Monocab Electric Monorails Could Connect Rural Ireland Communities

Rural communities across Ireland could eventually rely on autonomous electric monorails to connect isolated villages to regional rail lines, according to RTÉ.

Living in the countryside often forces residents to plan their days around long distances and infrequent bus services. Owning a car becomes a strict necessity for reaching jobs, schools, and healthcare. That reality locks out young people, older residents, and anyone without a driving licence.

Thorsten Försterling of the OWL University of Applied Sciences and Arts pointed out that rural regions produce essential food, electricity, and housing space that cities lack. Yet that potential remains out of reach without reliable transport.

“Reliable public transport is a crucial part of ensuring that rural residents can access the opportunities of modern society,” Försterling said to RTÉ.

Germany’s Monocab project offers a potential blueprint for tackling this infrastructure gap by repurposing disused railway trackbeds. Developed from voluntary work to save a historic railway line in Lippe, the system uses small battery-electric cabins that balance on a single rail using gyroscopic technology.

This setup allows two-way travel on single tracks. The underlying stabilization concept dates back to a 1909 prototype invented by Louis Brennan, an engineer from Castlebar, County Mayo, which never reached production.

Monocab cabins move continuously like a ski lift rather than running on fixed timetables or requiring on-demand requests. The initiative aims to lower household transportation costs and give independence to rural residents who currently depend on lifts from others. The technology complements existing buses and regional trains rather than replacing them. This approach reuses existing public investments instead of building new infrastructure from scratch.

The European Commission launched preparations for its Right to Stay strategy in May 2026 to ensure people can access local employment and services without leaving their homes. Försterling emphasized that mobility justice remains central to the concept.

“Leaving a rural area should be a choice, not a necessity,” he told RTÉ.

Monocab remains under development and testing. Technical, economic, and regulatory hurdles must clear before regular passenger services can begin. Planners must also measure whether vulnerable groups feel safe enough to use autonomous systems independently. Irish agricultural history also holds past precedents for such engineering ambitions, evidenced by RTÉ Archives reports from 1976 detailing farmer Michael Barry’s plans to restore part of the Lartigue Monorail at Lisselton in County Kerry.