Urban Mobility 2011 | September 08, 2011 | 13 comments

Getting on Board with Personal Rapid Transit

Personal Rapid Transit systems, like the one found in London’s Heathrow airport, sound like the perfect solution to air and noise pollution caused by other forms of mass transit. The biggest hurdle to overcome, as noted by Vectus’ designer Christoffer Ogeus, is not the technology itself but the price-tag associated with constructing new PRT networks.

Costing nearly $80 million to build, systems like the PRT are not a top priority for most urban areas as policy makers are afraid to take risks on ‘unproven’ investments. As seen in previous Urban Mobility segments, the design and technology exist to build cleaner and safer means of transportation; however, getting the projects beyond the development phase is another story.

How would you convince your local policy-makers to consider systems like the PRT for your city? Or do you think there are other alternatives to government-funded transportation projects?

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13 comments // Getting on Board with Personal Rapid Transit

  • Avidor
  • WiselinePRT
    • +1
      WiselinePRT  
    • Avidor:

      Thanks for helping me prove my points. Community participation on transit is robust, and shows elected officials and interest groups are doing their due diligence.

      PRT as you have described it over the years doesn't resemble the PRT happening in the real world.

      So where is the alleged right wing anti-transit conspiracy, hoodwinking towns into building PRT and not conventional systems? There are cities and countries all over the world saying Yes AND No to PRT proposals -- hardly the stuff of dark conspiracies.

      And the ones that are saying Yes aren't throwing out their existing systems. They're looking to use PRT to help their over transit networks work better. The so-called PRT conspiracy isn't doing a very good job.

      The UK started looking at PRT originally because it needed more tools to achieve CO2 reduction. Sweden is developing PRT (to be feeders to intercity rail) as part of its policy for reducing oil dependence. India wants PRT to meet emissions reductions. Still no right wing conspiracy in evidence.

      Even in your home state of Minnesota, the state is studying how to use PRT, and what they're saying is if adopted PRT would serve certain niches and complement other transit, not compete with it.

      I say again, technology isn't ideological, it's HOW PEOPLE IMPLEMENT IT that is ideological. Jim Crow made African Americans sit in the backs of buses, but that didn't make buses racist.

      If a community is considering PRT and doesn't want it to be elitist, or bulky, or built next to historic buildings, or displacing trees, or any of the claims you have made about PRT -- then DON'T IMPLEMENT IT THAT WAY. And you do that through local citizen participation, which is alive and well, so what is the problem.

    • 8 months ago
  • WiselinePRT
    • +1
      WiselinePRT  

    • The year then-State Sen. Michele Bachmann sponsored a bill for PRT, it was to add the words "personal rapid transit" to the long list of types of projects local jurisdictions could fund through bonding IF THEY SO CHOSE. It did not actually spend any funds.

      That same session, 4 other Republicans and THIRTEEN Democrats authored bills about PRT: http://goo.gl/15WKq but we never hear about *them.*

      You can't just say Bachmann-did-this-with-PRT and therefore PRT is 'Bachmann's boondoggle'. PRT is a concept and technology, it's not Democratic, its not Republican. It can be advocated by environmentalists, it can be advocated by liberals, it can be advocated by libertarians. It could be implemented privately or publicly. It could be planned to compete with trains, it could be planned to complement trains. The politicization of PRT among some opponents and advocates is a distraction; you'd have to ask them about their agendas.

      >DominicBlackwellCooper said:
      >
      >Do you think PRT systems are better run privately or
      >should they be government driven projects?

      My preference is for PRT to be planned and implemented by the public. Transit is a public good because it is on/over public space and impacts the vitality of the communities being served. Fixed guideway routes have monopoly characteristics. Land use is also a major part of the equation, as is energy efficiency and reduction of emissions from the overall transportation system.

      The public therefore has an interest seeing any transit technology provides excellent and equitable service to those paying for it and impacted by it. This includes seeing that the various investments are maximized. Hence I oppose private ownership of transit because corporations are going to be less responsive to community impacts, and private systems could compete with public systems instead of complementing them.

      Furthermore, the monopoly characteristics mean private companies are reluctant to invest in R&D, since public transit planners are also (justifiably) risk averse even with conventional technology. This is why national governments must have a role in PRT development, and have done so historically -- the original US program was led by HUD and the Urban Mass Transportation Administration, and Europe and Japan governments undertook parallel efforts during the same period.

      My point, and I do have one, is that our communities DO participate in planning transit. WE make the final decisions through our planners and elected officials. This is why those who politicize PRT are blowing smoke.

      There are 2 kinds of PRT politicizers:

      A. Inventor-types who are libertarians and advocate private implementation of PRT. They also own some PRT or automated transportation concept, but basically their approach to adoption presupposes the existence of Libertarian Fantasyland and therefore they will never get through a transit agency RFP. This group is small but loud, their influence should not be overestimated.

