret weapon during World War II (to escape the enemy) and the Defense Department recently contracted with Montague to adapt them for use during battle, in particular, by paratroopers. This has evolved to the full-size folding consumer bike under the brand name Swiss Bikes.

Perhaps the Defense Department could be convinced to lead a major design effort around the ideal vehicle to respond to our current dependency on foreign oil and the serious problems of national and local transportation being a major threat to United States security.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideal_gas: "The concept of ideal gas is useful in technology because one mole (6.02214 ×1023 particles) of an ideal gas has a volume of 22.4 liters at the standard conditions for temperature and pressure and many common real gases approach this behaviour in these conditions."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_harmonic_motion: "Mass on a pendulum. In the small-angle approximation, the motion of a pendulum is approximated by simple harmonic motion."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trajectories: A familiar example of a trajectory is the path of a projectile such as a thrown ball or rock. In a greatly simplified model the object moves only under the influence of a uniform homogenous gravitational force field.

VMT = # of vehicles * miles-traveled

if your concern is that VMT as measured by most DOTs does not include non-motorized vehicles then you have a point... but you're kind of butchering the terminology to make your point and in my opinion that doesn't help your cause because absolutely noone in the transportation profession will take the term "zero VMT" vehicles seriously... also, in my opinion, this kind of thing weakens the validity of a source like "streetsblog"... i'm really not trying to be confrontational but it sort of irks me that transportation professionals don't take bike/ped advocates seriously and a lot of the time its because bike/ped advocates come across as having no scientific basis for their arguments... using the term "zero VMT" vehicle just reinforces that image in my opinion

It is also agreed that enclosures on bicycle-like vehicles as on the Aeorider pictured above are as much a liability -- for increased size, weight, and susceptibility to wind -- as they can be of some benefit to improve streamlining and protection from weather.

This is a work in progress with the focus being on designing, building, and using vehicles that do not contribute to vehicle miles traveled and mitigating the extremely troubling and negative effects of accelerating large scale car use.

The focus is not on wordplay despite the fact that the term "Zero VMT Vehicles" is just that.

Zero VMT technology follows a long and very effective tradition of describing phenomena modeled around ideal situations that ignore aspects that are considered negligible. The energy and emissions of a cyclist -- and anyone using a hybrid human-electric vehicle -- compared to someone driving a car are considered to be negligible. Even more importantly, as cycling (and zero VMT usage) replaces car driving and greatly improves transit, there will likely be an accelerating canceling affect.

There's nothing wrong with vehicle miles traveled in principle, it just depends on the vehicle and the externalities associated with it. In our culture, we're trying to reduce VMT because of waste, pollution and carnage. We should separate these out.

From the second law of thermodynamics, there are no "zero waste vehicles": such a thing is as impossible as a perpetual motion machine. The closest you could get would be an "ultra efficient vehicle," but the ultraness of it would change as technology changed.

If I understand the entry properly, these vehicles generate no emissions by themselves, but the human beings do produce more carbon dioxide when riding them than when walking - and if the riders derive energy from meat or processed foods, the livestock raising, food processing and cultivation generate greenhouse gases. So they're "zero emissions vehicles" in a narrow sense, but not in a broad sense.

Since even roller skates generate carnage, I don't believe there's any such thing as a "zero carnage vehicle." If it can go significantly faster than a bicycle, it will be that much more dangerous. Still not as dangerous as a car, of course.

So what we've got is a "relatively efficient, low emission, low-carnage vehicle." Doesn't quite roll off the tongue as well.

And a much less noisier one, too.