Digital prototypes of a ground-effect aircraft use an upper-surface trailing-section ducted fan to reduce both drag and rolling losses of trucks and railcars with exceptionally good lift-drag ratio (L/D) efficiencies for multimodal rail-highway clearances of 1-5 cm. Extending the multimodality to include flight over water would provide unprecedented seamless connectivity and passenger-oriented end-to-end transit with nonstop routing extending from inland to off-shore. The electric vehicles have a design constraint of a core ground-effect flight transit (GEFT) vehicle having a width of 2.5 meters to allow operation on railways and highways. The problem is the rapid decrease of L/D efficiency as clearances approach and exceed ~0.2 meters. This paper evaluates the impact of fences “skiing” on the water and wing extensions to increase L/D efficiency over water. The data identifies a water-corridor market entry position of extending rail-highway multimodality to rivers, river crossings, and calmer coast waters. The high L/D efficiency teaches toward electric vehicles. Solar panels would be particularly effective at locations with high solar irradiance.

Ground effect flight is able to seamlessly operate across highway, railway, water, and air corridors; but barriers emerge to on transfer to low-pressure tunnels and maglev. The barriers may be overcome with modes of operation that allow open entry to low pressure tunnels and higher speeds and efficiency with ground effect over rails than possible with maglev. Digital prototypes simulated in 2-Dimensional and 3-Dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) have identified that open-entry low pressure tunnels can operate with seamless entry and exit with existing tunnel infrastructure and at speeds faster than airliners when operating with a favorable tunnel tailwind. Bernoulli Loops using tunnel air flow to transfer air between entry and exit locations are quantified with CFD simulations and create both resilience and degrees of multimodal optimization not possible with isolated tunnels. High-impact aspects of the multimodality include the ground-effect flight transit (GEFT) technology of this work including: a) seamlessness across modes from ranging from inner-city subways to open water, b) unprecedented increases in efficiency due to low drag and substantial elimination of rolling losses, c) higher speeds and higher efficiency than alternatives, d) a deployment strategy where inexpensive vehicles exhibit exceptional performance using existing infrastructure, and e) the rapid deployment of electric railcars using current infrastructure.