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The closest thing to a large-scale, real-world PRT system is the project in Morgantown, WV. However, the vehicles are bigger than those in a PRT system: each one can carry about 20 people. During peak hours they run on a schedule, like a conventional transit system. That system, which was expensive and suffered from many problems, especially at first, may have helped give PRT systems a bad name, says Jerry Schneider, a professor emeritus of urban planning and civil engineering at the University of Washington in Seattle and a long-time advocate of PRTs. "People would get on the vehicles and they wouldn't stop. It got ridiculed roundly in the press. At one point they talked about dynamiting it, tearing it down."
After the initial problems, however, he says that the system has run well--it still transports students at the University of West Virginia. What's more, he says that technology has improved since then--for example, small computers are now more powerful than the large mainframes used to control the Morgantown system. Several new PRT vehicles have been developed and tested on small tracks. But there haven't been adequate demonstrations to convince local governments to approve the new designs and convince investors to take the risk. "The simulations run fine," says Schneider, "But until you put people in the cars and run them out in the open air, you can't really be sure what's going to happen."
While Heathrow and Masdar could provide the demonstrations necessary to convince other cities to adopt PRT, they are special cases with controlled environments, says Luca Guala, a transportation planner at Systematica, a company planning the layout of the PRT system at Masdar. In both cases, cars are banned, so there's no competition. What's more, at Masdar, the organization of buildings within the city has been modified to accommodate the system. Indeed, the city will be constructed so that the main level is several meters above the ground, primarily to make room for the PRT. It will be more challenging to incorporate PRT systems into existing cities. However, he says that the projects at Heathrow and Masdar will help drive down costs, and that could make them feasible elsewhere.
Oil-rich Abu Dhabi is building a green metropolis. Should the rest of the world care?
A city being built in Abu Dhabi will serve as a large-scale test for renewable energy.
This concept is excellent. As indicated in the story, early versions failed to run properly due to computer malfunctions of some type.
Why did they take the human element out in the first place? Keep a conductor in the seat of larger systems so they can make sure the product behaves as intended.
I'm not sure about for the larger systems, but for the 4-6 person PRT, not having a driver and a seat for the driver (etc.) saves a lot of weight relative to the total vehicle weight, reducing energy needs.
A sound innovation that might set
out to safeguard environment on the
strength that, it is electrically
powered, as opposed to conventional
transportation system(s) flanged
with gaseous polution of human atmosphere .
The possessive psycho-socio cultural
practices of mankind stands to be seriously
affected, leaving liberal minds to ponder
possible reactions from conservative folks.
On wide scale implementation, a chunck of
our economy might be comprised, unleashing,
unimaginable impact on humans,revenue, as well
as systems like auto-industry,railway
industry, famous Metro systems etc..
And more importantly,its networth benefits
at this point might be too early to project,
except for very clean and rapid reward of
new system patronage..
Just build a tailgate system.
One that lets me stay exactly 6inches behind someone, automagically.
That would reduce road rage, start-stopping, excessive lane-switching, wrecks, increase thruput.
We aren't going to buy minority-report cars, but we will take some of their features like auto-tailgating...
Why don't you have a "zero" star rating available?
What some people would like is mechanically impossible, so there is no point in wishing for something that can't be done safely.
Think of 20 cars 6 inches apart, and the lead car brakes. What if car #4 is on a slippery patch of road? Think!!
Medieval religious values and modern technology
I find the video hilarious - as it zooms around the futuristic city, you can see that a good number of the women are dressed in burkas. I guess, Sharia law is here to stay.
This bizarre mix also brings up the question of what it really means to be a modern society.
Is it enough to build some futuristic buildings and infrastructure? Is THAT all it takes to be modern?...
If you're being zipped around in some futuristic pod, while you believe in the Islamic volunteerest view according to which there are no natural laws, but that everything functions according to Allah's arbitrary will...well, my friend, if that's the case, I don't think you are a modern person, no matter how many shiny toys that oil money bought you.
