Some Thoughts on Group Rapid Transit

June 29th, 2011

The Morgantown PRT system which has been operating in Morgantown West Virginia since 1975 is actually a group rapid transit system (GRT). GRT systems have larger vehicles and passengers are typically required to share rides with others going to the same destination(s). These vehicles also typically accommodate standees thereby fitting more passengers into a smaller space. As accustomed as we are to large trains and buses, many believe that larger GRT vehicles make more sense than smaller personal rapid transit (PRT) vehicles. But do they?

Morgantown PRT

Morgantown PRT

The answer is not simple. It depends on many factors. Larger vehicles require larger stations and more substantial guideways. Thus, the capital costs can be higher. The operating savings resulting from carrying more passengers in fewer vehicles can be offset by the additional cost of running larger empty vehicles during off-peak periods.

Because of the standees, GRT vehicles cannot accelerate or decelerate as quickly as PRT vehicles can. This requires greater separation (headway, or time between vehicles) in order to meet the same safety criteria. This in turn means that GRT’s capacity gains are less than would be expected by just comparing vehicle capacities.

2getthere GRT

2getthere GRT

GRT cannot match the high level of service of PRT where everyone gets a seat, nobody waits for more than about a minute and trips are nonstop. With GRT, seats are in relatively short supply. Passengers have to wait (typically up to about five minutes) for other passengers to fill the vehicle. In addition each vehicle may make a number of stops along the way.

The requirement for GRT vehicles to wait for passengers to arrive who all share the same destination(s) means that GRT does not function very well when there are numerous stations in a system. Either the wait times get quite long or most vehicles are nowhere near full.

Nonetheless, GRT can carry more passengers per hour along a guideway. Increased guideway capacity can be a useful attribute for a networked PRT system where there is intense demand between a few station pairs, but the majority of the demand can be handled by PRT vehicles. In this scenario, GRT service between the busy station pairs can be integrated with PRT service elsewhere. If the GRT vehicles can run on the PRT track, it could be feasible to intermingle the vehicles, changing the fleet mix to meet demand fluctuations. Vectus is developing a GRT vehicle that will run on their PRT track. Another solution that could achieve a similar result could be to platoon PRT vehicles together (either physically or electronically). Forming and breaking the platoons in stations could eliminate safety issues associated with doing so on the fly.

Personal rapid transit systems may be well advised to develop ride sharing/platooning/GRT options to meet the capacity demands that are bound to arise as applications become larger and more diverse. Some may bemoan the need to sacrifice some of the “personal” aspects but, in many countries, the demand for mass transportation will predominate. The distinction between PRT and GRT may become blurred.

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Heathrow Personal Rapid Transit System – Unsolicited Tweets/Quotes

June 16th, 2011

Loving the pod!

It’s a fantastic idea, it really does promote not only a great image of Heathrow adopting cutting edge technology but is also fast and convenient!

Used the Heathrow Pod at Terminal 5 on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. I was delighted with it. The staff were helpful and obliging, the Pod call station was very easy to use, the instructions in the Pod itself were very good and clear. The whole process was quick and efficient, it was much easier than taking the bus, and quicker.

Journey starts in my own personal pod at #Heathrow. Makes the airport fun again.

Finally got to use the LHR T5 pods this morning. Truly excellent!

Love T5 & those pods that take you to and from the terminal

Absolutely love the T5 pods.

At LHR t5 – they have personal driverless pods to take you from parking to check in. Fantastic things!

The pod train from business parking to t5 is surely the most exciting form of transport I’ve been on in a long time

The Heathrow Pod – we live in the future! Wider application pls!

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Personal Rapid Transit Reliability

April 7th, 2011

Personal rapid transit (PRT) was originally envisioned as a new mode of urban transit. As such, extreme reliability was not required. It is appropriate to examine PRT’s reliability potential a little more closely now that it is being implemented in airports and under consideration for applications where reliability is very important, if not vital.

Reliability can be defined as the percentage of trips that meet predefined parameters. In a PRT system these parameters could be, for example, 50% of people wait less than one minute and 95% wait less than three minutes. Based on parameters such as these, the 2getthere Masdar PRT system is operating at 99.3% and the ULTra Heathrow PRT system achieved 99.6% during passenger trials. By contrast, the Morgantown PRT system achieves about 98.5%. All of these are considerably higher than transit level of service A which is defined as 97.5%.

