A new self-driving monorail will chop 2-hour commutes down to 10 minutes

SkyTran

Imagine if instead of wasting hours in traffic, you could one day fly above it for a price only slightly higher than a subway ride.

That's the idea behind SkyTran, a self-driving monorail designed to hover 20 feet above roads and travel up to 155 mph. The system would turn a two-hour car commute into a 10-minute trip, SkyTran CEO Jerry Sanders tells Tech Insider.

The first SkyTran system will be in Lagos, Nigeria by 2020. The company also just announced that it will launch a track across Yas Island in Abu Dhabi, partnering with local developer Miral. Although there's no official completion date yet, Sanders says there are eventual plans to link the track to the Abu Dhabi International Airport.

Yas Island, a popular tourist hub in Abu Dhabi, attracts over 25 million visitors each year. With the opening of a Warner Bros. theme park in 2018, that number is expected to swell to 30 million.

"Everyone hates commuting, but there are no solutions," Sanders tells Tech Insider. "The only way to get around traffic is to literally go above it."

Take a look.

SkyTran opened a 900-foot test station on the campus of Israel Aerospace Industries near Tel Aviv in late 2015. By the end of 2016, it will start construction of a 25-mile track in Lagos. The track in Abu Dhabi will stretch 10 miles across Yas Island.

Developed by Doug Malewicki, an engineer at NASA's Ames Research Center, the 300-pound pods use magnets to hang from slender rails.

SkyTran

NASA and SkyTran designed four different types of steel and aluminum pods: one that seats two people, one that seats four, one for the disabled, and one for larger cargo. Here's the latest prototype: