MULTI-MODAL SWEDEN

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.

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.

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.

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.