Let’s examine what these percentages really mean. 97.5% reliability means that 25 trips out of one thousand (one in 40) do not meet requirements. So, if you have forty work trips a month on a bus system operating at level of service A, you can expect to be late for work, or late home, once a month.

98.5% means 15 trips per thousand do not meet requirements. This is 1.6 times (25/15) more reliable than 97.5%. Similarly 99.6% is 6.25 times (25/4) more reliable than transit level of service A.

PRT system developers can predict reliability by knowing the mean time between failures for critical components. It is good to see that both ULTra and 2getthere are achieving public service reliability values similar to those commonly seen on airport people movers. This implies that their statistical analyses of reliability issues were accurate.

While it is acceptable on most systems for a small percentage of passengers to receive slightly lower than desirable service every day, the question arises as to how often the system will fail completely and how is such failure defined. Let’s define complete failure as the entire system breaking down for 15 minutes and then immediately resuming full service. If the system we are considering has 0.0% reliability of serving essentially all passengers in 0 minutes and 99.5% reliability of serving essentially all passengers in 3 minutes, it is clear that the reliability at 15 minutes will be extremely high. This means that the chances of such a breakdown from known causes of failure will be extremely remote.

Extensive breakdowns are typically caused by unknown causes of failure which, by definition, cannot be statistically estimated. These failures are of two basic types – those that also impact most surrounding systems and those that only impact the system of concern. The latter type is the one that must be protected against. Fortunately it should be extremely rare. Nonetheless, if the PRT system is vital to facility operations, breakdowns must be mitigated.

PRT system breakdown mitigation usually takes the form of avoiding single points of failure and providing multiple backups or redundancies. Examples include alternative guideways or routings that can route passengers around a temporary guideway issue, backup power sources, redundant computer systems, emergency walkways and backup bus systems. Rather than fail completely, a good PRT system should have the ability to provide degraded, but acceptable, service at all times except when the failure is an event that is so significant as to shut down all other transportation systems in the area.

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Personal Rapid Transit Capacity

January 9th, 2011

The burgeoning interest in personal rapid transit (PRT) in India is highlighting the issue of PRT capacity. This is a fairly complex topic that will be dealt with fairly briefly here. Note: network capacity is much more complex than just the guideway capacity that is dealt with here. PRT capacity is complex because it is impacted by a number of issues:

Brick wall stopping (BWS) criteria. This is a railroad safety criterion that many believe not to be applicable to PRT. Basically BWS requires that a train must be able to stop before hitting a preceding train if that preceding train instantaneously turns into a stationary brick wall. In order to meet BWS the time between trains (or T-Pods in the case of PRT) must be adjusted based on speed and the maximum available, or allowable, deceleration.

Deceleration. The maximum deceleration is a function of the available friction and of whether passengers are standing or sitting, wearing seat belts, etc. The available friction or deceleration force varies with the type of PRT system. PRT systems driven and decelerated by linear induction motors rely on their motors for their primary breaking force and are typically independent of friction and thus weather. The maximum breaking deceleration they apply is typically less than what is available. Rubber-tired PRT systems, on the other hand, are dependent on the friction between their tires and the riding surface which can be dramatically impacted by weather. These systems will usually have weather mitigation plans aimed at maintaining friction above about 0.25G where G is the force of gravity.

Minimum headway. This is the minimum time between vehicles measured from the front of one vehicle to the front of the other. For BWS criteria, it varies from about 1.4 seconds with 0.50G deceleration force at 15 mph to about 3.2 seconds with 0.25G deceleration force at 30 mph. Without BWS criteria many suppliers claim they will achieve minimum headways of 0.5 seconds. Cabintaxi demonstrated 0.5 second PRT headways but never proved endurance or safety at these headways. We therefore believe it prudent to plan for minimum headways of no less than 1.0 seconds. Headway is strongly tied to capacity since reducing headway by half theoretically doubles capacity.

Occupancy. This is the number of passengers per T-pod. Occupancy is also strongly tied to capacity since doubling the occupancy theoretically doubles capacity. However increasing PRT occupancy during peak hours usually involves ride sharing. This can be easily accomplished on small systems with few stations but is difficult to accomplish on large systems with many stations. Imagine how long a passenger bound to station 57 in a 100 station system would have to wait for another to arrive also bound for station 57. Ride sharing protocols to overcome this problem will be the subject of a future article.

