'Personal Rapid Transit' in the UK?

[HSTEd]

I see a lot of bits and pieces on the internet about 'Personal Rapid Transit' systems that range in size from ULTra through to the Morgantown PRT in the states all the way up to the smaller CityVAL type systems such as that deployed in Rennes.

Does anyone know if these schemes have ever been seriously proposed for general transport use in the United Kingdom?
They would seem to offer a segregated infrastructure transport system for towns at a fraction of the cost of trams or similar - which would allow smaller settlements to make use of them?

With our cheap, efficient variable frequency motor drives and the small power consumption of such vehicles surely there is a market that could be developed?
Advances in computing would also simplify the vehicle control arrangements over 'first generation' people movers?

 

[gazthomas]

I see a lot of bits and pieces on the internet about 'Personal Rapid Transit' systems that range in size from ULTra through to the Morgantown PRT in the states all the way up to the smaller CityVAL type systems such as that deployed in Rennes.

Does anyone know if these schemes have ever been seriously proposed for general transport use in the United Kingdom?
They would seem to offer a segregated infrastructure transport system for towns at a fraction of the cost of trams or similar - which would allow smaller settlements to make use of them?

With our cheap, efficient variable frequency motor drives and the small power consumption of such vehicles surely there is a market that could be developed?
Advances in computing would also simplify the vehicle control arrangements over 'first generation' people movers?

Would be great, but people are still very fond of their C.A.R.S

 

[radamfi]

PRT will be superceded by driverless taxis.

 

[HSTEd]

Driverless taxis with practical electric traction are a long way away. Even with the Model S's 85kWh battery you will eat through the battery in a few hours of intensive driving.

Also CityVAL can get close to 60 vehicles per hour - so even with one 11m carriage that is buckets of capacity.

 

[radamfi]

But the electric car could take itself out of service and drive itself to a charging point when needed, replaced by a fully charged vehicle.

 

[starrymarkb]

Is Zoe back then?

 

[radamfi]

Professor David Begg has recently brought out a report on the implications of driverless transport (trains, buses and cars) for London

http://www.transporttimes.co.uk/Adm...mes_A-2050-Vision-for-London_AW-WEB-READY.pdf

 

[HSTEd]

But the electric car could take itself out of service and drive itself to a charging point when needed, replaced by a fully charged vehicle.

Yes, which means you can't keep your full fleet of vehicles in service.
You are wasting very valuable vehicles.

A PRT vehicle can stay in service all day since it draws its power from the integrated supply system.
The presence of a centralised traffic control system will also permit higher densities of vehicles on routes that autonomous vehicles in an uncontrolled environment.
It will also draw its power far more continuously from the grid and in a more even pattern rather than giant post rush hour spikes.

 

[starrymarkb]

Which requires new tracks to be built. Who's going to pay for a National network of PRT Track?

 

[HSTEd]

Which requires new tracks to be built. Who's going to pay for a National network of PRT Track?

Who pays for any of this stuff?
The taxpayer - and I was not suggesting that it be a universal network as pervasive as cars are now - just that it would fulfill a useful area.
Especially as mass use of driver less cabs is going to collapse our transport infrastructure as everyone starts 'driving' cars everywhere - which will actually do what you are supposed to do and not drive too close to each other.

 

[radamfi]

Yes, which means you can't keep your full fleet of vehicles in service.
You are wasting very valuable vehicles.

Presumably most vehicles would start the day on a full charge and would have enough charge for the morning. After the rush hour there would be less demand so there would be an opportunity for the charge to be topped up so by the evening peak most vehicles would have enough charge for the rest of the day.

 

[edwin_m]

In my view PRT is an attractive concept on the face of it but actually presents several rather major problems for widespread application:

Cost - to compete with the car it would need to provide a huge number of guideways and a station within a short walk of most places within the area it serves. With most of this network carrying fairly small numbers of passengers it's hard to imagine how it could stack up financially. Driverless taxis might be better in this respect because they could use normal roads - assuming the automatic driving equipment itself isn't prohibitively expensive.

Obtrusiveness - Much of this guideway network would need to be elevated, as underground would be even more expensive and a segregated surface route is almost impossible to provide in an existing urban area. But it probably isn't going to be acceptable in heritage areas or where it goes through residential areas at first floor height. Elevated stations are a particular problem - they would need lifts or ramps for wheelchairs and there would need to be huge numbers of them provided. Driverless taxis would avoid this problem.

Antisocial Behaviour - The state some vehicles might get into on a Saturday night in many British towns doesn't bear thinking about, especially as there is no driver to police behaviour or at the very least to organise a cleanup before it is next used. This would also apply to driverless taxis.

Comprehensibility - maybe less of an issue now that people are used to punching a postcode into a satnav, but the human interface needed to select reliably a destination from hundreds or thousands of stops over a large area is still a challenge for either a PRT or a driverless taxi.

