PONDERING THE 3D REALITIES OF PRT

On September 24, much of the world was thrilled to hear Pope Frances tell the USA to think globally about the impacts of its greed and wars. The PRT world was also buzzed by a NPR (National Public Radio) report on PRT possibilities with an impressive interview with Mike Lester of Taxi 2000.

Explaining PRT and its potential benefits to the general public will no doubt start many productive conversations from coast to coast and overseas as well. The balanced conclusion of reporter Joe Palca’s story held up a countering view from a Minnesota official: PRT is an idea whose time has come and, with smart cars in smart cities, gone. The main culprit is the cost and offensiveness of elevated guideways, intersections and station.

Elevated, Shmelevated

Elevated guideways were highlighted upfront by Lester as a major plus. They free vehicle movements from the clutter and danger of street traffic. They overcome the friction of space. Passengers ride faster and safer.

  

However, the onset of automated road vehicles is creating new solutions. Much of the promise of PRT is that it satisfies local circulation and connection needs. Future next-gen roborcars will be able to do this without exclusive guideways. 

Fixed infrastructure makes up about 70% of PRT capital -- even with elevated guideways that are cheap compared to LRT.  So removing them from a mobility service plan is a big thing. It changes the business model dramatically.

For longer trips, exclusive guideways are needed, but PRT must walk before it runs. Ten- or twenty-station networks were considered within technological reach by MTI’s study team last year.  Why? Because Vectus in Suncheon and 2getthere in Masdar both have only two stations -- not networks at all, let alone complex ones. Ultra at Heathrow has three. Morgantown has five -- where on-demand scheduling and fleet management start to get a little complex.

The problems, costs and non-financial “externalities” (violations of privacy, noise, droppings, shade, blockage of views, etc.) of elevated guideways are real. PRT promoters do themselves a disfavor to minimize or ignore them.

Think 3D

Presenting PRT infrastructure as elevated and only elevated ignores the fact that Masdar isn’t elevated at all.  Parts of Heathrow and Morgantown are at grade. Most metros and older LRTs move up and down in 3D reality - with underground, at grade and elevated sections.

PRT is no different. Certainly it can and in many places should be elevated, but it can be even cheaper at grade - enhanced by bunker-like earthwork, plantings and smarter and smarter security systems. In pretty neighborhoods where real people live and shop and walk and where buildings are close together, the expense of tunneling may be quite justified.

Guideways have vertical dimensionality.

In the end, the future of PRT will not be decided by the optimality of the gadgetbahn, but by the sensitivities and lifestyle preferences of three-dimensional neighbors and lawyers. 

WE NEED SMARTER INFRASTRUCTURE

As Congress stalls in dealing with funds for crumbling highway and transit infrastructure, a sense of despair comes over the USA. A consensus that transcends Red/White, economic and racial divisions -- that our Federal system has become dysfunctional -- is upon us. Bernie Sanders’s plea for fundamental societal reform resonates in the heart of America. Is he the FDR of the 21^st century?

To move or not to move?

Our transportation planning process suffers. Highway interests fixed in 20^th century thinking control the many stages of project development that put new concrete and asphalt in our cities and towns. There have been modest gains in attention to walking and biking, sharing streets and accommodating app-based sharing. But on the whole, American life centers on parking lots -- despite the congestion, the pollution and the deadly accidents.

New York Large and Small

There are two New Yorks. One is the world city of 8.5 million residents surrounded by suburbs that make for a region of over $15 million. It is huge and bold and brash.

The other is New York State, and it is a vast network of hamlets, towns and cities nestled among majestically green hills and lakes. Here the scale is small. Bridges are designed in ways that obscure rather than enhance pedestrian life.

Upstate but huge in scale, the project underway for a Hudson River-straddling $5.2-billion Tappan Zee Bridge has no distrinct transit elements. Cost studies estimate adding bus lanes would cost $2.9 billion. Adding rail would require $6.7 billion! They were oblivious to ATN options that would add little to structural requirements.

TransitX sees podcars appended to the new Tappan Zee Bridge.

Jpods on the TZB?

An iconic opportunity has been missed under the watch of Cuomo, the Clintons and the host of New York politicians. With designer flare, light guideways could still be woven into superstructure aesthetics.

This is the same valley in which the more progressive NYS Public Consumer Commissioner hopes to make the Hudson the “Silicon Valley of Energy”.

Jpods has a base of operation in Poughkeepsie an hour to the north. Is it too late to fund a river-straddling PRT with networks on both sides of the mighty Hudson?

BLURRED VISION

New urban mobility options are here. Fleets of private vehicles now use the streets to provide transit- and taxi-like services. Is this the new dual-mode, dubbed DMT in the 1970s?  What does it mean to urban transport officials?

Increasingly smart cars and streets will make us safer.

Robocars are changing the modus operandi of citizens, government, businesses, especially food delivery services. It is already happening. Uber and others are transforming the taxi industry and impacting mass transit. Podcars -- automated on exclusive guideways at high complexity that off-line stations require -- are advancing on many fronts. What guidance is there from Washington?

