[sustran] Re: Following the Yellow Brick Road to PRT

[Alan P Howes]

All noted - and I haven't had chance to follow Eric's links - but
while PRT could probably be classed as APM, by no means all APMs are
PRT.

PRT has to be at very least few to many, and ideally many to many.
Most APMs that I know of - including, I guess, all the ones that have
actually been implemented - are few to few, if not one to one (e.g.
APMs at airports).

Can anyone prove me wrong?

Alan

On Thu, 6 Jan 2005 12:00:19 +0100, "EcoPlan, Paris"
<eric.britton at ecoplan.org> wrote to "'Asia and the Pacific sustainable
transport'" <sustran-discuss at list.jca.apc.org>:

>Dear Friends,
>
> 
>
>Sorry to poke my big nose into this, but the fact is that I have looked long
>and hard at this family of systems over the years and I would like at least
>to point any of you who might be interested into sources where you can find
>accurate information about actual deployments and plans.
>
> 
>
>The first place to turn in my book is Larry Fabian's diligently maintained
>Trans21 database has for the last thirty years provided good coverage of
>these developments which you will find detailed at http://www.airfront.us
><http://www.airfront.us/> .  He defines his target as APMs, to whit: "An
>Automated People Mover is a passenger transport system with high levels of
>electronic intelligence so that vehicles are operated by computers over
>exclusive guideways without need for attendants. Progressive engineers and
>planners have worked on APMs since the 1960s, and today over 100
>installations operate around the world."  He then goes on to identify some
>114 working implementatoins at http://www.airfront.us/PDFs/Count04.pdf and
>a couple of dozen "APM projects underway" (perhaps a bit optimistic that) at
>http://www.airfront.us/PDFs/ActiveAPMConstruction-2004.pdf
>
> 
>
>Fabian has often noted that the most likely places for deployment of this
>family of systems are areas where there is a single owner and purpose, which
>has over the last decades boiled down mainly to airport, leisure center and
>similar installations. And while he complicates his good list by including a
>dozen automated metros, these last in any event are in my view far more
>indicative of what new technology is all about in our chosen area of
>concern, rather than the Yellow Brick Road thesis (a phrase which,
>incidentally, I very much wish I had invented in this context).
>
> 
>
>Other sources that can help fill out your information on this subject, if
>you are still tempted:
>
> 
>
>*         Professor Jerry Schneider's Innovative Transportation Technologies
>Website at http://faculty.washington.edu/~jbs/itrans/
>
>*         The Advanced Transportation Technologies e-group at
>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/advanced_transportation/
>
>*         The Advanced Transit Association (http://advancedtransit.org
><http://advancedtransit.org/> )
>
> 
>
>I might note that there is little other than quick peripheral discussion of
>PRT or its various cousins in the VTPI encyclopedia under "Public Transit
>Improvements" which to me speaks volumes, at the very least in terms of the
>preoccupations that the very great majority of us share here.
>
> 
>
>It is my sincere hope that we can now get off the Yellow Brick Road to PRT
>and back to the very worthy and hugely challenging problems of sustainable
>development and social justice which are the principal reason for our being
>here.
>
> 
>
>Eric Britton

-- 
Alan P Howes, Perthshire, Scotland
alan at ourpeagreenboat.co.uk
http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/alanhowes/  [Needs Updating!]