To my mind PRT is a solution looking for a problem in nearly every case, and this includes applications in the UK with the possible exception of airports and university campuses. In almost every way a fleet of environmentally-friendly manually-driven taxis would do a better job, and the fare revenue would go via the drivers into the local economy not to pay off the capital to some distant technology company.

It is worth noting that despite the idea of PRT being around since the 70s, with huge numbers of potential suppliers on the internet, the number of operating networks can be counted on the fingers of one hand and even most of these are "group rapid transit" rather than true PRT.

 

[HSTEd]

Presumably most vehicles would start the day on a full charge and would have enough charge for the morning. After the rush hour there would be less demand so there would be an opportunity for the charge to be topped up so by the evening peak most vehicles would have enough charge for the rest of the day.

Two full cycles a day will eat through your battery life to the tune of 700 cycles per year - with almost full discharges unless you want a bigger and even more expensive battery.

You will be lucky if your battery lasts five years - and cars are hardly known for their longevity. And that life will drop even more drastically once you account for the fact you will want a large fraction of your battery still working at your EOL condition.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

In my view PRT is an attractive concept on the face of it but actually presents several rather major problems for widespread application:

Obtrusiveness - Much of this guideway network would need to be elevated, as underground would be even more expensive and a segregated surface route is almost impossible to provide in an existing urban area. But it probably isn't going to be acceptable in heritage areas or where it goes through residential areas at first floor height. Elevated stations are a particular problem - they would need lifts or ramps for wheelchairs and there would need to be huge numbers of them provided. Driverless taxis would avoid this problem.

Driverless taxis have the same issue in that you will have to put in a collosal network of roads to support them - they will probably require even more road space than we have now since if they become as cheap as people believe and people abandon public transport for them.

It is worth noting that despite the idea of PRT being around since the 70s, with huge numbers of potential suppliers on the internet, the number of operating networks can be counted on the fingers of one hand and even most of these are "group rapid transit" rather than true PRT.

There is really a continuum between Group Rapid Transit and PRT.
Even Morgantown PRT - which is believed to be the codifier of the concept only operates as a PRT during off peak hours.

The anti social behaviors can be solved by using modern HD CCTV cameras - which means that if someone reports a vehicle trashed the cameras can be used to determine who was in the vehicle at the time.
Especially now the police are rolling out facial recognition all over the place.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
I also, because its summer holidays and I am bored, drew up a proposal to have a new city (as I reckon building whole cities is the only feasible way to depressurise the housing market in a non catastrophic fashion) where there would be a grid of stations at ~600m stations with horizontal and vertical lines.

That would put every point less than 450m from a station.

 

[WatcherZero]

Wasnt Milton Keynes doing a trial, two phase rollout of PRT?

 

[HSTEd]

It's ULTra but as far as I know nothing has happened about it yet.
Its also an odd system that is half way between a PRT and said driverless taxis.

 

[edwin_m]

Daventry was talking about PRT a few years ago but seems to have gone quiet.

 

[HSTEd]

I think Mini Metros derived from similar equipment certainly have a useful roll to fill.

Buses suffer from image problem as well as difficulties caused by unreliable timetabling.
Just look at the Manchester 42/43 timetables both on and off peak.

 

[Bald Rick]

A PRT vehicle can stay in service all day since it draws its power from the integrated supply system.

The ULTra system at Heathrow T5 is based on battery vehicles, which charge at the docking stations. Suspect it was cheaper to do it this way than installing the power distribution and contact system.


I do remember seeing a crayonista proposal for a PRT in London, that was at least 20 years ago.

Driverless taxis / cars etc will not be a major threat to urban rail systems, or as a replacement for longer distance rail journeys that start or finish in a major city. The railway will always win due to the benefit of a high capacity, (relatively) high speed, segregated system being quicker than any possible road based system.

However, I can see a time in the next 30 years or so where the rural railway becomes largely irrelevant.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Professor David Begg has recently brought out a report on the implications of driverless transport (trains, buses and cars) for London

http://www.transporttimes.co.uk/Adm...mes_A-2050-Vision-for-London_AW-WEB-READY.pdf

Excellent report, recommended reading.

 

[MK Tom]

Wasnt Milton Keynes doing a trial, two phase rollout of PRT?

The infamous 'pods'. Yeah it's a fully funded scheme; self-driving pods going up and down the pavements alongside Midsummer Boulevard. Everyone here thinks it's the daftest idea in a long time. There are a lot of other more useful public transport projects in MK that £3m could be spent on.

 

[Tibbs]

Presumably most vehicles would start the day on a full charge and would have enough charge for the morning. After the rush hour there would be less demand so there would be an opportunity for the charge to be topped up so by the evening peak most vehicles would have enough charge for the rest of the day.

Or have the batteries on module that can be swapped out. Run in, swap the batteries, back out again.