The table below provides the theoretical guideway capacity in passengers per hour based on variations in the parameters discussed above. The reasonable capacity of PRT guideways is seen to range between about 1,000 and 14,000 passengers per hour. Since PRT systems tend to cost much less than other fixed guideway systems, it is usually useful to compare the costs required to meet the capacity demand.

Capacity2

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Masdar Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) Opens

December 9th, 2010

On Sunday, November 28th, the Masdar PRT system opened to the public. To quote Larry Fabian, 2getthere, the manufacturer, got there. 2getthere operates the system with the support of Singapore Mass Rapid Transit. Masdar City is a new carbon-free city being developed adjacent to Abu Dhabi in the UAE.

The system has 10 passenger and 3 freight vehicles serving 2 passenger and 3 freight stations connected by approximately one mile of track. The system is in operation 18 hours a day, seven days a week serving the Masdar Institute of Technology. Trips take about 2 and a half minutes and are presently free of charge. Average wait times are expected to be about 30 seconds.

Masdar PRT Station

Masdar PRT Station

Robbert Lohmann, Marketing Director for 2getthere, is quick to point out that the elaborate stations are not necessarily reflective of what a station should look like, but more an indication of what one could look like, if desired.

As mentioned previously, it is unlikely that this system will be extended throughout the entire Masdar City as originally planned. However, it is hoped it will be expanded beyond the extent of the present rather limited system.

The Heathrow ULTra PRT system recently achieved 99.6% availability during four weeks of passenger trials. We look forward to receiving availability results from Masdar. It will bode well for PRT if they are in a similar range. To put 99.6% in perspective, it means 4 trips in a thousand do not go as planned. This is six times more reliable than transit level of service A for transit reliability as defined in TRB’s Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) Report 100: Transit Capacity and Quality of Service Manual, where 25 trips per thousand are permitted to be late.

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Urban Personal Rapid Transit Guideways

November 25th, 2010

Communities considering retrofitting personal rapid transit (PRT) guideways in urban settings are finding this is not always easily accomplished. In most situations it is logical for the guideways to be within existing street rights-of-way (ROW) and these are often cluttered/adorned with trees, overhead utility lines, street lights, traffic signals, signs, etc. In addition, the adjoining buildings often have little or no setback and can be significantly impacted by an elevated guideway in close proximity. To help highlight some of the opportunities and hurdles, we have developed a series of illustrations showing different potential guideway locations within an existing urban ROW. They conclude with some ideas for proposed (new) ROWs, highlighting the potential to reduce guideway visual intrusion, while taking advantage of the mobility offered by PRT to also reduce vehicle intrusion. The illustrations can be downloaded here.

The final two sketches are dramatically different than the others and prompt the question: “Shouldn’t this be the ultimate goal of PRT?” Visit this website to learn more about sustainable green cities enabled by PRT.

PRT proponents often promote the concept of using the guideway infrastructure to support streetlights and eliminate the need for overhead utilities. This very logical concept may prove quite difficult to implement in practice. Utility companies presently resist hanging their utilities on each other’s poles – a seemingly equally logical concept.

If common use of the guideway structure is to be accomplished, it will be important that each entity using the structure can obtain unhindered access to their key elements, without hindering the functioning of the key elements of the other entities. Utility lines strung on the guideway structure above a suspended PRT system (such as Beamways, MISTER or SkyTran) may be almost inaccessible, without somehow reaching over the dynamic envelope reserved for moving T-Pods – a maneuver unlikely to pass the safety certification process.

Utilities strung under the guideway of a supported PRT system with the bogie captured within the guideway structure (such as Skyweb Express) might pose similar problems if the guideway covers had to be removed while working in close proximity to the energized utility lines. The best opportunity for PRT and utilities to coexist seems to lie with supported systems of the open guideway type (such as 2getthere, ULTra or Vectus). Such systems could allow almost all PRT maintenance to be accomplished by workers working above the guideway riding surface and almost all utility maintenance to be accomplished by workers working below the guideway riding surface. Thus the riding surface would form a well-defined natural boundary between the systems.

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Why Has Masdar Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) Been Scaled Back?

October 16th, 2010

Masdar City, near Abu Dhabi in the UAE, set out to be a sustainable, zero-carbon, zero-waste community. Part of the premise was to exclude automobiles entirely. The city was going to rely mostly on a personal rapid transit system for internal mobility. A PRT system with some 80 stations and thousands of vehicles was planned. Unfortunately, recent  (October 2010) announcements indicate that this plan has now been scaled back and the PRT system will be confined to a pilot system or a small system serving the area close to the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology. This is a blow to PRT proponents, but is PRT to blame for the setback?

