Personal Rapid Transit

PRT for Perimeter Center

2010-01-25T21:32:00.000Z

It is with some delight I found this link (here), it looks like the people at GRTA finally got the idea. I was a big proponent ( read PRT bore ) while I worked at GRTA and it looks like now Ultra have a working system they managed to get more cities interested.

I always believed this,

once we have a successful modern working system other cites will see the advantages and have a track record they can get funds against.

Once one city has a succesful PRT system then we will see other PRT systems begin to compete.

I believe the logic for PRT is in escapable.

Shweeb Cycle monorail

2009-08-01T22:16:00.004+01:00

Finally someone has built a cycle monorail, except in Newzeland, but there is a UK company promoting it.

Very cool. Forget the fairground ride. Imagine what would happen if this was in a city. The supporting posts are very narrow not much bigger than lamposts.

Light vehicles means that you get small thin support rails and so you shouldn't get huge numbers of people objecting to the 'visual intrusion' of the overhead rails.

The vehicles are both enclosed so good for rain, wind, vital for a 365 days a year usage. Its important for safety (falling out) and it means you can easily carry stuff with you

The recumbent position means less less wind position and a much better cycling position ( more speed)

I'm very excited by this. Basically you don't get any lighter or more reliable than a bike. Its very quite too.

More importantly you can sail over junctions and traffic lights and you can change the heights of the posts to keep the system on the level. I love the idea that everywhere becomes Holland or Cambridge. On big hills they could put an assist ( like the chains they have for roller coaster rides).

I do wonder about the wheels are they rubber tyres or steel ? Steel is louder but more energy efficient ( less rolling resistance)

Best of luck to the UK company I think they are thinking of it in a transport context.

Canadian flattery

2008-12-15T00:11:00.001Z

Some nice images from Canadian website - should work really well so far north.

internet of things

2008-05-25T22:41:00.002+01:00

I posted this on the new scientist website.

Fifty years ago who would have thought that we would take the ability to send any digital document from a office desk around the world as common place? Yet when you buy something on Amazon or Ebay it still takes days to arrive. Work is often more than information its about things. The internet-of-things would make sending a book, a blood sample or a pizza as simple as sending an email. Autonomous mini robots running on special tracks, moving like packets over the internet could move things from one place to another.

Why stop with things? Next year Heathrow will see the world’s first autonomous taxi system (Ultra) that is faster door-to-door than a car but uses less energy than a bus. Even Microsoft is considering using it for their headquarters. Can work be the same when the trip to work will be cheap, quick, quite, green and chaffer driven?

Vectus PRT

2007-12-20T21:32:00.000Z

Vectus PRT

lovely lovely lovely.

BBC NEWS | UK | Are driverless pods the future?

2007-12-20T10:56:00.000Z

BBC NEWS | UK | Are driverless pods the future?

nice write up over Heathrow travel pod/PRT system.

VECTUS PRT

2007-05-10T23:29:00.000+01:00

VECTUS PRT Well I should be bloging more rapidly (sorry). I'm always quite astonished by teh speed of developement. This stuff looks quite cool Asian money supporting European Engineering - what next ?

MISTER Polish suspended PRT system.

2006-06-01T14:56:00.000+01:00

MISTER

Recently a suspended system (one that hanges down) has appeared from a proposer from Poland. Quite an cools sight one could hardly waste time in recommending.

Naturally I'm all over the technical details. MISTER appears to be well versed in the positive and negative attributes of the various alternative PRT systems out there(good). They have gone for simplicity and using available technology (gets my vote).

They have decided that the vertical "truss mono rail", (hanging down) is simpler lighter and safer. Personally I've always like suspended systems. If you look a skii lift you can have a number of gondolas hanging from a wire. This would make the wire the low visual intrusion option but introduces the problem of how to move from track to track ( switch in the technical parlance).

MISTER appears to have come up with some solution "Finally, use of a "static rail switches" (crossovers), where rails do not move, but gondola suspension-propulsion caddy is switching from one rail onto a parallel section of the other rail, provides for fail safe and non-wearing mechanism of diverging and merging from/onto the main transport rails. It is similar to a freeway exit/entry, except that lines do not join but run in parallel for a while, for a sufficient distance to "jump across". "

I didn't find anything showing how but this switch works, generally this is the core of the system and the thing most PRT systems hold back for a patent. I noticed that one of the links is to Wendell Cox the notorious anti-public transit, anti-smart growth pro sprawl activist. What strange bedfellows MISTER makes.

Well it looks like this system is getting a far amount of interest in Poland (yeah!). Perhaps PRT might have a simpler time emerging from a country where total reform is in the air than a more staid/conventional/formal country like the US. Well definitely a project which could do with more work and a good working prototype to sort out the problems so I wish them my hearty best.

Cities21

2006-02-28T23:24:00.000Z

Steve Raney of Cities21 sent in
this ( and other ) link. It looks like Steve (and others) are doing a lot of hard work to promote this PRT proposal. I think as a poke in the eye to those who think PRT is all hype and porkbarrel this site shows the grass roots support PRT systems have among the digiratii.

