Sweden more any other country in the world has
analyzed podcar applications in its cities and towns, comparing them to other
modes. None has built. So far these visions has stayed at the thought level --
something to do to keep balanced during the short days of long dark winters.
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| Visioning community spaces is fun! |
Being a nation of only nine million people with a
third concentrated in and around Stockholm, Sweden has a long list of small towns
where multi-modal PRT analysis has taken place. Umea, Eskilstuna, Varmdo, Flemingsburg,
Upplands Vasby, Kiruna, Bolanderna, Gavle, V, Froelunda, and Sodertalje. They
have also been done for Stockholm’s academic district and as a rail station
distributor in Uppsala. Much of this
work has been done by Ingmar Andreasson and Goran Tegner, but there are many
others who have contributed to these impressive efforts. Multi-modal analysis
goes well beyond the study of whether PRT is feasible.
Andreasson is a native of Sweden’s second largest
city, Gothenburg, where APM and PRT studies have been done, most recently for
the campus of Chalmers Institute of Technology. Tegner residents on a lovely
island suburb connected by rail, road and water to Stockholm.
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| Thinking through junctions in Sweden is serious. |
Tegner and Andreasson presented a paper on one of
the most advanced of these multi-modal studies for a Greater Stockholm big box
retail district know as King’s Curve. Site of the original and the largest Ikea
store, most of the 42,000 people who travel there to shop and work come by car.
Bus ridership was estimated to be 5% - which would be impressive in the US, but
low for transit-friendly Stockholm.
Forecasts of 50%
growth in shopping and traffic were in place. Local officials from the city
of Huddinge had ambitions to preserve its community as a sustainable
society. A dense PRT network was
proposed to connect residential and shopping areas to a metro station with 12
km guideway and 12 stations. Two remote stations were inside major parking
structures to the north and south.
With PRT in place, it was
calculated that King’s Curve transit share would more than triple to twenty
percent, seventeen percent using PRT. Andreasson and Tegner concluded that PRT
would provide an environmental-friendly and attractive complement to the
private car that would increase metropolitan metro and bus travel.
Based on
input from Ultra, Taxi2000 and the currently inactive Australian PRT effort Austrans,
a per-km average of €6m ($8m at today’s rate), about one-third the cost of LRT.
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| What could have been outside Stockholm. |
Simulations
showed a 8 percent reduction in car
traffic in 2015 with PRT. Without PRT the growth in car traffic might be 40 percent.
The social analysis identified that the following benefits:
- Travel
time Savings for car users and for public transport users
- Reduced
road congestion, both on regional roads and inside King’s Curve
- PRT
vehicle & station comfort & convenience gains
- Reduced
air pollution emissions
- Traffic
safety gains
- Increased land values due to reduced surface car parking
Andreasson and Tegner ten years ago surveyed
potential podcar suppliers and analyzed configurations for King’s Curve for Ultra, SkyWeb Express (Taxi 2000), Flyby
(a Scandinavian-Korean venture that evolved into Vectus PRT). They found SkyWeb Express the least costly but needing a
full-sized test track.
