is-faster effect [77, 75]. Passengers indeed wait more time at stations, but trying only to minimize passenger waiting time by forcing equal headways leads to friction between vehi- cles, since vehicles serving stations with different passenger demands will idle and or leave passengers unattended at stations. Passenger inflow is not predictable, and assuming aver- age flows to force predefined schedules will also lead to friction because of the same reason. On the contrary, the self-organizing method promotes synergy by stigmergy of the vehicles, since they can balance—communicating through the antipheromones—the load of the sys- tem without idling and without collapsing, adapting to the current passenger demand at every station and state of the vehicles. These positive interactions allow the reduction of travel times, which benefit vehicles and passengers. Traditional public transport regulation is more like clockwork, attempting to impose equal headways to changing demands. The self-organizing method is more like a healthy heart, where different intervals adapt to the instant demands of the system. Our current public transportation systems are more like diseased hearts: either too regular (cannot adapt) or arrhythmic (inefficient). As this case study showed, living technology (adaptive, robust, self-organizing) can deliver a higher efficiency than that of traditional systems. Solutions to urban problems require the properties of living systems because problems are constantly changing. This limits their predictability and thus solutions which are unable to adapt to unforeseen situations. Since living systems make a living out of adapting to unforeseen situations, living technology is an excellent candidate for solving urban problems. 5 Beyond the Metaphor: Towards Living Cities Cities will offer a higher quality of life if they exhibit the properties of livings systems. After listing several current and potential urban living technologies, one can ask to what extent speaking about living cities is a mere metaphor and to what extent cities are usefully 25