Some 15 people have died after the Gloria funicular railway car in Lisbon, Portugal, derailed and crashed on Wednesday local time.

Emergency services have also confirmed that more than 18 people were also injured, five of them seriously, in the tragedy, which occurred at the start of the evening rush hour.

It follows another accident on the same line in May 2018, when one of the cars derailed due to flaws in the maintenance of its wheels. No one was killed in that incident.

The exact cause of the most recent accident is not yet known. Witnesses have reported that the yellow-and-white tram appeared out of control as it sped downhill, before derailing as it rounded a bend and crashing into a building. Photos of the aftermath show a crumpled heap of cables and steel.

These cable car–like transport systems are rare relics of the 19th century, found in only a few very hilly places around the world. So how do they work? And why are they still in use?

How do funicular railways work?

Trains and trams typically only work on flat terrain. That’s because their steel wheels can’t get enough traction on steel rails on steep hills. As a workaround, railroad engineers often build tunnels through steep mountainsides.

Funicular railways, however, can go up very steep hills.

They usually feature two counterbalanced cars that are attached via a haulage cable.

As one car descends, it helps pull the ascending car up the hillside. The weight of the ascending car also prevents the descending one from careening out of control. Some now have electric motors to help power them and some are able to engage a one-way mechanical drive just for steep hills.

Even though funicular systems are typically quite slow and clunky, they are still popular with both tourists and residents in the places where they’re found.

Where are they found?

The Gloria funicular railway line in Lisbon opened in 1885. One of three funicular lines in Lisbon, it connects the city’s downtown area with the Bairro Alto (Upper Quarter).

But there are other examples of these transport relics around the world.

Switzerland has several funicular railways. The most notable is the Stoosbahn—the steepest funicular in the world. It covers a total ascent of around 744 meters, reaching a gradient of 47 degrees. It is a very popular tourist trip.

In Hong Kong, the Peak Tram is a funicular railway that has operated since 1888 and takes people to near the top of Hong Kong Island.

Last year, there was also some discussion about installing a new funicular railway system in the Blue Mountains in New South Wales, Australia, that would travel 14 meters every second.

The rise of trackless trams

Funicular railways still serve a purpose for people living in—or visiting—steep areas where they’re found. However, newer technology means more conventional forms of rail transport are now far less limited in traveling up and down hills.

For example, trackless trams are kind of a combination between a tram and a bus. They use GPS and digital sensors to move precisely along an invisible track and have rubber wheels, enabling them to ascend gradients of up to 15%. However, these have not yet been built for steeper hills.

I have enjoyed riding such funicular trams in a range of hilly cities, but this crash is likely to take the shine off the tourist experience. It’s about time we had a 21st-century option that is clearly safer.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Kristianne Egbert has worked in occupational ergonomics for nearly 20 years and is now a senior corporate ergonomist at Briotix Health, a workplace injury prevention company. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Egbert also says that repeated use of a laptop alone on a desk is going to have a huge effect on your overall posture.

Egbert referred to what’s known as the 20-degree rule. If you’re holding your neck at an angle of 20 degrees or more, you’re officially crossing the risk threshold. “You’re probably bending over because you’re leaning forward to see that screen and be able to reach the keyboard,” she says.

Sitting back farther in your chair might seem like a fix to the problem temporarily, but in reality, bending beyond 20 degrees isn’t the real issue. Most people aren’t comfortable holding that position for long periods of time, which means it’s what else your body does to compensate that’s problematic.

“Nobody really wants to bend their head that much more than 20 degrees,” Egbert says. “So, when you don’t want to bend your neck forward, then the rest of your body is going to try and accommodate.”

You might tilt your whole back forward to avoid that extreme neck posture to type on the keyboard and see the screen of your laptop. That’s where bad posture habits really form. It’s not that you need to just suck it up and have better posture. You need to change the way you’re working, not necessarily your discipline.

“The other thing that ends up happening when your back starts getting tired is you’re like, ‘OK, well, I’m gonna scoot back a little bit to keep my back a little straighter,’” she says, demonstrating the position over the Zoom call. “But then, my arms are going to come out a little bit more, and I’m anchoring my wrist down while I’m typing.” This position can cause all sorts of other problems.

It’s even worse for shorter people, who are often working from chairs that aren’t tall enough. Egbert often recommends putting the laptop down on the lap, so that your arms can be down “where they belong.” You can tilt the laptop screen and look down at it, cutting the risk of leaning forward too much.