I have seen the sight before and did like the logic of it. Microsoft have the cash and potentially the vision to commission a PRT system. You would think the PR value would make it attractive alone.

The montage shots are some of the best I have every seen and give a good visual impression of the overall visual impact of an elevated system. Definitly worth a long visit and a donation.

Transportation Futuristics : A Presentation of the Harmer E. Davis Transportation Library

2006-02-28T22:50:00.000Z

Transportation Futuristics : A Presentation of the Harmer E. Davis Transportation Library

quite a neat website looking at some historical transportation systems including a section on PRT. Yes the idea of PRT has been around for some time. One of the main problems with early designs is the complexity of the vision combined with the low power of the computing hardware + sensor technology.

Love the aerodynamics what's that image. Note half the images are not of PRT systems them selves, but still fun.

PRT interview.

2006-02-09T11:12:00.000Z

I was reading and interview Marsden Burger http://www.metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=8756
quite a good read but I noticed a counter comment by Vukan R. Vuchic.

"A decade ago, Vukan R. Vuchic, a professor of transportation engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, had this to say about personal rapid transit in an article published in the magazine Urban Transport International: "The PRT concept is imagined to capture the advantages of personal service by private car with the high efficiency of rapid transit. Actually, the PRT concept combines two mutually incompatible elements of these two systems: very small vehicles with complicated guideways and stations. Thus, in central cities, where heavy travel volumes could justify investment in guideways, vehicles would be far too small to meet the demand. In suburbs, where small vehicles would be ideal, the extensive infrastructure would be economically unfeasible and environmentally unacceptable."

Kind of interesting and for once coherent critique. Naturally being a family of technologies this makes the idea of 'complicated guideways and stations' hard to truly pin down. Some PRT systems use magnetically levitated track - high speed. This can be simple as a flat plate of metal - it can be more complex. The Ultra system uses roadway - infact this isn't even the kind of expensive ( 10$ millilon per mile) you get under your car but the kind of $10,000 per mile you get under leisure/pedestrian trails. Why so cheap ?The Ultra system is like a golf cart moderately low weight (I've had a golf cart run over my foot and walked away from it). Leasure trails don't have to cope with the huge peak loads provided by giant 16 wheeler trucks. Once elevated the costs go up naturally. For Ultra the stations are bus shelters with a hardened computer terminal.

The computer evaluations I've seen put PRT on a par if not above light rail for high volumes. Again this is not EVERY PRT system. If super high volumes are a problem you can train the PRT cars together. Using sensors digital signalling you can push the vehicles together ( separated by a few inches/cm). This can also reduce wind resistance ( hence energy consumption).

You might this this is a technological impossibly but I knew a guy a GRTA who worked on a DOT(US) project to do this for cars in the 80's. ( see http://www.memagazine.org/backissues/may98/features/smarter/smarter.htm for a description). This concept of platooning ( as it is known technically) was designed to run normal cars on augmented roads to help increase capacity. Its a kind of super smart cruse control. Did the project fail ? No not technically. The problems where institutional. It required a standard set of sensors on each car in the system and the car manufactures would have to agree to standardize on( they wouldn't). The big problem I was told was one of insurance if the guy at the front suddenly switches to manual ( this is just cruise control) and does something out of the normal. If this causes the guy behind you to hit you then who is liable ? The guy at the front, the guy behind, the software company?

This is solved by one authority (company, city) owning the separate track and cars. Again if capacity is a real problem then you really do need a flat escalator /travelator. These have the highest capacities for any form of transport.

Campaign Objectives [Opinion]

2006-01-27T11:48:00.000Z

the objective of this website/blog is to establish a reference system by 2010.

What is a reference system ?

Many organizations involved with transit might well consider a PRT system but they perceive the risk as too great. We are talking huge sums of money here. Every transit system in the world is a complex financial ecology between government, a number of transit providers, the passengers and the the public. It takes a lot to convince them.

Critcally from the transport engineering point of view there is no up front data on how 'attractive' ( to use a non technical term) the system is. That is it is difficult to predict how many people are likely to use the system. With out these numbers then its difficult to put a strong business plan together.

A reference system must be something which members of the public can travel on. It must be do at a small scale what the large system needs to do. A reference system must demonstrate all the key technologies operating and it must do so ideally with out a huge cost over run.

While some may produce objections to Personal Rapid Transit we must differentiate between objections to even bothering to see if it is workable (i.e the reference system) and objections to installing a network of systems in many cites.

For example if you belive PRT will never be cost effective then the you have nothing to fear from building a reference system. All the reference system will do is confirm your suspicions. Many of the oppositions to PRT are to the projections from the system designers.

In many ways the anti-prt lobby create a Catch 22 situation. "There are no current PRT systems. There fore your claims are based on your wild projections. We contend that your projections are dubious. We object to building even one PRT system based on these dubious predictions". Clearly this creates a self fore filling prophecy of objection.

A better way to do this would be - create a test system running with real people on it. If the cost over runs are extensively over that of a similar monorail/light rail system/software project then no other PRT systems should be build.

The real problem with evaluating a new system is that is like ALL new things there will be cost over runs. The cost over runs on the channel tunnel springs to mind and that wasn't using any fundamentally new technology ( just trains and holes). Even the introduction of new fleet of buses in London BBC Link had serious technical difficulties. So to imagine a wholly new PRT technology with no cost overruns is naive in the extreme. A perfect test would have two systems linked side by side so we could more fairly compare the results.

If PRT only offered a 1% or 2% improvement on the current situation then you might not argue that effort would be worth while. PRT does offer the most radical changes to transportation and the urban environment. This is the kind of change we desperately need.

What is personal rapid transit ?(non technical version)

2006-01-25T23:11:00.000Z

It's best to explain this by way of a conceptual journey. You are at your home near Abbyvale and want to go to Bokton.

1) You walk to your local station. Ultimatly most local stations are quite close to domestic developments. The local ( one birth ) stations are quite small. For an elevated Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) System the station could be little more than an elevator on the ground level. On average the walk is the same kind of walk you do to walk to car parking (YMMV).

2) In the station you approach a large ticket machine. This machine lets you pick your destination station. You pay with a travel card ( pay as you go card),credit/debit card or money. Generally you then move to a 'bay' for local stations there are only bay but larger stations (sports arena/station,central stations) have multiple bays.

Like a lift, one door opens to another door and you can enter the carriage/pod/what-ever.

3) You sit on a seat. Like a lift once settled you click/press a 'go' button. Doors shut and your are off. Like a lift if the doors are blocked or the carriage/pod over loaded then the carriage/pod stays put and waits for someone/thing to get out. Unlike a lift you don't share with anyone else. Like a car you can be accompanied by who you choose and like a car everyone has to go to the same destination.

4) The carriage/pod then pulls out and travels along the guide way. Things which a PRT system doesn't do.
a) Stop at every station along the way ( like train/bus)
b) stop at every intersection along the way( like a car/bus)

due to items a) and b) you arrive at your destination station before a train/bus and in the right conditions before the car.

5) You arrive, get out. Unlike a car you don't need to look for parking.

For you the traveler it is that simple.

For some pictures check out
Ultra images/Video
More images
Videos

about me [opinion?]

2006-01-25T16:23:00.000Z

About me

As promised some information about me. My background is as an Engineer with a green/environmental bias and I have work as a Programmer/Researcher into the field of pedestrian movement and have done so in the last 20 years. As such I come into contact with the fields of urban planning and transportation studies.

I also worked for some time in Georiga for the Georgia Regional Transport Authority - a quasi governmental body that was established to do something about pollution/congestion in Atlanta. It was close to being a smart growth led authority, with a strong emphasis on public transit. I left when I wanted to return to England after the birth of my first child. I'm back in the UK now doing more pedestrian research.

So I am not involved with any PRT program/company, I don't receive a penny from evangelizing any of these technologies. I'm not attached to ANY established transit technology and but I know enough about traffic modeling ect to understand the technicalities behind them.

I have a strong interest in how certain technologies are adopted and others are dropped. PRT (in my view) is an interesting case of a Cinderella technology. Some thing which may well change society and the environment for the better.

In general I love new technologies and I love to invent them as well ( see my other blog). I'm not an anti-progress Luddite I also don't think ANY thing new is necessary good.

Please feel free to comment - that's what it's there for.

About this blog

2006-01-25T15:41:00.000Z

I've noticed that there is one blog which has a distinctively anti-PRT feel to it and I thought I would have a go at writing a more even handed one. This isn't to say I am 'fan' of PRT quite the reverse.

There are 80+ proposed PRT systems which cover the full spectrum from poorly considered through to 'ready to go'. I only personally approve of some of them. Some systems are proposed by designers and artists others have a strong engineering background. That is to say some are more workable than others. To be a PRT systems are PRT systems by dent of overlap between them.

To explain PRT is a word like CAR or BUS or Website. While one make of Car/Bus/Website might be fantastic ANY car may be either a pipe dream or a con scheme. Someone may extort money from you on one website but this doesn't mean that ALL websites or are evil and the internet is just a 'scam'. One car might have a technical fault or deficiency but this does not mean that EVERY car of EVERY design has the same fault.

This blog is an attempt to make a journal of the PRT community. I will post some of my own personal opinions but will endeavor to make sure you can tell opinion from fact.

check the other posts for some information about my background so you can make your own judgement on my bias.

For a link to the mother or all PRT websites click here

PRT home

What is Personal rapid transit

2006-01-24T00:13:00.000Z

Personal rapid transit (PRT) is a transport method that offers on-demand non-stop transportation between any two points on a network of specially built guideways. PRT has been reinvented many times because it optimizes standard mathematical models used by transit-planners.
Because it is mathematically optimal, PRT developers and advocates say that it will provide more convenient service than cars, with the social advantages of public transport, and low (excellent) environmental impact. Some advocates estimate PRT's per-mile costs as ranging between $0.10/mile (the cost of a moped) to $0.01/mile (a bicycle is $0.03/mi

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_rapid_transit