Since PRT does not mix well with street level traffic, most urban plans call for an elevated PRT system with a very small ground-level footprint. This was considered at Masdar, but there was a chicken and egg problem. If the PRT was built first, it would be difficult to integrate it in the buildings to follow. Worse, all the costs would have to be borne by the developer. If the buildings were built first, they could be planned to accommodate and integrate the PRT system, and the building developers could possibly absorb station and other costs. Building developers were slow in coming forward and so the latter, preferable, option was not feasible, although it could possibly still have been accomplished by imposing carefully-planned building requirements (not easily accomplished in the prevailing culture). This, coupled with a desire to provide a pedestrian-friendly “ground” level, led to the decision to raise the pedestrian level, some 7 meters above the ground level to form a “podium” level, and to build the PRT system and the utilities in the undercroft formed below. Future buildings could then be constructed on the podium level with few restrictions.

Rubber-tired, battery-operated PRT vehicle, manufactured by 2getthere, being tested in the undercroft below the podium (pedestrain) level at the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology.

2getthere PRT vehicle in the Masdar undercroft

Putting PRT in the undercroft has proven problematic because:

  • The PRT routing was constrained to follow surface street routing, which is deliberately discontinuous to help prevent windy conditions.
  • The PRT routing is the same as that for special delivery (and, possibly, emergency) vehicles – violating one of the principles of PRT, which is to separate it from other traffic.
  • There is no way of enticing building developers to share the costs of the PRT stations and other elements.

The podium decision was made in more prosperous times. It is an expensive way to build a city, and current economic considerations have resulted in the decision being made not to extend the podium concept and the PRT system throughout the city. Thus the podium/undercroft decision underlies the decision not to extend the PRT system. Hopefully, the PRT system will soon come into successful public service, indicating that it can at least do the first part of what it was acquired to do.

Masdar is apparently considering electric cars and/or buses instead of the PRT system. It is difficult to imagine how this can be accomplished without revisiting the design parameters for the streets which are narrow and discontinuous. It may make much more sense to take a hard look at how an elevated PRT system could work and what it would take to merge it with the undercroft system.

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PRT @LHR 2010 – Summary of Personal Rapid Transit Conference at Heathrow Airport – Days Two and Three

September 25th, 2010

Wednesday – Thursday 22nd – 23rd September 2010

I attended the morning tour of the PRT system thereby missing the first four Wednesday presentations. I had previously seen and ridden on the entire system. However, I had not seen the T-5 station since it was completed. It is an elegant and well-designed facility that appears to have ample space. Strolling around it, one appreciates some of the difficulties of designing for a system few will initially understand. For example, when passengers read “wait here for an empty berth” will they understand what a berth is and be able to determine where one ends and another begins? During the remainder of the tour and the ride the following morning (the system was closed for track maintenance on Wednesday morning), I paid attention to the opinions of others. Perhaps most telling was the comment of a Bombardier representative who indicated the system was much better than he had expected. I was interested in better evaluating the ride quality which, while not perfect, is definitely better than that in the back seat of a taxi.

Sven Beller, PTV AG, discussed the adaptation of existing tools such as VISUM and VISSIM to simulate PRT systems. Necessary adaptations can be scripted through the Application Programming Interface using other tools such as Excel’s Visual Basic for Applications.

Joerg Schweizer, Universita di Bologna presented work he is doing on a PRT Capacity Manual. The manual is intended to provide performance models that are quick and easy to apply with a focus on station operations.

Jochen Rabe, Associate, Ove Arup & Partners Ltd., said that comprehensive PRT networks covering entire cities may not be realistic. Local authorities must compare the transport service benefits of PRT with the visual impact and potential privacy loss.

Gabriele Giustiniani, Researcher, University of Rome ‘La Spienza’, outlined a CityMobil project with a round trip of 1.61km, 11 stops and 6 cybercars. He found the mode share for the cybercars was 10% more than that for a mini bus with the same schedule.

