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PRT Consulting makes it our business to continuously monitor and/or participate in the implementation of personal rapid transit around the world. This page provides breaking news along with links where available.

Personal Rapid Transit News

September 2010: Come to the Princeton Public Library on Saturday, September 25, to listen to presentations on 5 concepts for the future of public transit: Save the Dinky, Bus Rapid Transit, Personal Rapid Transit, Modern Street Car, and Ultimate Accessibility through Modernization and Extension of the Dinky to Palmer Square.
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August 2010: Feds nix PRT funding proposal. Winona's request for nearly $25 million in federal funding to test a futuristic transit technology has been denied, city leaders confirmed Monday.
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August 2010: Personal transit good for everybody's hometown. Naperville's Downtown Advisory Committee has recently released its vision (a very "pedestrian-focused" plan) for the downtown in 2030.
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August 2010: University spends $8 million on PRT updates. West Virginia University’s Personal Rapid Transit will have its operating system updated throughout the next five years. The updates will make more PRT vehicles available to students and increase its reliability.
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August 2010: GM Demonstrates EN-V Podcars Driving Themselves. The vehicles, each carrying a lithium-ion battery pack and electric motor, are less than 5 feet long and only have two wheels. Specifically designed for urban use, the vehicles are meant to solve six problems of urban transportation: energy, environment, safety, congestion, parking, and affordability.
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August 2010: Personal transit pods could whisk travellers to and from Auckland airport. Ollie Mikosza has designed a personal rapid transit (PRT) system consisting of electric cars suspended from an overhead track that he says can be built for a fraction of the cost of alternatives.
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August 2010: Welcome to Moonbase Heathrow. BAA is testing out driverless pods as airport parking shuttles at Heathrow. Patrick McDonnell checks out the idea.
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August 2010: London dream in Amritsar soon. The congested streets of Amritsar, each having a cultural and religious history, will soon be living anachronistically in the future as the city prepares to become only the second in the world after London to have an "ultra personal rapid transport (PRT) system" by 2012.
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July 2010: Regional Transportation Alliance Solutions Forum 14: Transit Circulators. The September 9, 2010 event will focus on options and ideas for transit circulators in the region. The agenda includes "Emerging innovations: Heathrow Airport PRT" -- Steve Raney, ULTra PRT.
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July 2010: Cities21 Presentations / Events / Advocacy. View the updated list of upcoming and past events, including topics on sustainability, climate change, future transportation and PRT.
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July 2010: The Association for Commuter Transportation (ACT) International Conference will be held August 29-September 1 in Indian Wells, CA. Steve Raney, Cities 21, will speak on "The Realities of Tomorrow’s Last Mile Solution Today: Personal Rapid Transit" which will highlight three PRT practices: London Heathrow Airport, Masdar ecocity in Abu Dhabi, and Suncheon, South Korea.
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July 2010: Presentations to pose Fresno transit options. Fresno will get a glimpse of future transportation modes with public presentations in August on streetcar alignment, personal rapid transit and funding sources to support new projects. The first meeting will take place Aug. 2nd.
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July 2010: MnDOT Personal Rapid Transit Workshop to be held August 18. The purpose of this workshop is to share responses to the Mn/DOT Request for Information about Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) and to allow participants to discuss benefits of and barriers to the deployment of PRT in Minnesota.
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July 2010: Personal Rapid Transit – Coming to a city near you? London’s Heathrow International Airport completed 3.8 km of steel and concrete PRT guideways, linking one terminal to the business car park north of the airport. Interest is growing for PRT systems in several U.S. cities. Submit your comments on the Cool Planet blog.
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July 2010: A Car-Less Googletopia in the Works? Imagine a futuristic bay-front enclave for Google and Microsoft employees where no cars are allowed, buildings have green roofs and no carbon footprint, people travel in automated pods and live in apartments among the office buildings.
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July 2010: World Business: Stockholm is one of several Swedish cities planning to introduce podcars. The pods travel magnetically on rails and are seen as the transport of the future, using next to no energy and yet still boasting the convenience of taxis. But do the futuristic pods have the potential profitability to take off globally?
View video...

July 2010: Podcar City: CONFERENCE NEWSLETTER #2. Focused on the international Podcar City Conference, scheduled for San Jose, CA, October 27-29, this newsletter provides a broad range of input from leaders and transportation experts from around the world... informing while exploring the possibilities of new modes of sustainable transportation.
Download the newsletter...

July 2010: IDEAS FOR TORONTO: Personal Rapid Transit. In Toronto there are endless possibilities where PRT might be utilized. A University of Toronto–Queen’s Park–hospital district–Ryerson University route could be implemented with dozens of stations to pick and choose from, allowing students, academics, politicians, and medical professionals a quick link to one another.
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July 2010: Daventry has been designated a ‘champion city’ of the NICHES+ project, which promotes innovative measures for making urban transport more efficient and sustainable. Members of the public advisory panel that recently worked with Daventry District Council on exploring options for Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) have been invited to visit the new ULTra PRT system...
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June 2010: Where We're Going, We Don't Need Roads. Now more than ever, the country is looking south to see what the future of transit will look like. Here’s a look at five alternative transportation projects in the region that could revolutionize the way America travels.
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June 2010: APM-ATS 2011 will be held May 22-26, 2011 in Paris, France. This 13th annual conference will be the biannual international meeting for all people involved in the actual and future development of fully automated People Movers and Urban Transit Systems, including discussion of the exciting possibilities of PRT. The deadline for online abstract submission is August 2, 2010.
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June 2010: The 17th annual Passenger Terminal EXPO will be held in Copenhagen, Denmark, March 29-31, 2011. The conference program includes PRT & APMS AT AIRPORTS AND BEYOND, a look at innovative new forms of moving passengers around airports and cities. October 1, 2010 is the final form submission date for inclusion in the program.
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June 2010: Rome: Tiber Personal Rapid Transit. This project is located in the central section of the Tiber river and proposes renewal of the riverbanks with the insertion of a Personal Rapid Transit infrastructure. The futuristic and elevated transit solution of the riverbanks will revitalize an abandoned segment of the city center and will stimulate new mobility behaviors.
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June 2010: CONRAC Transportation: Airport People Mover, Shuttle Bus or PRT? Now that personal rapid transit (PRT or podcars) is a commercially available form of alternative transit, it can also be considered for providing transportation for consolidated rent-a-car (CONRAC) facilities. The pros and cons of each system are briefly discussed by PRT Consultant, Peter Muller.
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June 2010: Read this post about 12 trends that work to Urban Gondolas’ and Cable Transit’s advantage, and feel free to contribute your own in the comments.
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June 2010: It appears ULTra may not meet its previously-announced June opening date at London’s Heathrow Airport. The current statement about the schedule is: “Testing is continuing and we anticipate that the system will officially launch in the near future."