Vision in Washington

“Silo mentality” is a term often heard in and about Washington DC. FHWA does it highway thing. FTA is a separate silo doing its transit thing. Hardly ever do the twain meet in DC. That maybe was adequate in 1975. 

Today we face a situation where silo officials have to blur there vision. Since 1975 private vehicles have dominated roads and highways largely funded by the FHWA. Public transit edged forward in a separate program and funding silo. Taxis and private buses lurched in the sidelines, with paratransit filled niche roles. It has remained pretty much highway versus transit.

Blurred Modalities

How ironic that we want USDOT officials to get blurry!

Multi-modal shared streets - sketch by Charles Harris

Uber and other ride-sharing groups now allow private vehicles to act as passenger-focused transit, blurring the line between public and private. For passengers with smarter and smarter phones, new apps make it easier to use mobility services from private vehicles operating on public roads.

With GPS someone knows where everyone else is. With the coming of shared cars and rides and robocars, the lines between public and private dim. Bring on dual-mode thinking! 

BRAVE URBAN FUTURES

So fast are transformations sweeping our world forward into the 21^st century that it is difficult to imagine where will be in five or ten years. What will life be like in 2025?  With global communication available everywhere, why do we crowd into big cities? Will scatter over hill and vale, around remote lakes and cliffs continue?

For sure, we can expect cars to be smarter and greener. The new question is -- should you own or share one?

Relics of the past?

So what should government and private enterprise invest in? Do we need more roads, smarter roads with zip lanes, or brand new podcar spaghetti? What is future urban mobility?

Killing Pedestrian Life

From 1950-2000, it seemed right to universally assume wheeled street traffic got us everywhere. Zoning guaranteed ample parking. Services and repairs can by vans and trucks. Ubiquitous traffic crowded out comfortable walking. This shaped the USA into the obese Interstate Nation we have become.

Cargo readily switched from rail to trucking, flooding highways and streets with monster trucks. Life centered around road trips. Getting milk required a car. Walking has been relegated to parks and trails or protected within malls and special districts  -- especially the isle of Manhattan.

Europe and the rest of the world are different. In many places, pedestrian flows are thick and vibrant. But in the USA?

Podcar Futures?

Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) is hot in transit circles these days. It means concentrating tall buildings around transit stations. Within TOD districts, much travel will be by walking, biking, transit and car-sharing.  Parking will be provided peripherally.  Taxis and carts will be easily available.

Such visions are bubbling up in the Metropolitan Planning Organizations across the USA.  MPO officials often include TOD elements in their programs.  A few of them see that podcars can extend the zone of influence of the transit station.

Elevated guideways didn't catch n in the 1970s and 1980s. Will podcars fare better?

The 9^th Podcar City conference this fall will explore how PRT and its derivatives can serve cities, towns and special districts. What are the economics? What implications for energy and climate? How are MPOs handling such complexities?

PCC9 will take place in heart of Silicon Valley, November 4-6. Will local interest be the buzz, or will it come from Greenville SC? Or will excitement be from a surprise project in Jeddah or Istanbul? Who will lead the shift to car-free living?

Register today. Visit www.podcarcity.org. 

ROBO-REALITIES

There is no doubt that the reality of robocars is upon us.

Google is but one of many deep-pocketed companies developing the necessary software and contingent hardware. World auto manufacturers are jockeying to keep up with and form corporate alliances. University classes and programs are engaging students at all robocars levels, using different names. The current “autonomous vehicle” moniker is hardly likely to stick in our ever-evolving techno-English.

The question isn’t whether robocars -- and robo-vans, robo-buses, robo-trucks and robo-SUVs -- will come into our future. Rather, it is how fast and with what trajectories as street vehicles will become smarter and safer. How should the public sector react?  Analysts and investors are eyeing road automation opportunities and high-growth startups. Are robo-roads a more cost-effective investment that the spaghetti of elevated PRT guidedways and stations?

ATN proponents argue that robocars don’t solve congestion and parking problems. They project visions of small vehicles confined to a guideway network (that has to be extensive to be useful). This fixed infrastructure is costly and perhaps offensive. In this way PRT service can be faster than street traffic, and inherently safer. Guideways and stations can easily incorporate solar power collectors. 

But letting those vehicles exit the guideway network to be by driven -- by people or IT -- over streets in what was termed "dual-mode transit" in the 1970s opens up new levels of coverage and even higher levels of service. DMT is the liaison between class PRT and road traffic (automated or not).

PRT vehicles stay at stations (blue dots), whereas DMT vehicles can exit the 'system' and circlulate on streets.
- maps courtesy of LogistikCentrum.

Dual Mode Bridges the Gap

The good thing about tensions between PRT and robocars is that it lifts our level of thinking to a long-range function. What are current and future modal options? What kind of transportation and community life do we want? 