Steve Perliss, Lea+Elliott moderated a Procurement Workshop which included addresses from Bo Olsson, Senior Strategist, Trafikverket, David Holdcroft, PRT Manager, BAA, Martin Lowson, President, ULTra PRT, Robbert Lohman, Commercial Director, 2getthere and Jorgen Gustafsson, Managing Director, Vectus Ltd. Olsson described a two-step procurement process (first qualifications, then price) and said numerous questions must be answered before committing to a procurement process. Holdcroft described the process used to select ULTra. He said they received 15 responses. Lowson and Lohman implied they approved of the BAA procurement process. Perliss said it is important to give responders time to build teams and to bring them in early to get feedback. Ahuja said this is not possible in India where the tender period is limited to 6-8 weeks. Lowson and Lohmann agreed that the supplier must have control of the structural specifications to ensure ride quality and vehicle interfaces are adequate. Gustafsson said clear roles and responsibilities with simple interfaces and a lean organization able to make quick decisions (especially on the client side) were important. He said the Suncheon project will comprise 11km, 40 vehicles with 3M annual visitors. It will be mainly point-to-point and is being financed by Vectus who will receive an annual stipend. Muller pointed out that the workshop seemed to be moving towards guidance for consultants in preparing tender documents and that guidance for owners in moving from considering to implementing PRT was perhaps also needed. Lowson stated that, in his opinion, the ASCE APM standards are insufficient on the topic of safety and that safety clearance requirements vary greatly from country to country and even within some countries like the U.S.A.

Simon Babes, Director, Colin Buchanan, discussed a potential role for PRT in the Chinese megacity of Shanghai. He presented an analysis of a 20km, 20 station PRT system with 500 vehicles and 67,000 daily trips connecting a business park to a metro station. He anticipated fare revenues plus savings in shuttle bus operating costs could cover PRT operating costs and pay back the capital investment in five to ten years.

Richard Caple, Engineer Project Manager, Daventry District Council, said the major concerns for the Daventry PRT project include: visual intrusion; cost; anti-social behavior; ease of use and the complexity of the network. There is no funding presently available but he expects the system will happen eventually. He briefly outlined a document called Outlines for the Implementation of PRT in Urban Areas.

Peter Muller, President, PRT Consulting (the author), suggested that the true benefits of PRT will only be realized when it is used to develop entirely new cities built with a focus on ideal living conditions along with sustainability. He outlined how his vision for a “perfect” city could be enabled by PRT and recommended that those attempting to retrofit existing cities with PRT might want to keep this vision in mind, as something to strive towards. A poll of the audience revealed that about 75% would like to live in such a city.

Colin Bates, Managing Director, Customer Champions reported on a study of ULTra’s previous leads and key contacts. They found that the key barriers to sales were: risk aversion; desire not to be first (Heathrow will help but is not always applicable); urban developments are impacted by politics; PRT is not understood by decision makers; there is a lack of comparable data and proven benefits.

Malcolm Buchanan, Director, Colin Buchanan, summarized the conference. He asked if roads and cars or rail networks could eventually become PRT networks.

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PRT @LHR 2010 – Summary of Personal Rapid Transit Conference at Heathrow Airport – Day One

September 21st, 2010

Tuesday 21st September 2010

The Conference was opened by John Holland-Kaye, Commercial Director, BAA Airports, who said that the PRT system is obtaining 100% records for reliability. He was excited by the chance to create a new form of technology that will change the way people travel.

Fraser Brown, Head of Travel Services, Heathrow Airport Ltd – BAA, listed numerous advantages of the PRT system including: predictable; reduction in journey times; more than 70% have no waiting; reductions in emissions, noise and congestion; improved office rents, land values & availability as well as road safety. He is looking forward to a future where the passenger needs no local knowledge – they will not need to know where they have to go, just what they want to do. The system should be able to account for congestions, last-minute changes and delays in flight schedules.

David Holdcroft, PRT Manager, BAA, outlined completed and on-going system testing and passenger trials. He said that they have found out from passenger trials to date that passengers like the system. They also have learned that there are many aspects of the system that can be improved and have been tweaking such things as the audio message volume, door timings and button sequences. The on-going daily trials include passengers with luggage and are being used to monitor trends in the system status. The recent emergency situation rehearsal provided valuable lessons including that it resulted in duplicative responses from multiple jurisdictions. The system will open once BAA is satisfied with the results of daily trials and full integration of the PRT system with all other airport systems that could interact with it in any way. The integration process involves safety integration, new and updated operations protocols and familiarization of all potentially impacted airport staff.