June 2010: Nimble Cities. Submit your proposal for solving an increasingly relevant problem: how to move the most people around and between cities in the most efficient, safe, and perhaps even pleasurable manner. Read Tom Vanderbilt's article describing the contest and submit your proposal.
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June 2010: Greenhouse gas emissions are only one of eleven reasons why an alternative transit solution, such as podcars (personal rapid transit, or PRT), is needed and why light rail (LRT) bus rapid transit (BRT) and electric cars are unsatisfactory.
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June 2010: PRT, or podcars, can make our cities independent of foreign oil. Objective: Create millions of jobs, increase disposable income and transform the lifeblood of the economy from oil to ingenuity. Action: Return transportation and power infrastructures to free markets managed by performance standards.
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June 2010: A project funded by the European Commission is using Bath to test the idea of personal rapid transit. Potential designs and routes were exhibited in Bath, last year, as part of the ULTra PRT scheme, and now university academics are staging a workshop to explore public perceptions in more detail. It will be held at a venue in the centre of Bath on June 26.
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June 2010: Key components of the Masdar City’s innovative design strategy include an innovative Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) system, being piloted in a neighborhood of Masdar City. The PRT system will transport people, goods and supplies, operate below pedestrian street level, and integrate with local and regional mass transportation system connections.
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June 2010: San Jose could become the first city in the United States to put in what's commonly known as a pod car system. "For Silicon Valley, it's like a packet-switched people mover. It's like the Internet for people," says Steve Raney, an Ultra senior staffer. A promotional video from the pod car company Ultra PRT shows its system at work at London's Heathrow Airport.
Read more and view video...

June 2010: Experts envision how we will get from here to there. Speakers at the recent “Future Cars Future Transportation” seminar presented several interesting ideas. Steve Raney, ULTra PRT Systems, offered PRT solutions in Los Altos, Palo Alto and Mountain View.
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June 2010: Podcar 101, a one-hour primer, will deliver basic introductory information and an objective overview of PRT at Podcar City in October. Lawrence Fabian, founder and director of Trans.21, along with Peter Muller of PRT Consulting and Jeral Poskey, former ATRA Chair, will be the main presenters.
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June 2010: Are Pod Cars in the Bay Area’s Future? The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority is financing a $1.8 million feasibility study to develop a personal rapid transit system to whisk passengers to the airport and other transit hubs in small, driverless shuttles.
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May 2010: Airport planners look to a futuristic transit solution: pod cars. Rather than transporting large numbers of people on a train that stops frequently, the idea is to provide a nonstop ride on elevated rail lines for only one passenger, or up to six people, from the San Jose airport to nearby hotels, business centers and train stations.
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May 2010: Podcar City: San José, October 27-29, 2010. The conference will feature a wide range of exhibitors working on different aspects of Podcar technology. You will find actual Podcars, models, software simulations, implementation and feasibility studies presented. Early registration ends June 30th.
View program listing...

May 2010: PRT interface design by Bonaudi Industrial Design & Manufacturing, featuring a series of innovative personal rapid transit design images.
View...



May 2010: PRT overhaul, update to cost an estimated $93M. Thirty five years and 60 million passengers later, the PRT at West Virginia University could be getting its first big overhaul since the tracks opened.
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May 2010: PRT can be seen as the most efficient means of alleviating traffic congestion by bypassing it. Robocars and “smart” traffic management techniques are means to decrease that traffic in the first place. Both are sorely needed.
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May 2010: Earth Date 2025 - California: What Fresno transportation could consist of - a platform to discuss what transportation in the city of Fresno could look like 15 years down the road.
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May 2010: Is Personal Automated Transport the Future of Light Rail? Personal automated transit, also known as personal rapid transit (PRT) or podcars, is a form of automated guideway transit that is finally gaining acceptance after incubating for over thirty years. Three different systems are entering revenue service this year in England, Portugal and the U.A.E.
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May 2010: Driverless Sustainable Green Transit: Potential Climate Change Impact. This article, by PRT Guru, Peter Muller, summarizes five things you should know about the sustainability of transit.
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May 2010: Could PRT be the next attraction for Village West? This innovative transit system was the discussion among transportation professionals at the recent Modern Mobility conference, which marked the end of a 2-year study that examined the feasibility of a 27-station PRT system at the Village West development located in western Kansas City, Kansas.
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May 2010: Proposals for getting people around an increasingly busy Princeton include a variation on the Heathrow airport people mover. It could be called SPURTS: Speedy Princeton University Rapid Transit System.
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May 2010: Personal rapid transit (PRT) is a new category of automated people mover now operating at London´s Heathrow International Airport. Although the Heathrow system was designed to replace shuttle buses, this article, by Peter Muller, examines the differences between PRT and traditional automated people movers (APM).
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May 2010: PRT passenger capacity world record. In March of 2010, ULTra PRT demonstrated 48 passengers departing from the four-berth London Heathrow (LHR) Terminal 5 multi-story car park (MSCP5) station in 5 minutes, for a world-record hourly PRT outbound station capacity of 576 passengers per hour.
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May 2010: PRT discussions underway in Sweden. PRT is a traffic solution that could supplement the congested public transport network, linking Stockholm University, Royal Institute of Technology and Karolinska Institutet, and provide transportation for 70,000 people.
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May 2010: Critical (based in Coimbra, Portugal) has developed an electric vehicle, designed to be easily used for small trips at low speed. The Hospital Rovisco Pais, a center for physical rehabilitation, uses the Move to transport the patients between several hospital buildings.
View video...