Re: Medieval religious values and modern technology
Those burkas may become passe. A maker of science fiction movies was criticized for not having Muslims in his sci-fi epics. He replied the reason there were no Islamic types in these movies was because they were about the future.
One good thing about these personal transports is terrorists will have target-poor opportunities (compared to buses).
This is not the “This is a world first and a new approach to travel." as BAA describes it.
In 1969, West Virginia University filed for a grant from Housing and Urban Development to study the feasibility of such a system.
In 1970, the DOT created the Urban Mass Transportation Administration to further study the options.
Shortly after that, West Virginia created a research demonstration project and with the help of Boeing Aerospace Company and a Frederick R. Harris, a civil and transportation engineering firm in Fairfax, VA, the PRT system was built in 1975.
It's been in use since then in Morgantown, WV where it serves as the model for other systems in London
This is great stuff! The video looks like Venus Project coming true!
it's a very neat video, I especially got a kick out of the oil capitol of the world running on windmill generators.
But the video is 2:20 seconds long and the pod segment is maybe 5 seconds... not really a vido about pods is it?
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I think that shared vehicles like this are going to have some serious problems with "maintenance".
In a typical city culture the shared and unsupervised vehicle concept just is not going to work. If you have ever gone into a public restroom and been revolted by what you found then you will understand what I am talking about.
There are places where it could work, but not across the board, there are just too many "uncultured" people out there. Consider that most people won't be willing to get into a pod saturated with cigarette smoke and consider that rules not withstanding, most smokers won't be stopped from smoking in the pod.
The only alternative would be to put spy cameras and monitors everywhere, which would be a far far worse thing. Orwell tried to warn us of the consequences of allowing our every movement to be tracked our every conversation monitored. We have become much too complacent and naive. There are too many people who are mad for power, and far too many other people who are willing to sell them the technology which shall ultimately be used to enslave us all.
The Middle East is fast running out of oil and must plan for its scarcity or absence. In a few years they will only have enought oil left for their own needs and will cease export. Until a better solution is found, windmill generators are a good idea because the oil capitol must anticipate tomorrow.
too true. a lot of these issues have not been thought through very clearly. there is also the basic maintenance issue of the operating gear. the MTBF cannot be high enough in aggregate across all these pods, or the control system anticipatory enough, to prevent the occasional failure of a pod in a traffic stream. safeties can be implemented to prevent damage/injury, but that will not help the routing/rerouting issue that will cause. a massively parallel track system would likely resolve that, but the cost would be outrageous. not sure we're there yet.
Manufacturing in the United States is in trouble. That's bad news not just for the country's economy but for the future of innovation.
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tomgarven
43 Comments
Ugly Pod - Beautiful Stacker
Kevin:
Excellent post and oh how I wished such a system were in place. Went to Los Angeles last week and traffic was so bad it took 2.5 hours to travel 32 miles on Interstate 10. Waste of my time, my fuel and the aggravation to my brain cells didn't help either :-)
Of course everyone reading this post realizes that the $500-700 billion we send overseas each year to buy oil helped pay for Masdar City. We seem to be satisfied living in crumbling cities instead of something beautiful just as long as we have our gasoline. As Americans we may not be the sharpest cheddar in the deli case after all.
Personally I like the MIT Stacker design much better. It is appealing and in my not so humble opinion, much more stylish than the Pod.
Very good post
tomgarven@hotmail.com
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Kevin Bullis
178 Comments
Re: Ugly Pod - Beautiful Stacker
Thanks Tom. Well said, re: our crumbling cities.
Reply
tech2008view
6 Comments
Re: Ugly Pod - Beautiful Stacker
Hi, currently it is US, Liberia and Burma not using the metric system (temperature included).
It would be amazingly more easy if you guys in these three countries tried to adopt the metrics.
Now I installed Firefox Plugin https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addons/policy/0/2286/48936 which is a neat way to fast learn Celsius, Kilograms and Meters (Kilometers)
So I learnt 32 miles is 51 kilometers. Hmm 2,5 hours for that distance is a lot of waste of energy and time.
Efficiency is the word of the day.
Regards!
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