Mark Griffiths, Head of Operations, ULTra PRT, continued the theme David Holdcroft started and told of unexpected passenger behaviors, such as going to an empty station berth to call a vehicle because they mistakenly assumed the one already waiting in a berth must be broken. He said they have a core staff of 24 for the 24/7 operation. Batteries must be recycled after about 3 months. Opportunity charging in stations allows a full battery pack to keep a vehicle running for several hours.

The Masdar PRT system had a two-hour test last week with 10 vehicles and 25 passengers according to Robbert Lohmann, Commercial Director, 2getthere. He said they put doors on one side of the vehicles only because doors tend to be problematic. However, this has required some special station layouts. When asked about rumors that Masdar is considering abandoning the PRT system for electric cars or other solutions, he said that Masdar is still committed to the PRT system but continually reconsidering their options because of the state of the economy.

Dario Menichetti with Mott MacDonald discussed the modeling of the MASDAR PRT system. They used conventional transportation modeling tools as well as a micro-simulation model in order to model the integrated systems and optimize the PRT topology and network performance.

Michel Parent, Team Manager, INRIA, said that cyber cars are fully-automated individual road vehicles that are part of an optimized transportation system but are not necessarily separated from other traffic. He described a cyber-car demonstration that will run for 6 months (January to June, 2011) with three vehicles in La Rochelle, France.

Tony Kerr, Director, Ove Arup & Partners Ltd., reported that they are now under contract and beginning work on the San José PRT project. The initial portion of the project will include investigating a PRT system connecting the airport to light- and commuter-rail stations.

Magnus Hunhammer, CEO, Institute for Sustainable Transportation described how they have used a full- scale portable PRT station to publicize and educate people about PRT. He also showed a PRT visualization.

John Hammersley with ULTra PRT discussed planning efforts and competition for a PRT system in the historic city of Bath. He said the competition led to overwhelmingly positive response and the PRT system could pay for operating costs and provide a return on investment of 7.3% based on a very reasonable fare.

Henk van Zuylen of The University of Technology, Delft described a PRT system connecting the Airport of Rotterdam and The Hague with existing rail and Scienceport Holland. The 21 km system would have 14 stations and 70 vehicles. Capital costs were estimated at €109M and annual O&M costs at €1.7M. He said the real barriers are institutional and political.

Sonal Ahuja, Director International Development, Capita Symonds Ltd., said there are 17 to 18 PRT projects currently being taken seriously in India where there is no recession and people pay for purchases in cash. He described a PRT study in New Delhi where they had to resort to double guideways to accommodate projected demand using 3 second headways and an occupancy factor of 3.0. The study showed a benefit/cost ratio of 4 and an internal rate of return of 18%.

Martin Lowson, President, ULTRa PRT discussed the design of a high capacity PRT station. He said they have found loading and unloading times to be quite consistent with that on other modes. Door cycle times tend to dominate station dwell times. Station designs can minimize the number of bays required by keeping standby vehicles close by in order to immediately replace departing vehicles.

Arturo Dávila, Project Engineer, IADIADA Automotive Technology SA, described a vehicle platooning system called SAfe Road TRains for the Environment (SARTRE) where the lead vehicle is driven and following ones are driverless. The intent is to increase safety and capacity while reducing energy used.

Ingmar Andréasson, Professor, KTH, discussed the ridership effects of PRT mixed with scheduled transit. He found that conventional transit is inadequate and PRT can increase total transit share and induce more travelling. In order to estimate the new transit share including PRT, all we need to know is the transit disutility and how much it is going to change, if the other modes are going to remain unchanged. He found the bus penalty relative to car to be € 2.50 and the PRT penalty to be half that, when the entire trip is by PRT.

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Mn/DOT Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) Workshop

August 22nd, 2010

A PRT Workshop was hosted by Mn/DOT on August 18, 2010 in the Radisson University Hotel in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The purpose of the workshop was to share responses to Mn/DOT’s request for PRT information and to allow participants to understand PRT benefits and barriers to its implementation and explore the viability of PRT in Minnesota. This blog attempts to succinctly capture what was said and the essence of the workshop which was attended by approximately 100 people with a wide variety of interests in PRT.

Opening Comments

Tom Sorel, Commissioner of the Mn/DOT, said the DOT has an obligation to the citizens to be on the leading edge of all technologies.

Derrell Turner, Division Administrator, FHWA, said that PRT technology fits in well with U.S. Secretary of Transportation, Ray LaHood’s livability and sustainability initiatives. 