May 2010: Car Future Part III – Personal Rapid Transit. This article is the third in a series exploring the future of personal transport.
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May 2010: A public hearing on the PRT Facilities Master Plan, developed over a year of study by PRT staff and consultants, is scheduled for Wednesday, May 5, at 2 p.m. The needed upgrades would cost an estimated $92.8 million, most of which officials hope will be covered by federal funding.
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May 2010: FORUM: Mass transit's forgotten 'last mile'. The part of the journey between a station and the starting or ending point is generally called "the last mile" of travel. The "Personal Rapid Transit" concept of transportation in individual podcars provides the solution.
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May 2010: Transport that waits for you: planning and operating personal rapid transit systems. This talk describes recent work on the empty vehicle management problem and also outlines some other interesting problems that arise in the context of planning and operating PRT systems.
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May 2010: Portland suburb Hillsboro became the first U.S. city to adopt language favorable to PRT within a city-adopted specific plan. The Amberglen Plan states, “A transit circulator facilitates quick connections to transit stations. Eventually … PRT or other local circulator could serve to focus area investment near transit corridors.” A faster-than-a-car PRT system could make the 2 mile connection five times faster than jogging-speed circulator bus or 19th-century streetcar.
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April 2010: Bus, Rail? Why Not Something New? In lieu of dependence on federal funds and loss of an irreplaceable railroad corridor, Hartford's initiative in PRT service could win valuable carbon credits and revive Connecticut's economy and quality of life.
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April 2010: 'Green City' Builders Facing Technological, Financial Hurdles. While planning for the project shows numbers lining up neatly, build-out has forced revisions. The most visible is to the city's transportation scheme. The original PRT design barred conventional vehicles from the walled perimeter.
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April 2010: A short film, "Personal Rapid Transit and Masdar City PRT" is featured on this site - a forum for thought about the future of mobility. Check back for updates and insights into sustainable transport and urban renewal initiatives around the world.
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April 2010: Whether through taking the bus or riding the PRT, or in deciding which products and equipment to purchase, WVU is making a difference environmentally.
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April 2010: Podcars to connect Swedish universities. Proponents of a PRT system in Stockholm are hoping for a green light and funding from the Swedish government later this year to build a pilot project called Via Academica that will connect the University of Stockholm with the KTH Royal Institute of Technology.
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April 2010: The University of Minnesota, Crookston welcomes international lecturer and expert in personal rapid transit (PRT) Edward Anderson, Ph.D., as a guest on Thursday, April 29, 2010. The public is invited to attend Anderson's lecture entitled, "The Role of Science, Technology, and Perception in the New Age of Resource Scarcity."
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April 2010: BM Design Gives Us A Glimpse At The Future Of Transportation. Personal Rapid Transit – PRT for short – explained in the words of Asko Kauppi, Founder of BM Design, is “packaged routing of people.” BM Design is a Finnish start-up which plans to have a test track installed by the end of 2012.
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April 2010: Tower Theatre to showcase future Fresno transit. The movie montage, presented by FastTrack Fresno County on April 21, will feature high-speed rail, streetcars, low emitting buses and automated pods that make up a Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) system, all of which are being considered as part of the Public Transportation Infrastructure Study.
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April 2010: Fresno Transportation Examiner features three PRT articles: Up in the sky: It’s a rocket. It’s a plane. Neither. It’s PRT – Part 1; One-of-a-kind, human being 'conveyors' – Part 2; Practicality of PRT – Part 3
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April 2010: Sweden's first public podcar system could be built on the campus of KTH by 2014, linking KTH Albano-Stockholm University with Karolinska Institutet.
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April 2010: The Naperville City Council will hold a workshop to discuss the Environmental Sustainability Plan. In this article, Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) is offered as a solution to the city's mobility problems, which include decade-long waiting lists for parking, using valuable commercial land for parking lots and letting congestion limit the downtown economic activity.
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April 2010: Preparing for PRT Operations at Heathrow Airport. The ULTra PRT system has been installed at Heathrow airport and is starting operational readiness trials with a view to full operations in 2010. This paper will review the process which has been undertaken to prepare for operations and draw conclusions about key issues which are involved.
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April 2010: The battle over Princeton's mass transit future. Should the Dinky be eliminated? Both Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) and Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) are discussed as options.
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April 2010: EDITORIAL: Mass transit's uncertain future. First, Caltrain announced that within a year it will have to drastically reduce service due to a continuing budget crisis. Second, a company called Unimodal, wants to bring its futuristic people-movers: automated pods which glide over an electrified network, to Mountain View.
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April 2010: West Virginia University’s PRT will be undergoing $92 million in new updates on its operating system to make more vehicles available and increase its reliability.The project is expected to be completed within the next three years.
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April 2010: Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) and new 21st Century Transportation Systems will be presented at the ASES National Solar Conference in Phoenix, Arizona, May 19, 2010.
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April 2010: Community Transit offers private commuting in public transport. Inspired by both the structure and function of plant cells, designer Dave Owsen presents a look at a personal rapid transit system that offers diverse options depending on the needs of people and businesses usage.
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April 2010: The dream of driverless vehicles that effortlessly deliver passengers in futuristic automatically guided luxury pods has become a reality at London’s Heathrow Airport. ARRK R&D develops advanced driverless transport systems with DS PLM, working extensively on the ULTra Personal Rapid Transportation (PRT) program.
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March 2010: Could investors fund city's transit future? Unimodal Inc. claims that for the first city to say yes, it can build its SkyTran system -- small cars or "pods" which move about automatically on a network of rails, heading to their destination at the push of a button -- while getting all of the funding from private investors.
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March 2010: The Future in Motion. Douglas Malewicki, Aerospace engineer and inventor of the SkyTran, envisions we'll be moving at the speed of Internet on our way to work.
View video...



March 2010: The West Virginia University (WVU) people mover is undertaking significant improvements, with the goal of a new and improved PRT system to better serve its some 15,000 daily riders. WVU has been awarded a Federal Transit Authority grant that, along with allocated student transportation fee monies, will pay for a portion of the upgrades to the PRT.
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March 2010: Blog: Rethinking Personal Rapid Transit Design. An update is offered on the effort toward standardizing a track design for hanging (gondola style) PRT.
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March 2010: Summary of PRT presentations from Passenger Terminal Expo 2010. Four different consultants made statements to the effect that PRT is now ready for serious consideration and can no longer be ignored as a transportation option. The three leading vendors, ULTra, 2getthere and Vectus, all made presentations and discussed the state of their independent safety certifications.
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March 2010: Michael D. Setty: PRT will ‘work,' but it won't be worth it. Larry Fabian of Boston is correct that personal rapid transit will technically "work," like the technologically clever Segway also "works." Segways were touted as a "transportation revolution" but to date have found only a few practical uses, such as tourist rentals and as a ride for security guards.
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March 2010: New 2-minute-long London Heathrow video shows current advanced state of the system.
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March 2010: Mtn. View Council approves PRT concept. The future of a PRT (Personal Rapid Transport) system for Mountain View got a little closer with the city council’s approval to support the general concept of a PRT system.
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March 2010: Forget the BRT -- Princeton Needs PRT. Let's move forward, not backward. We deserve better than buses and we could have better if we only set our minds to it.
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March 2010: Future transit could connect Shoreline, Moffett businesses. Steve Raney (ATS ULTra North America) recently presented an overview of Personal Rapid Transport (PRT) systems as an option to link Mountain View’s downtown with Shoreline and Moffett Field business communities.
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March 2010: Reporter Megan McNulty interviews Winona City Manager Eric Sorenson and Mayor Jerry Miller on their thoughts about the proposed plans for a Personal Rapid Transit model of transportation in Winona.
View video...


March 2010: U.S. Rep. Tim Walz seeks $11.1M in Winona-area earmarks, but the city of Winona's request for $25 million to build a test track and laboratory for Personal Rapid Transit was not among them.
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March 2010: Urbanaut releases specifications for its PRT version.
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March 2010: ULTra personal rapid transit system to be showcased at Passenger Terminal Expo. UK Company ULTra (Urban Light Transit) will show its ULTra system at this year’s Passenger Terminal Expo in Brussels on the 23rd-25th March. ULTra has designed and developed the system as a groundbreaking form of Personal Rapid Transit (PRT).
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March 2010: Financial Woes Crimp Celebrated Middle East Green City. A money crunch has forced the scaling back of a futuristic, sustainable research park being built in the United Arab Emirates. A technology originally planned for the whole city -- computer-driven "personal rapid transit" pods -- might now be limited to the site of the research institute.
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March 2010: Moving residents around Masdar City without burning a drop of fossil fuel is no easy task. The image of the “personal rapid transit” (PRT) system of automated electric cars that whisk residents and freight around the city had become a notable feature of Masdar City since the proposed development was unveiled to the public in January last year.
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March 2010: Gurgaon to have ULTra (Urban Light Transport) Personal Rapid Transit. After Heathrow airport in London, the Millennium City could be the second city in the world to have the ULTra (Urban Light Transport) Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) system or pod car, which is a battery-operated vehicle running on an elevated guideway.
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March 2010: Driverless transport wins award. A revolutionary form of driverless travel – the ULTra (Urban Light Transport) – pioneered at Bristol University has been awarded the Viva Award for 2009. The award, presented to Advanced Transport Systems Ltd (ATS) and collected by Martin Lowson, President of ATS and Emeritus Professor of Advanced Transport at Bristol University, recognizes transport innovation or development in Europe.
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March 2010: Encitra, Inc. to Develop Immersive 3D Model of San José’s Proposed Automated Transit Network System. The virtual model of San José will include architectural renderings of existing and proposed buildings and landmarks plus the proposed ATN system, complete with stations, vehicles and related infrastructure. The unveiling and initial viewing of Encitra’s San José 3D model will take place at Podcar City: San José, October 27-29, 2010.
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March 2010: The last mile in Tysons Corner. At least one company has developed a proposed plan for how PRT might be deployed in Tysons. For those of you unfamiliar with the debate on PRT, there are very strong opinions on both sides about this technology, ranging from fairy tale to rapture.
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March 2010: VIDEO: Vegas inventor pitches ‘podcar’ monorail to Nantasket. If Bill James, founder of JPods Inc., gets his way, beachgoers could someday ride elevated “podcars” from a Greenbush commuter rail station to Nantasket Beach. Each of the futuristic-looking podcars would carry up to four people and would make stops between the commuter station and the beach.
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March 2010: The Morgantown PRT is safe for students to use even though short circuits on the tracks are common, said Arlie Forman, associate director of Transportation and Parking at West Virginia University. Members of Student Government Association toured parts of the PRT headquarters with Forman because of concerns for student safety after an incident on the tracks.
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March 2010: Alternative transportation experts pitch million-dollar options for University of Michigan. The transit systems described by a variety of experts included monorails, aerial rail systems, personal rapid transit systems and advanced bus systems. They ranged in price from tens of millions of dollars to hundreds of millions of dollars.
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March 2010: U.S. Rep Tim Walz has received requests for more than $280 million in earmarks for Winona-area projects, including $25 million to build a test track and laboratory for Personal Rapid Transit, which uses pod-like vehicles on guideways to shuttle passengers to their destinations. City officials last month also submitted a different request for federal funding to create the Winona Personal Rapid Transit Lab and Partnership Center.
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March 2010: Development and Evaluation of Traffic Management Strategies for Personal Rapid Transit. This paper describes a simulation study of traffic management opportunities with an extended Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) network at Heathrow airport.
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March 2010: Cities for Mobility eMagazine. From electric Personal Rapid Transit systems to individual electric vehicles, the world has realized that the future of mobility lies in electric transport. This edition of the magazine offers you some innovative views and approaches on the topic E-mobility, including "Personal Rapid Transit. An update on emerging urban transit systems."
Refer to page 11 ...

March 2010: Swedish Kompass Finds San José, CA – City to Introduce Podcar and Host Conference. Swedish podcar network Kompass is one of the drivers behind the initiative. The organization will discuss the possibility of initiating a Kompass USA and a Kompass International at the San José conference in October. San José is on track to build the first podcar system in the nation.
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March 2010: Passenger pods without a driver are almost ready for take-off at Heathrow. Passengers using Heathrow Airport's Terminal 5 will be able to travel in style as a trial begins of the ULTra, or Urban Light Transport, described as a personal rapid transit system. In basic terms, they are driverless, electrically-powered "taxi pods", that run on their own infrastructure, similar in principal to a monorail.
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March 2010: University of Michigan's 'future transportation' vision carries real estate implications for Ann Arbor. The University of Michigan realized it had to invest heavily in Ann Arbor’s transportation infrastructure after completing its $108 million acquisition of Ann Arbor’s ex-Pfizer site in 2009. Now that realization is turning into action.
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March 2010: SAN JOSÉ TO HOST INTERNATIONAL SHOWCASE OF MODERN PODCAR TECHNOLOGY. San José has been chosen as the site for an international conference focused on developing a new type of automated transit technology known as podcars. Podcar City: San José, Innovating Sustainable Communities, will be held on October 27-29, 2010, at San José City Hall, 200 E. Santa Clara St.
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March 2010: University of Michigan plans forum to discuss ideas for how to better connect the university's central, north and medical campuses. The forum includes experts: Mark Fuhrmann, Minneapolis Light Rail; Hugh Kierig, West Virginia University's personal rapid transit system; Chris Perkins, Unimodal Personal Rapid Transit; Jim Spakauskas, Bombardier; Michael York, Cleveland Euclid Corridor; Randy Woolwine, Doppelmayr.
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March 2010: Modern Mobility: What is PRT and Why You Should Care. A mini-conference will be held on Friday, April 23 at The Legends, outside Kansas City. Presentations and panel discussion will enhance career expertise with cutting-edge information on Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) and the advantages it brings.
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March 2010: Article by Peter Muller published in Passenger Terminal World, March 2010: BIGGER IS NOT ALWAYS BETTER. In the past the best way of moving thousands of people around airports was using large buses or people movers. But London Heathrow's new personal rapid transit (PRT) system is challenging that notion.
See page 64...

March 2010: PRT Resolution passed Feb 23, 2010. First US City Council resolution, supporting the general concept of an automated personal rapid transit PRT system, Mountain View, CA
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March 2010: ARRK Europe’s Basildon Technical Centre has completed the design and build of 22 ULTra vehicles ready for the final stages of testing of the world’s first Personal Rapid Transport (PRT) system at Heathrow Airport Terminal 5.
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February 2010: PODCARS – will they arrive on time? PRT (Personal Rapid Transit) is a revolutionary way to solve urban transportation problems. PRT combines the advantages of the car with those of transit. The Beamways PRT system has its focus on low investment requirement, high capacity and minimal energy consumption.
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February 2010: Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT) proposal in India - PRT being considered as a transport component - very impressive concepts. Slide show briefly addresses personal rapid transit (PRT or Podcars).
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February 2010: Passenger Terminal Expo 2010 program updated. Over 185 speakers have been confirmed for the expo to be held March 23-25 in Brussels, Belgium. Peter Muller, President, PRT Consulting Inc., will speak: Master plan PRT analysis for Baltimore Washington International Airport.
See pages 10 and 11 for PRT sessions...


February 2010: Oakland transit line explored. A task force created by Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato is launching a worldwide appeal for private investors willing to develop a Downtown-to-Oakland transit line and a people mover system that initially would link several Oakland destinations.
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February 2010: The Picture Gallery has been updated with new photos of the London Heathrow PRT system. Be sure to refresh your page to see them. If you are using Google Chrome, it may take a while for the titles to display correctly.
View pictures...


