Newsflash

Heathrow PRT Project Delayed Another Year into 2010

It seems that the opening of the Ultra PRT system constructed at Heathrow Airport outside London, England, has been delayed again, by issues that remain unidentified.

During some intense debate earlier this year involving this website and the engineering team behind the Ultra PRT at Heathrow, it was stated that the system would open for revenue service in the "4th quarter" of 2009, e.g., sometime between October 1, 2009 and December 31, 2009.

In recent British press reports (for example, http://www.ultraprt.com/cms/index.php?page=the-london-science-museum-aug-09 ), the system now reportedly will open "sometime next year." To wit:

The bubble-shaped, driverless cars with black, bug-eyed windows are his solution to the problems of urban travel. He began working on the system in 1995 and NEXT YEAR [2010]  they are due to start operating at Heathrow, carrying passengers from car parks to Terminal 5 [emphasis added].

So what gives? Did the concerns raised here a few months ago sink in, and perhaps produce more "due diligence." Of course, I'm not going to hold my breath for any explanation from Mr. Lowenson et al regarding up to another year of delay.

Also, displaying the Ultra PRT vehicles alongside Stephenson's Rocket is highly presumptuous until PRT is actually proven for several years in revenue service, which it still has to show.

 
PRT Activism Paper Offers Some Insights, But Still Fundamentally Flawed
Perusing Jerry Schneider's vast website documenting Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) and other "innovative" transit technologies, I came across an interesting paper by Nathan Koren, a PRT advocate and Advanced Transit Systems (ATS) employee, PRT Activism: Strategies and Attitudes Towards Conventional Transit. I hadn't seen this year-old (May 2008) paper before, but it deserves a brief review. The Machiavelli and Sun Tzu quotes are an interesting touch.
 

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2008 Cox-Vranich Report Supports Revised California High Speed Rail Patronage Estimates
Written by Administrator   
Tuesday, 09 March 2010
We imagine that our readers (those few of you who remain) might conclude that this post is an early April Fool’s Day gag. It is not: Wendell Cox and Joseph Vranich have predicted that more people would travel over each mile (or kilometer) of high-speed rail (HSR) in California than on most European HSR systems to date - and even on some HSR lines in Japan. For more on this, click here.
 
Publictransit.us 1, PRTistas 0
Written by Administrator   
Tuesday, 02 March 2010
In May 2009, we had this to say about the "Vectus" PRT technology being developed in Sweden: The Vectus PRT vehicle design (http://www.vectusprt.com/) appears to be potentially much more durable, generally due to an all-steel undercarriage design and steel running rails. However, the guidance and switching mechanisms appear to be much more complex compared to ULTra vehicles, possibly meaning its own unique major maintenance and operational difficulties. But my take on Vectus is another long post...

Last Updated ( Thursday, 04 March 2010 )
Read more...
 
Traffic Density References Updated
Written by Michael D. Setty   
Wednesday, 30 December 2009
Since we've tired of battling the pods for now (and probably have bored many readers--well, at least those few left--instead we've updated 10 reference pages for our Traffic Density series. See http://www.publictransit.us/ptlibrary/trafficdensityonline.htm
Last Updated ( Wednesday, 30 December 2009 )
 
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