What to Do Instead

Hansker Productivity Mouse

Photograph: Henri Robbins

Fortunately, there are some simple (and even affordable!) solutions to this ergonomic disaster. Both experts I interviewed indicated that your office chair is a good place to start for better posture and office ergonomics. (We have an excellent guide that can help.)

Artificial intelligence (AI) and software-defined vehicle (SDV) supplier Sonatus has launched a platform to help original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) use AI to transform driving and ownership experiences with greater efficiency and lower costs.

The firm believes its Sonatus AI Director will be “game-changing”, enabling OEMs to deploy AI at the vehicle edge to shrink roll-out cycles from months to days, while lowering costs and enabling smarter, safer driving.

Putting the launch into context, Sonatus noted that automotive AI is growing rapidly, citing a market study from Precedence Research, Automotive artificial intelligence (AI) market size and forecast 2025 to 2034, showing that the sector is projected to reach a market size of $46bn annually by 2034, with in-vehicle edge AI software and services being be an increasingly important component of the industry.

The company says OEMs are always seeking innovative ways to deliver customer value across passenger and commercial vehicles throughout their lifecycle. It added that in-vehicle edge AI, fuelled by real-time and contextual vehicle data, allows OEMs to unlock features and capabilities that enable adaptive and personalised driving experiences, proactive maintenance, improved efficiency and optimal vehicle performance.

“The evolving technology and competitive landscape are compelling automakers to transition towards software-defined vehicles and make greater use of AI to improve their business,” said Alex Oyler, consulting director at global automotive research firm SBD Automotive. “Innovative tools … can expand the use of in-vehicle AI to deliver adaptive, intelligent and compelling driving experiences that ensure OEMs stay ahead of global competition.”

Sonatus says successful in-vehicle edge AI is enabled by the capabilities of software-defined vehicles based on building blocks covering everything from the cloud to the vehicle edge, including on-demand access to precise vehicle data. The latter is regarded as a critical foundational element.

To meet the market demand and address technology challenges, Sonatus AI Director has been designed to allow OEMs and suppliers to gain an end-to-end toolchain for model training, validation, optimisation and deployment, while integrating with vehicle data, executing models in isolated environments and providing cloud-based remote monitoring of model performance.

Among the key challenges facing the automotive industry in deploying in-vehicle edge AI that AI Director sets out to solve includes providing a consistent framework that enables OEMs to deploy models from different suppliers with a single platform and across vehicle models. It also looks to allow Tier 1 suppliers to optimise the systems they deliver to OEMs and more easily take advantage of AI across hardware and software technologies, and allow AI model suppliers to gain access to input data from across different subsystems while protecting the intellectual property of their models.

Acting as a toolchain and in-vehicle runtime environment, AI Director is claimed to lower the barriers to edge AI adoption and innovation compared with current alternative approaches using disparate machine learning development tools, reducing efforts from months to weeks or days.

Instead of relying solely on cloud-based models, AI Director is also built to let vehicle manufacturers run AI directly in the vehicle to provide a faster response, reduce data upload costs, preserve data and algorithm privacy, and ultimately ensure continuity across intermittent connectivity. AI Director supports the management and deployment of a range of models spanning many vehicle subsystems with potential benefits including cost, performance, security and efficiency improvements.

Also, Sonatus insisted that rather than waiting for next-generation ECU hardware, OEMs could use AI Director to maximise the value of their existing compute resources, accelerating time to market while also providing a path to scale AI performance as new silicon becomes available. The platform supports a range of model types, including physics- and neural network-based models, as well as small and large language models, catering to diverse vehicle use cases.

“Artificial intelligence is creating opportunities for new ideas that were never before possible in vehicles,” said Jeff Chou, CEO and co-founder of Sonatus. “With Sonatus AI Director, we are empowering OEMs to deploy AI algorithms of all types into vehicles easily and efficiently, unlocking new categories and opening up an ecosystem of innovation that connects cloud, silicon, Tier 1 suppliers and AI model developers.”

Initial launch partners for Sonatus AI Director include automotive silicon provider NXP; compute IP firm Arm; and cloud service provider Amazon Web Services. Also on board are subsystem expert model providers Compredict, Qnovo, Smart Eye and VicOne.