February 2010: After Heathrow, pod cars may well hit the Millennium City. The Haryana government has shown interest in the ULTra PRT transport system for millennium city Gurgaon. In fact, the Indian partner of ATS, Fairwood made a presentation before Chief Minister, Bhupinder Singh Hooda and top government officials in December.
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February 2010: New Heathrow pictures show Terminal 5 station details, Business Car Park station details, destination selection kiosks, the vehicle maintenance/storage depot, control room operation, control room CCTV
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February 2010: Transportation engineers and planners have discussed personal rapid transit (PRT)—the use of small, on-demand podcars to serve public transportation needs—since the 1960s. On November 19, 2009, the Minnesota Department of Transportation brought together PRT companies and policymakers to discuss the potential of PRT in Minnesota and beyond.
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February 2010: Stan Young, President of ATRA has posted a summary of the ATRA Tecnix 2010 meeting held on January 10 outside Washington DC. The summary includes copies of presentations on various aspects of personal rapid transit (PRT), also known as podcars.
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February 2010: The Minnesota Department of Transportation (Mn/DOT) seeks input from local government agencies, companies, universities, and/or organizations (as responders) interested in providing information about the viability and benefits of Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) in Minnesota.
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February 2010: Airport Terminal Capacity Conference will feature tour of Heathrow personal rapid transit (PRT) system. To be held in London April 13 -15, the conference will address baggage, passenger and security management: solving today's challenges and planning the terminals of the future.
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February 2010: SkyTran One Year Later. A year ago this week Forced Green posted an article on Unimodal System’s revolutionary SkyTran [personal rapid transit (PRT) system]. Propelled along by magnetic levitation, the driverless 2 – 3 person vehicles are kept safe and secure on elevated guideways utilizing standard utility poles and universally available stock items. So, are we any closer to actually seeing the SkyTran in service?
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February 2010: Delegates at the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi will have the chance for a sneak preview of carbon-neutral Masdar City. The entire city is built on a 7m high concrete podium because this creates the space needed for the network of personal rapid transit (PRT) vehicles which get people around. The idea is people park their cars on the edge of the city and walk to the PRT station.
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February 2010: Mathematical modelling is playing an important role in the development of Personal Rapid Transit, a new form of on-demand, driverless travel which promises to be a safe and efficient system that will solve the problem of public transportation once and for all.
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February 2010: The 10 coolest green innovations. Personal rapid transit (PRT) was one of the highlights of the World Future Energy Summit. Pod cars, also called "cyber taxis", will operate at Masdar City, with passengers being picked up from around 90 personal rapid transportation stops positioned at strategic points.
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February 2010: ZIPithaca was a study produced by three Cornell Landscape Architecture students that ultimately proposed a route for a PRT (personal rapid transit) system for Ithaca New York. The students responded to interest by the Ithaca community to develop a podcar system as a sustainable transportation alternative.
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February 2010: Up in the Air. When President Barack Obama doled out $8 billion in stimulus dollars to fund high-speed rail development last week, Texas got a paltry $4 million — one half of one-tenth of one percent of the total.
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January 2010: Podcar City COP:15. Presentations and videos are now available for the Transport and Climate Change conference held in Malmö, Sweden, December 9-10, 2009.
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January 2010: Futuristic transport for Cardiff still on hold. Is this the future of public transport in south east Wales? Will it ever transfer from a test track in Cardiff Bay to the city's streets? As assembly members call for the launch of light rail networks in Welsh cities, a futuristic transport system is in its ninth year of testing not far from the Senedd and awaiting its public launch.
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January 2010: Firm pledges millions to Winona pod car test lab. A private company that has developed a futuristic pod car transit system has pledged millions to Winona’s bid for a test lab to be the first to prove such a transportation system works.
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January 2010: Grasp potential of personal rapid transport, consultant tells Mayor. A major transport consultancy has called on London Mayor Boris Johnson to grasp the opportunities offered by personal rapid transit. In an unusual step for a transport consultant, Colin Buchanan has spelt out its transport vision for the capital in response to the Mayor’s draft transport strategy.
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January 2010: One-touch travel: Cyber taxis for UAE. Abu Dhabi : Thirteen driverless cyber taxis will be on the ground in the UAE by month's end with more on the way for the $22 billion (Dh80.7 billion) zero-carbon Masdar City later this year, says Netherlands' manufacturer 2getthere.
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January 2010: The driverless electric pod of the future is in Abu Dhabi. We've been living in the future now for at least a decade, and while the iPhone is a pretty amazing Star Trek communicator, crucial technological leaps promised to us by our popular culture - amazing holograms, the jet pack and hoverboard, decent voice recognition, virtual reality...
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January 2010: Seattle Transit Blog: A Brief Interview With Conrad Lee. I ran into Bellevue Deputy Mayor Conrad Lee Sunday morning and took the opportunity to ask him some crucial questions about East Link.
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January 2010: Driverless taxis become reality. The streamlined white pods would not look out of place in a sci-fi movie but they could be the future of carbon-zero transport and are being pioneered in the UAE through Abu Dhabi's Masdar City. The world's first entirely sustainable city demands an eco-friendly method for the 50,000 people expected to live and work there to get around.
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January 2010: Winona to seek $25 million, signs off on application for test pod technology. The City Council took an initial step Tuesday toward building a test lab for the controversial transit technology Personal Rapid Transit. Council members voted 5-to-1 to submit an application seeking nearly $25 million in federal funding for PRT, which uses small, pod-like vehicles on guideways to shuttle passengers to their destinations.
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January 2010: Masdar City Testing EVs That Drive Themselves. Abu Dhabi's Masdar City will be chock full of super-green technology by the time it's finished--building facades that adjust to capture sunlight, wall surfaces that adapt to changing temperatures, and the Persian Gulf's first geothermal facility are just a few examples of what the carbon-neutral development has in store.
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January 2010: The Electric Car that Drives Itself. Masdar’s people movers have no driver, but they won’t hit pedestrians. Some electric cars are meant to win races. Others are made to carry groceries.The Masdar Initiative, the wide-ranging alternative energy project funded by the government of Abu Dhabi, is testing out autonomous electric vehicles as part of the research park/residential complex development called Masdar City...
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January 2010: Future Fresno-Clovis transit options studied. What should public transit look like in the Fresno-Clovis metropolitan area 40 years from now? Should it include light rail, or people-mover vehicles moving on fixed tracks, or just more elaborate variations on the familiar city bus? And how would development patterns have to change to support each of those systems?
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January 2010: $25 million for Winona pod cars? Supporters for a futuristic transportation test system for Winona have thrown their cards on the table, with the city poised to apply for $25 million in federal funds for a first phase test lab. Preliminary work on the possible project shows that Southeast Technical College could connect with the hospital and East End retailers through a series of pod-like cars which ride along elevated tracks.
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January 2010: City IDs route for PRT. The proposed route for Personal Rapid Transit in Winona would include stops at Minnesota State College-Southeast Technical and Winona Health, according to the latest city proposal.
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January 2010: Sustainable Transportation- PRT. Imagine this commute: You leave your office and walk a few blocks to a transit station. An elevator takes you one flight up from the street to a room outfitted with glowing touch screens. It’s rush hour, so people are going and coming, but they’re moving through fairly quickly.
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January 2010: Transform to Sustainability: Tyson's Corner Circulator Buses - Take a Book Along. This recent article in the Washington Post raised the important question of providing transportation within the Tysons Corner area to supplement the new Silver Line Metro service.
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January 2010: Benefits and Costs of a PRT Network in 59 Swedish Cities. This paper deals with the question of the economic viability for PRT in terms of city size and population density. The evaluation criterion chosen is the Benefit-Cost Ratio.
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January 2010: Personal Rapid Transit systems for reduction in car dependence Karlskrona case study. This research project is designed to enhance the planning process that can aid authorities moving towards sustainable and economically feasible local and regional mobility systems.
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January 2010: Podcars – new travel on track. In April 2009 an inquiry was launched by the Swedish Government to examine the possibility of introducing podcar systems in Sweden. Its task is to gather existing knowledge about such systems and to identify which of the interested municipalities would be the most suitable for establishing pioneer lines.
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December 2009: Are Podcars The Future of Transit? Over at The Transport Politic, Yonah Freemark notes that it is a slow week in the blog world, so he wrote a post about Personal Rapid Transit, or PRT, sometimes called Podcars. Nothing outside of Obama vs Palin gets people so riled up; he has 91 comments already.
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December 2009: Are London Heathrow’s ULTra Pods the Future of Transit? Successful implementation at huge U.K. airport could mean more interest in PRT elsewhere.
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December 2009: Multi-Vehicle Testing at Heathrow. This video shows the ongoing testing of multiple ULTra Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) vehicles in the T5 Business Car Park at London Heathrow Airport. As part of this test, vehicles were required to travel simultaneously between all three stations and eight station berths in the Heathrow network.
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December 2009: A Field Study of Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) in Shanghai. The survey objective is to clarify the feasibility of Personal Rapid Transit (PRT), a rail bound transit system, in Shanghai. It includes a technical description of the system, a survey of conditions in Shanghai and statistical analysis of traffic data for Shanghai.
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December 2009: Pod Cars: Climate Solution or Pipe Dream? In Malmo, Sweden, just over the water from the Copenhagen climate talks, international transportation experts were discussing another aspect of climate change — sustainable transportation. More specifically, the third annual Transport and Climate Change conference focused on personal rapid transit (PRT).
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December 2009: Personal Rapid Transit: Twenty-First Century Transport? Recently I had the chance to visit Taxi 2000. This Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) company is based just minutes from my office in Minneapolis. I’m no expert on rail systems, but I’ve always believed that an elevated system that can run freely over existing right-of-ways makes more sense than an antiquated system based on nearly 200 hundred year old technology.
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December 2009: “Professor” Harold Hill Pitches PRT to a River City on the Mississippi in Minnesota. The author of this paper, Michael D. Setty, first read about PRT in college, having read the University of Minnesota reports on the topic, Personal Rapid Transit (1972), Personal Rapid Transit II (1974), and Personal Rapid Transit III (1976), from cover to cover. Over the years,the more he read about PRT, the less he thought it was a serious option.
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December 2009: Editorial: Space pods seem a little too far out. Last week, Winona learned of a plan by city leaders to court public funds and private investors in a collaborative effort to develop a model for personal rapid transit systems.
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December 2009: A full day of PRT presentations is planned at Passenger Terminal World in Brussels, March 23, 2010. A summary of each presentation can be found here...