 

[MarkyT]

Podaris are are developing collaborative web based tools for planning transport networks, initially concentrating on the ATN 'automated transit network' concept including the PRT/GRT running on dedicated elevated infrastructure and similar robocar/bus paradigms using public roads to an extent, where these would be operated on a public transport or taxi model on defined networks.

http://www.podaris.com/

I think distributed control systems neccessary for automating small scale on demand transit systems are only now becoming capable and reliable enough for development of this kind of transport. Although the notion of PRT has been around for decades, the reality is that the technology required to really build it out on a scale wider than a few test tracks has not been cheap or ubiquitous enough, and the techniques for integrating such highly distributed systems are now much better understood in the modern age of app and gadget. Sensors, small processor systems and communications grids are becoming sufficiently cheap and capable enough to allow a potential explosion of these transport concepts.

Small scale feeder pod networks could fit very well with conventional rail systems acting as 'last mile', 'on demand' augmentation, extending catchment areas beyond typical reasonable walking distance. Railways could thus concentrate on the longer interurban flows with greater stop spacing where their speed and energy use advantages can be exploited more fully.

 

[edwin_m]

Sorry, I have to disagree. The issue is not immature technology but the fact that in most cases PRT is a solution looking for a problem. As I explained further back, the proponents do not take account of the fundamental economic and social factors.

 

[deltic]

Daventry was talking about PRT a few years ago but seems to have gone quiet.

I worked on the Daventry proposals some years ago - we developed a network for the whole town. While the system would easily cover its operating costs, construction costs are significant and it would require substantial elevated running to cross roads etc. There was hope developers of new housing estates would contribute towards it but then the recession came.

PRT only really works when integrated into new build designs or operating on campsuses or airports. Heathrow had/has plans for an extensive network covering its whole estate plus running off site to hotels etc.

There remain plans throughout the world for PRT but its one of those technologies that no-one wants to build the first extensive network in case it doesnt work as intended.

 

[edwin_m]

I worked on the Daventry proposals some years ago - we developed a network for the whole town. While the system would easily cover its operating costs, construction costs are significant and it would require substantial elevated running to cross roads etc. There was hope developers of new housing estates would contribute towards it but then the recession came.

PRT only really works when integrated into new build designs or operating on campsuses or airports. Heathrow had/has plans for an extensive network covering its whole estate plus running off site to hotels etc.

There remain plans throughout the world for PRT but its one of those technologies that no-one wants to build the first extensive network in case it doesnt work as intended.

Thanks for the comment. From what I recall of the Daventry scheme is was mostly in rather Milton-Keynes-like territory where there were verges of dual carriageways which could be used as guideways with relatively little grade separation. I agree with your view about the relatively few types of places where it might work.

 

[MarkyT]

PRT/GRT and autonomous vehicles are really converging concepts. PRT's traditional proponents often claim that it must be entirely segregated, usually elevated, and a robo-taxi would fail to qualify even if it ran largely on dedicated lanes on a ground level network. In my view podcars could be deployed usefully as local PRT-style small transit networks without the expensive, unsightly, elevated infrastructure. That's not to say that some elevated routes and flyovers could not be constructed for their exclusive use where it made sense, probably most likely in a business park or campus environment, crossing major roads or car parks. In towns such a network could run over public roads where traffic flow is fairly free, use bus and other dedicated lanes to bypass known sites of traffic build up, and the small, quiet, clean vehicles could also share predominantly pedestrian precincts on well marked routes, in a way similar to some pedestrian retail areas hosting tramways through their midst. With a largely ground based system, stations need be no more elaborate than a bus stop. Customers could reject a dirty vehicle and it could be dispatched automatically to a local depot for cleaning. The interior could be designed using best practice for ease of cleaning and once reported the perpetrator of some vile act could be identified using the vehicle's cabin video monitoring and recording and customer records for the specific journey during which it occurred. A charge for cleaning and out of service costs could be levied on the guilty customer, easily identifiable if a personalised ride-card system like Oyster was the only way of using and paying for the service. A strike or points system could also be used to exclude troublesome customers entirely from vehicles after so many fouling incidents.

 

[edwin_m]

Yes, development of Google car type technology has some scope to improve prospects for PRT systems, and incidentally means that if any fully-segregated PRT systems are built they may become expensive white elephants. I still think though that the prospects for either option in the UK are severely limited.

 

[HSTEd]

Without full segregation the system has little to recommend it over actual taxis.
You are still at the mercy of traffic conditions.

 

[radamfi]

A normal taxi requires the driver to be paid. Therefore taxis are generally used when alternatives are unavailable. Whereas a driverless taxi should be cheaper than driving your own car as the costs of ownership are shared among all users and there is no parking to pay for. So a driverless taxi would be used by people who current use buses and also could replace many trips currently undertaken by private car.