People generally prefer rail to bus service. Rail usually provides a smoother, faster and more reliable ride. However, the faster service comes at the expense of fewer stations. Feeding a train system with buses does not work well because people don’t like to use two services that can both involve long, unpredictable wait times.
This dilemma can be solved by integrating a personal rapid transit (PRT) collector/distributor system into the rail system. People can be expected to view the combined systems almost as one, since the PRT system involves almost no waiting (typically less than one minute). The cost savings of the rail stations that can be eliminated could go a long way to paying for the PRT system while allowing the trains to run faster, The combined systems will provide a much higher level of service with wider coverage, thereby enticing a higher ridership. A bonus would be the increase in land values of the wider area within walking distance of the combined systems.
The Swedes are ahead of us on this concept and are seriously investigating PRT last-mile service between commuter rail and downtown business districts. The UAE has started construction of an auto-free city (Masdar) dependent on PRT for internal transportation. The British have a PRT system about to go into public service at Heathrow Airport. We Americans need to start catching up!
Tags: bus, green, high speed rail, light rail, personal rapid transit, podcar, podcarguru, prtguru, rail, sustainable, transport
Yep. Of course if you had PRT with highway speeds you wouldn’t need rail anyway, but this can be a cheaper first step. Generally any slow bus service between dense areas should be a good candidate for a PRT replacement. And rail stations tend to be in or near commercial centers, so even if people don’t use the PRT to get to the train, they can still use it to do shopping or get to work, which is an extra bonus.
The only problem is that not all residential areas are dense enough to warrant the number of PRT stations you’d need to service the whole area. My own community apaprently has about 350 people per square half mile–is that enough? Probably not since initially the PRT will only be going to a small subset of the places those 350 people need to go. Also, people are not going to like having elevated guideways in front of their house. So there are still some hurdles.
But in some denser residential neighborhoods, this is more of a possibility. In particular, poorer urban neighborhoods tend to be denser and more transit-dependent, and also less well served by the more efficient transit systems; I’m thinking in particular of the outer boroughs of New York City and parts of northern New Jersey. The farther you get from Manhattan, the less dense the subway network is and the more people have to rely on cars, if they have them, or excruciatingly slow buses, if they don’t.
Brooklyn has about 9,000 people per square half mile. It has plenty of access to Manhattan by subway but not everyone lives close to a subway stop, so buses are relied upon as feeders. It’s also difficult to get from one part of the borough to another conveniently by transit if they’re not both along the same subway line. PRT used as a feeder system and to connect subway lines here could get a lot more demand than PRT connecting a sparse suburb to a commuter rail line, and thus pay for itself quicker, while serving an analogous purpose. There are likely similar candidates in outlying parts of other major urban areas–places denser than suburbs but far away enough from central business districts to have poor transit quality or coverage. These are probably better prospects for early adoption than much sparser suburban areas, simply because there is more potential demand per square mile.
Another system worth considering, and likely cheaper to install as it is simply an urban installation of a ski gondola lift, shown here in Medellin Columbia… http://www.skyscraperlife.com/mass-transit-transportation/1926-medellin-cable-car-system-metrocable.html
Yes, a gondola is likely cheaper than a PRT system but also less flexible and scalable. A gondola will usually only have a few stations all in a straight line.
Off-topic, but have you given your presentation to Members of Congress/the Senate?
It seems to me like it is the time to start raising Congressional awareness of PRT as a viable local means of reducing carbon footprint while providing public transportation & jobs.
I have given it to my local Senator’s staff and hope to give it to senior DOT officials soon.
I live in California & we have several areas, most notably City of Santa Cruz & City of San Jose, that are actively looking to implement PRT.
It looks to me like getting Barbara Boxer, Diane Feinstein & the local members of Congress up to speed on the whats & whys of PRT could be very helpful in moving projects forward; particularly if you could get, for example, Larry Page of Google, to lend his credibility as well.
Early this past April, the newspapers were full of stories about NIMBYism toward the plans for High Speed Rail in California, especially on the San Francisco to San Jose route. The public comment period for that route’s EIR was closing, so I hurried to send an email to the CA HSR Authority, suggesting that PRT could solve both the NIMBY and last mile problems. I was surprised learn today that my letter made the cut (along with hundreds of others) for inclusion in the Draft Scoping report. So it is now a matter of public record that at least one person floated the idea of augmenting the HSR system with a PRT aggregator/distributor system. I hope I wasn’t the only one.
I read today that Heathrow has officially moved from the construction phase to the Operational Testing Phase.
Another small step.