December 2009: Winona officials release details for PRT funding plan. Some think it's the transportation mode of the future, and others call it pure folly. Either way, a $25 million bid to test a space-age transit system in Winona is drawing statewide interest.
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December 2009: San Jose’s Personal Rapid Transit. Your heart sinks as you watch your missed plane fly away while you are trapped in gridlock. Parking lots are full. More parking lots attract more cars. Streets jam and more gridlock. Public transit, airport buses, shuttles, and taxis can all help.
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December 2009: Green City in Abu Dhabi. Masdar City in Abu Dhabi is aiming to be the world's first carbon-neutral, zero waste city. CNN's Mohammed Jamjoom reports.
Watch the video...



December 2009: Can Entrepreneurs Drive People Movers to Success? Imagine you've arrived for a meeting at a corporate campus. But now you discover that the conference room is in another building a quarter mile away. Sure, you could walk there … but in the rain? Up purrs an automated people mover, a vehicle shaped like a segment of a subway car...
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December 2009: Ultra-personal transport on the way? Personal rapid transit (PRT) systems could replace nearly a third of all car trips, believes Martin Lowson of Advanced Transport Systems (ATS). His company has developed the Ullia (urban light transport) system as a 21st-century contribution to meeting urban public transport needs.
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December 2009: Winona could host futuristic public transportation model. Local leaders are supporting a $25 million proposal to test a controversial transportation system in Winona. Personal Rapid Transit involves a futuristic network of guideways that uses small, pod-like vehicles to shuttle passengers directly to their destinations.
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December 2009: Nintendo’s Mario is talking about Personal Rapid Transit System in Shanghai Expo 2010.
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December 2009: Time for podcars? N.Y. City wants to be first. The thought of a driverless, computer-guided car transporting people where they want to go on demand is a futuristic notion to some. To Jacob Roberts, podcars — or PRTs, for personal rapid transit — represent an important component in the here-and-now of transportation.
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December 2009: PRT Niche Options for Minnesota. Minnesota Department of Transportation (Mn/DOT) held a Nov 17 PRT Symposium with 60 attendees. Mn/DOT is now in the process of soliciting letters of interest from Minnesota cities interested in studying PRT feasibility for their city.
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December 2009: Minnesota's Phantom Podcars. Winona, a southeastern Minnesota city of 30,000, boasts a municipal bus system that carries nearly a quarter-million riders each year. Now city officials want to add a futuristic, multimillion-dollar overlay of elevated monorails carrying small automated passenger vehicles guided by computers and propelled by electricity.
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December 2009: Podcars (or PRT) – a climate friendly and modern transportation system, will be presented at the UN COP 15 climate event in Copenhagen December 12 at 3 pm, Hall 6, ICLEI LOUNGE, Bella Center. The Local Government network KOMPASS, gives a presentation inside the UN Bella Center for media, delegates and others interested.
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December 2009: Beamways participates with a fully functional Podcar model at COP 15, Bella Center, Copenhagen. We have designed a fully operational demonstration model for our Podcar system. The model is first shown at the Podcar City Conference in Malmö, Sweden on December 9-10, 2009.
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December 2009: Meet the Mod Pods. Not since railroads started laying tracks across the country have technology and transportation been at such a wide-open crossroads. The opportunities for developing new modes that are more efficient, more sustainable, and even faster are lining up behind the concept known as Personal Rapid Transit.
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November 2009: Personal Rapid Transit: Future Or Elevated Fantasy? The promise of personal rapid transit systems, or PRTs, is enticing: elevated electric transit that delivers the convenience of an automobile without the pollution or congestion. The systems use what the Swedes call "pod cars" for the way they look: small and zippy, like Smart cars.
Listen to the story...

November 2009: Driverless Podcars at Masdar City. If walls could talk, then our newest installation at Masdar City's Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) Station would have a lot to say. The LED backlit glass feature walls frame the entrances into the city's futuristic transportation hub, soon to house the latest cutting edge trend in sustainable transportation.
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November 2009: Welcome to the shape of things to come - the driverless taxi. The world's first driverless taxis are being installed at Heathrow Airport. The futuristic vehicles will carry passengers from the business car park into Terminal Five in less than five minutes.
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November 2009: Episode 83 of On the Log: A Desire Named Streetcar. John Meadows speaks with Peter Muller of PRT Consulting about Personal Rapid Transit, an approach to solving some of the issues around traditional public transit that have hindered its more widespread acceptance.
Link to audio...


