What would be an efficient way to learn the eccentricities of TNG lore?

Especially as, judging by the shots seen of it in Picard, the bridge isn’t actually used for transport anymore - the whole thing was covered in solar panels.

That IS interesting, yes! I would’ve imagined the Federation and United Earth in particular to be so energy rich that covering a bridge in solar panels wouldn’t be especially efficient, especially in an era of antigravity ships and transporters (just put the solar farms UP where there’s no atmosphere). It appears though from those transporter arches we see that transporter tech has advanced enough by the turn of the century to entirely obsolete most other forms of transit. We also see a taxi that, somewhat strangely, looks like a repainted Type 6 shuttle when Picard needs to visit somewhere that reasonably wouldn’t have its own transporter connections.

(in the interests of this not being entirely irrelevant I’m going to link to some resources)

We do see some kind of plates or tubes across the bridge as early as TMP (http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=577&pid=63294#top_display_media) and there’s definitely some kind of turbocar service at Starfleet Command in DS9 (http://ds9.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/4x11/homefront_181.jpg). In the background of a VOY episode we see a reference to some kind of “Trans-Francisco” rapid transit service (https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Trans_Francisco). It seems like in 2370 people still need other means to get around than transporters. We see the bridge get pretty badly wrecked in DS9, so perhaps that’s when they axed whatever service ran across it?

(Trekcore is a useful place if you want to check a visual of something from an episode, as they have MANY screencaps. They also have an excellent sound library if you’d like to introduce those sorts of things to your games! I find a red alert siren or computer warning beep can go a long way)

In the end you can read too deep into this stuff (I assuredly have). I’ve tried to get an idea of what was a) intended and b) reasonable in the Star Trek universe, and write my own content from there. I have a guide to the transit options available for your average Earth resident circa 2368 so that I can set the scene and describe what’s happening when players want to go somewhere. It’s nice for flavour, but quite unnecessary - the operative point is that people can get wherever they would like to go pretty trivially and without worrying about what the cheapest fare is! I don’t think Picard has thrown too big a wrench into my plans, as a lot can happen in thirty years.

With this, my running theory is that civil transport is purely transporter-to-transporter. Archways show a step up in transport speed over transporter pads - the process is completed faster - but going from one machine to another remains the safest and most power-efficient way to transport over pad-to-site/site-to-pad/site-to-site, especially if being operated by automated subroutines rather than an intelligent operator.

So, transporter infrastructure across a planet provides instantaneous travel to and from specific locations (like that cluster of archways at Starfleet Command, or other places where you’ll have lots of people travelling), with more limited access to the kind of “go-anywhere” transporter use which is more power-intensive, requires a more substantial apparatus (you can build a simpler, more reliable transporter if you exclude the ability to project the transport signal to a remote location and re/dematerialize a subject there), and has more potential things that could go wrong.

If you’ve got no access to a transporter that can do site-to-site (or if you’re moving objects too big for public transporters), then using a vehicle covers going to those places where a transporter can’t go. Plus, flying around is more scenic than transporting from place to place, and some people might enjoy flying or not be in so much of a hurry that they need to use a transporter.

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Picard takes an air taxi to visit Raffi. However her place was basicly a trailer out in the “boonies” so that could be why. major population centers almost certainly are linked by transporter.

And that is not a recent development. Sisko said that he regularly beamed home during his academy years. And in TWoK Bones used a transporter to visit Kirk at his birthday.

Sadly we know nearly nothing about civilian life in the Federation, especially on major planets like Earth or Vulcan.

I’ve always assumed that the transporter network for most people would be from pad to pad, almost like taking the bus rather then saying “ohh transport me here” especially as when possiable in trek they seem to beam from transporter pad to transporter pad, and there has to be a reason for that, safety/reliability seems the most likely, given transporter accidents ARE possiable

I’d tend to agree with all of this, and that matches my current assumptions! The double (or more if doing site-to-site) energy expenditure of beaming to or from arbitrary locations is fine if you’re Starfleet officers on a mission, but probably not terribly practical if you’re moving millions of people a day.

Local travel, at least in my interpretation of the world, is mostly a faster and more efficient version of what we have today. Skimmer buses, airtrams, rapid turbocar services. I also reason that suborbital shuttle flights are, in the age of antigravity, an energy efficient and rapid method of transit for those who don’t like transporters. Nicer view that the inside of a transporter station too. I don’t think there would be much need for personal vehicles, at least not on the ‘core worlds’. Less roads and more space for people to be.