Evansville Rail: Personal Rapid Transit A Hit At London's Heathrow Airport

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Personal Rapid Transit A Hit At London's Heathrow Airport

(howstuffworks.com)

Earlier, on my other blog Evansville Moving Forward, I talked about the need for a system called Personal Rapid Transit (PRT)....

http://evansvillemovingforward.blogspot.com/2010/02/top-ten-reasons-evansville-needs.html

http://evansvillemovingforward.blogspot.com/2010/01/establish-personal-rapid-transit-system.html

The only system close to PRT currently in the United States is the system at Morgantown, West Virginia on the campus of WVU...

http://transportation.wvu.edu/prt

This is the kind of system we need if we have any desire to take our transportation system to the next level. Light rail, high speed rail, commuter rail, maglev rail, freight rail, and cable cars will all compliment this system perfectly. It, along with all the various forms of rail, is the future!

This past week confirmed that fact as we have received good news from over the Atlantic Ocean where Heathrow Airport in London has built their first PRT system...

http://www.citymobil-project.eu/site/en/SP1%20Heathrow%20PRT.php

http://www.citymobil-project.eu/site/en/newsDetail.php?nid=98

The last six months at Heathrow has seen the ULTra system complete final
operational testing and enter passenger service. On Monday 18th April 2011, T5
Business Car Park passengers started using the Heathrow Pod. In the weeks that
followed, operating hours were increased, with the system operating a (22 hour)
full service from the 7th May. By the start of June, nearly 20,000 journeys had
been completed. Indeed, performance has been such that BAA has withdrawn the bus
service from this car park, ensuring all passengers travel to and from T5 by the
Heathrow pod. Feedback from the T5 Business Car Park users has been
overwhelmingly positive, with passengers undertaking the five minute ride
to/from the T5 Business Car Park to T5 describing it as "futuristic", "rapid"
and "a transport revelation". This feedback has been seen both informally, in
comments to staff and through posts on twitter.

As predicted, PRT has been a hit in London. It has received nothing but positive feedback as it has done a magnificent job transporting passengers to and from the airport.

This begs the question: Will Evansville ever be willing to try this new form of technology?

Unfortunately, our town is very hesitant to take on new technologies. We like to stick with what we knew use to work regardless of the fact that it may not work today. Our attitude that roads are great while new transportation technologies are a gimmick is unacceptable.

We have a golden opportunity to change the city of Evansville in a drastic way. Why not bring PRT to Evansville?

(cleanfleetreport.com)

1 comment:

UnknownMarch 2, 2014 at 4:09 AM
Very well written.
Cheap gatwick parking

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Did You Know?

-An intercity high-speed passenger train is three times as energy efficient as commercial air, and six times as efficient as a car traveling with one occupant.

-Switching 5% of US highway travel to high-speed passenger rail would save more that one-sixth the amount of oil imported annually from the Middle East.

-High-Speed Rail service requires less land acquisition that other modes of travel. According to the Worldwatch Institute, two railroad tracks can carry as many people per hour as sixteen lanes of highway. Farmlands and environmentally-sensitive geography are preserved.

-One railway track mile uses 0.42 football field(s) worth of land compared to one highway mile that equals 1.10.

-One Virginia Railway Express commuter train can equal as many as 800 cars taken off the highway.

-One intermodal freight train can equal up to 300 tractor-trailers.

-For every $1 invested in public transportation such as intercity passenger rail, $4 is returned in economic development.

-One regional passenger train equals 4 regional planes

-For the cost of building a third airport in the Chicago area, a network of high-speed trains could be built in nine states and serve far more travelers.

-In addition, the cost of building quality interstate highways in urban areas cost between $15 and $20 Million per mile, while infrastructure for high-speed passenger trains traveling at 125 mph costs between $3 and $6 Million per mile.

-In over 35 years of operation, the high-speed passenger rail system, carrying over 6 million passengers a day, worldwide, has only had a few minor incidents and one fatal accident.

-In the United States, Amtrak's Metroliner, a passenger train traveling at 125 Mph between New York and Washington, has had no passenger fatalities since it was established in 1986. Compare that to 500,000 motor vehicle fatalities in the United States since 1986.

-High-speed trains speed travelers from city center to city center. For most passengers, the rest of the trip is a simple walk or short taxi ride from the train station to their final destination.