November 2009: Movement in Minnesota. The Minnesota Department of Transportation held a symposium on Personal Rapid Transit -- or podcars -- on November 17, at the Mayo Civic Center in Rochester, the home of the Mayo Clinic. The expressed purpose was to educate and explore the latest in the development of PRT, so that Minnesota can continue to be a leader in developing a multimodal transportation system.
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November 2009: Personal Rapid Transport at Vectus, Ltd. At a test track in Uppsala, Sweden, Vectus Chief Technology Officer Jörgen Gustafsson watched as three driverless vehicle “pods” maneuvered through a test track. Proceeding at up to 30 miles per hour, the vehicles merged and diverged on a pair of concentric guideways, all under full computer control.
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November 2009: Traffic Solutions: Councilman Studying Elevated Podcar System. While admitting it's a "pie in the sky" idea and only in the exploratory phase, City Councilman Paul Koretz is looking into an above-ground personalized rapid transit system for the city. This summer, he formed a small task force to study the system, which is currently being used at Heathrow Airport, and consists of pods traveling on a track.
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November 2009: THE RISE OF AUTOMATED TRANSIT & PRT. Often snubbed as an industry outsider, PodCars are getting serious interest from high-level institutions with deep pockets around the world, both in public and private sectors. This includes the likes of Bombardier, the American Society of Civil Engineers, numerous U.S. State DOT’s, Universities, and the software might of Silicon Valley.
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November 2009: Personal Rapid Transit Symposium. The city leaders of Rochester want to know more about a faster way to get from point A to point B. Mayor Ardell Brede said, “It's been probably at least ten years that I first saw this PRT [Personal Rapid Transit], Taxi 2000, one of the particular models, and I thought gee, we could have some great application for that here in Rochester.”
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November 2009: TRANSITions - High Speed Transit Forum. Design’s Impact on Southern California’s High Speed Rail, Maglev Trains and Personal Rapid Transit with the $8 Billion Federal Stimulus Funding
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November 2009: Hi-tech transport designs on show. More than 130 designers from across the world have submitted their ideas for a hypothetical new transport scheme in Bath. A competition has been held for people to put forward plans for a personal rapid transit route called ULTra around the city.
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November 2009: MIST delays impact PRT schedule. At a sustainability conference in Colorado Springs on November 3, 2009, Nancy Tuor, CH2M Hill’s program manager for the MASDAR ‘Green City’ in the United Arab Emirates, announced that the personal rapid transit (PRT) system will open to public use in about six months. The originally scheduled 2009 opening has been delayed because completion of the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology (MIST), the primary facility to be served by the initial system, has been delayed. MIST construction was scheduled to be complete.

October 2009: ST. PAUL, Minn. – The potential use of personal rapid transit (PRT) in Minnesota is the topic of a symposium to be hosted by the Minnesota Department of Transportation on Nov. 17 in Rochester, Minn. PRT is a public transportation concept that offers on-demand, non-stop transportation using small independent vehicles on a network of specially built guideways.
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October 2009: Less Smog with Podcars? Traffic jams in big cities are a common picture. Energy is being wasted and pollution levels are rising. Something has to be done to limit damages to the environment. Could pod cars help to improve conditions? A number of Swedish municipalities are looking seriously at introducing the pods.
Klaus Heilbronner reports...

October 2009: What is the future of public transport? Dubai recently opened its first Metro network in a bid to reduce the number of people using their cars, and cut carbon emissions. The US $7.42 billion project has, so far, been hailed as a success as thousands of people have opted to use it to get around the city, as opposed to their cars.
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October 2009: SkyTran could bring futuristic transit to Valley. Traffic, congestion and related pollution in large cities could be problems of the past with the implementation of a futuristic, personal rapid transit system called SkyTran, according to the system’s designers.
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October 2009: San José visits London Heathrow ULTra System. As part of San José's thorough effort to study and eventually procure a cleantech electric PRT system, Laura Stuchinsky undertook a half-day-long Heathrow PRT site visit from Europe, where she was on vacation with her husband.
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October 2009: PODCARS - Toward a transit-oriented city. (Updated) You might still be asking why a new technology like Personal Rapid Transit is needed. Instead of these podcars, why not simply build more of the conventional systems? The answer lies in the challenges of making a compact, dense and walkable city out of one with patterns laid down in the automobile era.
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October 2009: Invasion of the pod car. When we decide how to get around - how to commute to work, how to schlep to the movie theater across town - most of us (save the intrepid bicyclists) face an imperfect choice. If we drive, we run the risk of accidents and traffic jams, not to mention the environmental and geopolitical downsides of using gas.
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October 2009: Pod Life! San Jose dreams big with a Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) system. The city of San Jose is planning to build a PRT system that will run between the airport and a Bay Area Rapid Transit station as well as a nearby light rail station. They say it will include up to five stations, but this and other details are still being worked out.
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September 2009: PODCAR CITY: COP 15. Breaking News - September 30, 2009
Conference Newsletter #3...




September 2009: Posco will help realize new rapid transit plan. A consortium started by Posco, Korea’s leading steelmaker, has signed a memorandum of understanding to produce eco-friendly “personal rapid transit” units for Suncheon, South Jeolla, Korea’s leading steelmaker announced yesterday.
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September 2009: Future transit system for Uppsala. This is an abbreviation and translation of a study that was made by Beamways, Arken arkitekter and TriVector Traffic for the city of Uppsala. The report was finalized on September 11, 2009.
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September 2009: Swedish Government Report: Pioneer Tracks for PodCars - Analysis of Recent Conditions, August 2009. This is a summary of a Report from an Inquiry conducted in 2009 in Sweden that was focused on an assessment of the feasibility and desirability of applying PodCar transport systems in several Swedish cities.
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September 2009: In about a week, 28 September, there will be a proposal on which cities will get to test PRT. It is driverless computer-controlled cars on a transitway. Kjell Dahlström is the government's PRT investigator, and says Eskilstuna is a strong candidate."It's a very good mix of traffic and the track is only six kilometers," said Dahlström. There are competitors who have double guideway and then it will be twice as expensive.
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September 2009: City considers bold new transit system. Personal rapid transit hailed as solution to Bayshore traffic woes. Someday in Mountain View's not-too-distant future, driverless electric vehicles could whisk passengers between the downtown train station, NASA Ames and Shoreline businesses such as Google.
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September 2009: PRT for Shoreline Biz Park, Google, Mountain View Downtown, and NASA Research Park. For consideration for the long-range transportation/circulation plan. System could begin operation 2012. Google co-founder Larry Page’s May 2 University of Michigan commencement speech: "When I was here at Michigan, I wanted to build a personal rapid transit system on campus to replace the buses. It was a futuristic way of solving our transportation problem."
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September 2009: NASA works on robo-podcab scheme. NASA software boffins have partnered with a Californian firm to work on a "personal rapid transit" system which would operate using a system of automated two- or three-person taxi-style "pods" travelling on overhead magnetic rail networks.
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September 2009: Electric transport seems to be the future. From President Obama’s $2.4 billion investment for the creation of an American electric car battery, to the huge demand from eco-warriors for electric cars, the world does seem to be moving towards an electric future.