Jeff Hamiel, Executive Director, Metropolitan Airports Commission, said that, while the community is still automobile-based, PRT emulates many aspects of the car. PRT appears to be economical, safe, reliable, sustainable and comfortable.

Arlene McCarthy, Director, Metropolitan Council, said we must consider how PRT complements and integrates with the entire system. Funding is a struggle and she questioned if PRT will be a potential drain on public funds. She also asked if PRT promotes good land use.  The Council does not support public funds going to PRT.

Summary of RFI Responses

Mukhtar Thakur, Director, Office of Multimodal Innovation, Mn/DOT said that all responses have been posted at              http://www.dot.state.mn.us/transit/prt/PRTPublicRFISubmittals.pdf He said there are issues to be addressed when trying to establish the feasibility of a PRT application, namely: aesthetics, how it fits in the current land form and surrounding land uses, ROW, and how it’s going to be funded, O&M costs, among others. He summarized the 21 responses to the RFI and found the following to be of interest:

PRT system technologies

  • Hanging pods vs. pods that travel along a guideway or track
  • Magnetically levitated pods vs. motor driven pods
  • True PRT systems vs. quasi PRT systems
  • Fare collection

Costs (planning level) ranged from $8M to $21M per mile

Financing ideas

  • Govt, PPP, Private & Community Interest Company

Aesthetics of various systems

Level of PRT experience among vendors & consultants

Speeds 25 mph – 60 mph

Headways 0.5s – 10s

Timeline from NTP to revenue service 15 – 48 months

In Minnesota there may be interest in PRT in Bloomington, Maple Grove, Ford Plant Site, Edina, Richfield and Winona. Nationally studies are under way or completed in San José, New Jersey and Virginia.

RFI Responders Comments & Reactions from Attendees

Carlos Espinoza with the City of Winona announced that they did not receive an FTA grant. The FTA suggested they consider New Starts funding and/or Section 5309 research funding for a pilot project.

Mike Lester with Taxi 2000 recommended that ASCE APM Standards be used to see how different systems comply.

Dennis Sweet with Citizens for PRT recommended three roles for Mn/DOT:

  1. System requirements
  2. Developing capital & operating costs
  3. Collaborating with other states and communities for common standards

Christopher Perkins with Skytran recommended an aviation risk management model would be more applicable and could avoid incompatibility with legacy requirements.

Policy Issue Panel Discussion

Steve Elkins, Council Member, Bloomington City Council indicated that, while Bloomington is interested in PRT, it does not want to be a guinea pig. If a vendor builds a working system as an amusement park ride at the Mall of America/IKEA site, the city will consider providing them ROW.

Senator David Senjem, MN State Legislature, said he does not think PRT has a champion in Minnesota. Every cause needs a champion. The legislative process is not analytical. This is new to the legislature and they will need a lot of education. Start by selling it locally then request the State match local funds. A demonstration project is absolutely vital.

Barb Thorman, Executive Director, Transit for Livable Communities, said her organization has been publicly critical of PRT but it is good that the conversation has turned to a mix of modes, not one vs. the other. Where does PRT fit in the mix?

Representative Frank Hornstein, MN State Legislature, said he is a PRT skeptic and will stick to demonstrated successful systems until PRT is demonstrated to be successful. He agrees that transportation policy has to focus on reduction in dependence on oil.

Keynote Presentation

Curt Johnson, President, Citistates Group said the major impediment to PRT rolling out has been policy and politics. It is important we get the transportation question right – access – not just mobility. PRT can intensify the use of activity-rich zones – reducing unwelcome auto use, reducing air and noise pollution and raising the quality of life. There is a tendency to overestimate technology in the short term and under estimate it in the long team.

Facilitated Group Discussions

The group brainstormed impediments to PRT implementation, anticipated PRT benefits and principles for PRT deployment in Minnesota.

Dean Zimmerman said people love cars because they wait for you, go directly to your destination and keep you out of the weather. PRT satisfies all three and erases the negatives associated with cars.

There was general discussion of what to do next – select a location? No political will – need a public process? Winona could work with a league of MN cities? Join CPRT? Need to define purpose and need.

Summary Comments & Next Steps

Mukhtar Thakur said that nobody is offering funding. A different model is needed than asking the legislature. Cities are trying to move ahead. Where do we go from here? Is there another Mn/DOT Forum? How do we communicate? Mn/DOT will consider all of the input and decide what next.

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