      B. Supporters of public transit who think PRT is a right wing conspiracy to stop construction of other transit systems. Except they cannot show any examples of that ever happening -- in fact during the time that PRT arose and languished, conventional rail underwent a "renaissance" and is now more popular than ever. Type B arguments depend on misportraying how PRT would work, focusing on people like Bachmann, and trying to shame those not agreeing with them http://is.gd/mkMI0f . This group is also small but loud; however I suppose they must be considered influential since they are very persistent and prevalent on the Interwebs.

      >DominicBlackwellCooper also said:
      >Can you give any examples?

      So far Heathrow is an example of a successful public-private implementation, insofar as the R&D was originally funded by UK and EU grants.

      The Raytheon PRT2000 program in Chicago (1990s) is an example of a privately driven public-private that didn't work out for identifiable design reasons. The prototype would have been too expensive to commercialize, so did not go forward.

      The Morgantown PRT was a public implementation that was problematic for project mgmt reasons, driven by politics. It emerged from research in the Kennedy-Johnson administrations, Nixon took it and decided to rush it into service in time for the '72 election. As a result one contractor was told to start designing the guideway before another contractor had designed the vehicles. As a result a large guideway was built just in case the vehicles turned out to be large and heavy. So the guideway was much bigger and expensive then it had to be, which was a factor in why the federal PRT program never built a second system.

      It should be noted the Morgantown PRT became successful once it left behind the early politicization, and focused on building 30+ years of successful operation.

      The record of PRT thus far is no different from those of the numerous major civil engineering projects that went over budget or underwent design changes mid-stream. I suppose it can be attributed to being undertaken by fallible humans. As a species we can only keep trying.

      In conclusion, I hope all PRT implementers learn from Heathrow. It is the first PRT program I can think of that has been built without significant deviation from the original design. It was conceived, planned and built in the open without unreasonable secrecy, and now the public (over 100,000 riders so far) loves it.

    • 8 months ago
  • PRT_Strategies
  • DominicBlackwellCooper
  • wackel
    • +1
      wackel  

    • Actually, in the context of transportation projects, $80 million is not a lot of money. The federal government makes grants of nearly $10 billion each year to state and local governments for transit projects. Federal, state, and local governments spend another $46 billion each year on highways, beyond what they collect in highway taxes and fees. [Source: U.S. Department of Transportation, Bureau of Transportation Statistics, National Transportation Statistics 2010] Nearly all of this money comes with the stipulation that it can only be spent on "proven solutions" – which sounds good, but what it really means is "We don't want to hear about any new ideas." This might make sense if "proven solutions" meant "proven to be successful", but it doesn't. Motor vehicle crashes kill about 40,000 people every year in the U.S. Cars pollute our air, and require imported oil. And the "proven" transit "solutions" are so unpopular that only 1.5% of trips in the U.S. use it. [Source: U.S. Department of Transportation, Bureau of Transportation Statistics, 2001 National Household Travel Survey]

      At election time, candidates like to brag about their leadership skills, but the truth is they are not leaders at all – they're followers. They have zero interest in pursuing initiatives that their constituents haven't heard about. We will never have Personal Rapid Transit on public rights of way until decision makers hear loud and clear that the people demand it.

    • 9 months ago
  • DominicBlackwellCooper
    • +1
      DominicBlackwellCooper  
    • wackel:

      Unfortunately your words ring a bit true. Legislators are unwilling to take risks when it comes to "innovation" and "forward thinking" they run on platforms that promise change, however change is slow in coming if it comes at all. This is why we here at Current offer our growing community insight into new ideas and concepts that we hope will translate to messages sent at election times. Thanks for the post!

    • 8 months ago
  • Avidor
  • DominicBlackwellCooper
  • Avidor
  • DominicBlackwellCooper
    • 0
      DominicBlackwellCooper  
    • Avidor:

      Thank you for the information, we appreciate it as it does offer a well researched and thought out opinion. This is what the community is designed for and we want to ensure that opinions have factual backing without being strictly negative commenting.

    • 8 months ago
  • Avidor
  • WiselinePRT
    • +1
      WiselinePRT  
    • Image
    • Avidor:

      Why focus on unfortunately worded literature by an underfunded citizen group? Today there is a new article showing how PRT is actually being used: http://is.gd/PVLbol

      I quote:

      "...if you are using business parking at T5, it's this or nothing.

      Is that a problem, we ask? Brown doesn’t think so, with BAA telling them that overall customer satisfaction is considerably higher than with the former bus system. People no longer have to wait, he says, and that means less stress getting from parking to the terminal.

      And he seems to be right. While we’ve been talking at one of the terminals there’s been a small stream of people jumping in, with some opting to share the pods rather than insisting on riding on their own. No one seems phased that there is no one around, and all are happy to jump in before being whisked off on their way.

      Our two trips completed, it’s clear that Brown and his company ULTra might have found the next big thing in short distance travel. It is a very pleasant experience indeed.

      Next stop, M25 please!"

    • 8 months ago
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