In seeking answers to these questions, policy analysts and investment advisers in urban (land) infrastructure make trade-offs with many environmental and economic factors.

Since the ATN scenario is purely hypothetical, so too is dual-mode transit on a large scale. DMT is simply an open PRT system. Vehicles are designed to be able to exit the guideway and run on roads or other pathways powered by batteries. The speed and range limitations of batteries become irrelevant: the guideways recharge them. Like PRT, DMT can be pursued at metro, regional, mega-regional and national levels.

BOSTON BREAK-UP

Like most states across the US, Massachusetts is in fiscal crisis. Infrastructure needs are especially great after a tough winter in Boston. Revenues are short, and few funds are coming from Washington.

The “T” (Boston’s transit agency, the MBTA) is especially hard hit. Unions are worried that worker well-being is at risk with as new Republican governor sets out a new political agenda.

What future for taxi drivers?
And train conductor?

Applications for cab drivers are down. They are up for Uber. So taxi owners and drivers anxiously watch as a rewriting of state and municipal regulations for taxi, limousines and related public conveyances take place. Complicating this volatile mix, Bridj is expanding app-accessed bus service throughout the historic Hub of the Universe. Meanwhile, MIT hums with new technology ideas.

Several state senators are excited about mobility innovation for the Commonwealth. Hearing PRT pitches from Jpods, they say they are ready to take a fresh look at new options and move ahead. 

Boston Strong; Boston First

Boston, Cambridge and other Bay State boosters brag that the very notion of independent local government began there. There may be historical validity to the claim that Massachusetts set the mould for many states and towns across the US.

Boston certainly had a prominent role in thinking through and catalyzing the War of Independence from King George. In fact, in Boston today tourists visit a replica of the ship from which tea from England was dumped into the harbor, launching armed conflict that broke us off from royal tyranny!

Well respected environmental activist, planning visionary and Jpods fan Judeth van Hamm points to many Massachusetts transportation firsts. The first steamboat churned up the mighty Hudson River in New York State, but the first steamboat service was in the Bay State in 1818.  At the end of the nineteenth century, electrification of a railroad to Hull and Boston’s underground light rail, now the Green Line, were US firsts.

Under Harvard Square 20th century subway and trolleybus
 interstect. What for the 21st?

During the auto-drunk twentieth century, Massachusetts was the first to embrace a circumferential highway -- Route 128, re-designated I-95, encircling Boston and dominating suburban life.

2015 Steps

Alden (Morgantown) and Raytheon made for podcar innovation place in Massachusetts in the second half of last century. But no new modal infrastructure was built, and Harvard thinkers shunned the idea, advising that the best thing to do about congestion is to not worry about it. Now new Massachusetts moves are coming forth. A Jpods mockup will be on display in Boston May 19 as part of meetings with Boston officials.

For more info, contact Judeth at one@hullportside.net.

FEED YOUR METROS:

Global event organizers Terrapinn can take credit for an energetic Dubai rail conference last month. Mideast Rail 2015 took place in the largest of the United Arab Emirates -- the high-growth zone on the southern shore of the Persian Gulf. Hundreds of participants and scores of active booths by exhibitors from all over the world were abuzz with local Emiratis and influential transport professionals with credible budgets in variegated accents of Arabic. The Program was in English and Arabic, with aisle talk also in Punjabi, Farsi and other tongues.

Figure 1   Access to Dubai’s metro stations could be neatly enhanced with small scale systems such as podcars.

The growing regional metro market totals up to billions, maybe trillions of dollars -- or dirhams, dinars or riyals. Most will be driverless - in Madinah, Riyadh, Dohai etc. The reality of Dubai’s stunningly successful driverless metro, first segment opened in 2009, inspires to that degree. Dubai’s driverless metro is quite superb -- well-used and user-friendly. It has served growing volumes of passengers over the last six years without major incident. 

This is a major credit to Dubai’s leaders and to the very international team that pulled it off -- Wilbur Smith, Systra, MHI, Thales, Serco, …… and many more. The metro has been fast-tracked over 20km out to Jebel Ali. Many brag that it is the world’s largest driverless network with a long stretches parallel to a flat, straight highway. In this corridor that heads to Abu Dhabi, lots of modern desert urban development is in place, and more underway. . 

Dubai’s metro lacks modern, small-scale circulators. Seven pairs of slick moving walks awkwardly connect the Mall of Dubai. A manual streetcar links another station to the slow, bumpy (automated) Hitachi monorail that runs out the trunk of Palm Jumeirah. But no neat circulators or podcar networking extend the reach of stations. Sadly, there wasn't any talk of such intermodalities at MER-2015.

Figure 2   Long walks to the Mall of Dubai.

High-speed rail was on the agenda. Multiple plans, visions and protocols trend to the creation of regional rail system, and high-level discussions are underway. Major HSR stations should have easy interfaces with metro lines and district circulators. Intermodality should be on the agenda for Mideast Rail 2016.