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September 2009: Learn how pros have implemented automated people movers (including personal rapid transit).Engineers around the world have discovered how automated transit systems are safer and less costly than manually operated vehicles and more efficient than human traffic control. The latest strategies and challenges in implementing such systems are covered in Automated People Movers 2009 -- Connecting People, Connecting Places, Connecting Modes.
Find out more and order today

September 2009: ULTra releases schedule details. PRT Consulting has participated in private discussions on the details of the Heathrow schedule. We believe the schedule delay that ATS/BAA have suffered is not unusual to this type of project, and we have increased confidence that the project is progressing along a well thought-out and documented path to revenue passenger service.

September 2009: The West Virginia University Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) system is back on the tracks and running smoothly today after a three month-long diagnostic and system repair. In honor of the reopening of the PRT, the university hosted an open house event on Wednesday, August 19. To encourage more use by the public, no fare was charged during the day-long event.
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August 2009: Heathrow first for battery technology. The latest battery technology is being used to power the world’s first personal rapid transit system which has just started operational testing at Heathrow. ULTra (Urban Light Transport) will use a fleet of 21 low power driverless electric vehicles on a dedicated guideway.
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August 2009: Airport travellers get a robot chauffeur. Driverless, battery-powered pod-cars will soon zip passengers around part of London's Heathrow Airport. The manufacturers of the Ultra personal rapid transit (PRT) system say it is the world's first public transport to balance the convenience of a taxi with the efficiency of a bus or light rail – albeit only for business passengers arriving at the world's third busiest airport.
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August 2009: SPECIAL: Home, James – public transport gets personal. A European research project has developed technologies that pave the way for highly efficient unmanned public transport systems in our cities. In our congested cities it is hard to imagine that private cars and taxis could ever be replaced by a public transport system that provides a personal, door-to-door service.
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August 2009: Bath Personal Rapid Transit Design Competition. Can the world’s newest transport technology fit into one of the world’s most historic cities? Advanced Transport Systems is offering designers around the world the chance to become involved in the design of ULTra Personal Rapid Transit, as part of the CIVITAS Renaissance Projec investigating sustainable transport options in historic cities.
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August 2009: Driverless cars with bug-eyed windows, arriving soon at Heathrow. The main gallery of the Science Museum contains George Stephenson’s Rocket and a Model T Ford, machines that revolutionised transport in the 19th and 20th centuries. Yesterday morning, beside that pair, were two lozenge-shaped vehicles designed to effect a similar transformation in the 21st century.
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August 2009: Driverless airport pods unveiled. A driverless vehicle, which will move passengers around Heathrow Airport, is being put on display. The low-energy, battery-powered Personal Rapid Transit System (PRT) can carry four passengers at up to 25 mph along a dedicated guideway.

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July 2009: Heathrow Tests Personal Rapid Transit System. London's Heathrow International Airport (LHR), one of the busiest airports in the world, saw the writing on the wall - or the traffic congestion around the terminals - early in the decade. The overcrowded tunnel system that provides the only access to its central terminal area had no capacity for expansion.
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July 2009: Connecting Ithaca. Unless we solve the problem of transportation, then nothing else really falls into place. You can pursue sustainable farming practices, you can dump money into alternative energy research, and you can set up organizations that support low-income families. But the biggest issue? It's public transit.
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July 2009: At Heathrow the world’s first Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) system reached a significant milestone this week as the system was officially handed over from construction to operational testing on Tuesday. The event was marked with the vehicle bursting through a paper screen before parking itself in the dedicated bay.
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July 2009: Environmentally friendly podcars rejected by counties' cities. "A cautious yes would have been good, at least," says Peter Lundevall (Green Party), who is critical. Is there a strong interest in development of a podcar system in the city? The issue went to all counties' cities and most counties have at least one city that responded yes. But none in Jönköping!
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June 2009: Hofors withdraws from Skycab project? The city of Hofors is considering not continuing to support the Skycab project, the driverless rail taxi, when the contract expires at the end of the year. One reason is that the company has not followed the promised timetable. Among other things, promised jobs have not been implemented despite the fact that money was granted. Applications which were to be crucial for financing were not sent as they should have been.
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April 2009: Driverless, rail-guided pod cars running on clean energy? It may sound like the kind of whimsical contraption better suited to the futuristic cartoon world of The Jetsons than the UAE. In Abu Dhabi’s Masdar City, though, the transportation fantasy is set to become a reality with the first of its pod cars due to arrive next summer, and other communities are following suit and exploring how to build their own PRT (personal rapid transit) networks.
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April 2009: Pod Off! Residents oppose Daventry PRT scheme. MORE than 100 Daventry townspeople voiced their opposition to proposals for a pod transport network in the town at a public meeting on Monday night. Daventry Town Council held its annual town meeting at the Phoenix Centre, off Ashby Road, which gave any resident of the town the chance to ask questions, voice their concerns, or let their opinion be heard.
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March 2009: Personal Rapid Transit on verge of becoming viable. Interesting article by Malcolm Buchanan. It took a long time and the personal commitment of a president of the United States for the concept of travel to the moon to be made a reality, and there were many who doubted it would ever happen.
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March 2009: From hybrid cars to podcars, scientists around the world are developing transportation technologies that cut down greenhouse gas emissions and reliance on petroleum. These times present a catch-22 of sorts for inventors - while the fuel crisis has made the public more open to alternative technologies, the economic crisis has further dried what was already a very limited investment pool.
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January, 2009: 2getthere unveils Masdar PRT vehicle. Masdar, which means “the source” in Arabic, has set its sights on becoming the source of new energy technologies, positi oning Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates, as a global leader in energy, sustainability and technology. The project, headed by the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (ADFEC), was initiated in 2006. At a cost in excess of $20 billion, Masdar City is esti mated to take eight years to build. Read more...

October 2008: US Army study finds visual intrusion of overhead guideways not to be an issue. A public workshop held at the Fort Carson Army Post has revealed that visual intrusion of a potential PRT system is not an issue and that reliability is the most important aspect. The workshop was intended to ensure that a PRT system (if implemented) would be an acceptable form of transport.
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June 2008: Legendary Speedway Project gets under way. Kansas State University (KSU) has embarked on a third phase of automated transport research to investigate the potential of personal rapid transit, to enhance mobility and relieve parking and vehicle congestion, in the commercial area known as the Legends at Village West, near the Kansas Speedway.
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January 2008: The Connective Tissue of Better Mobility - by Jerry Schneider
Two high-profile Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) systems are currently under construction, and their implementation could serve as a model for how cities can better connect their existing transit systems to improve mobility.
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August, 2007: The first full production vehicle, manufactured by ARRK in Basildon Essex, has been delivered to the Cardiff trials site. The new vehicle features a more powerful motor, full climate control, and the complete passenger interface. This vehicle now starts commissioning trials.



June, 2007: Construction Underway at Terminal 5, Heathrow Airport. Construction of the T5 end of the track started in January 2007 and there are now 22 foundations completed for the overhead section near T5. Heathrow has also featured ULTra in its recent literature:
Heathrow a New Airport
LHW Inform Issue 4


October, 2005: BAA announced that it is purchasing a personal rapid transit (PRT) system for London's Heathrow Airport. This is the first purchase of a modern PRT system. Older PRT-like systems have operated at West Virginia University for over 30 years and at Schipol Airport in Holland for about seven years.