[sustran] Re: "Valid" PRT analysis

[Lee Schipper]

I have kept my fingers quiet in this interesting discussion, but I want to
add one point responding to what Steve wrote.
Comparing pods and pods is to me very invalid. Apple's  IPOD is a product
of a private firm with a history of interesting investments in
intellectual and physical capital. It knows how to take risks.
The problem facing any public transport system with infrastructure costs
is that the public, aka 'OPM' (for 'other peoples' money') is asked to
take the risks and come up with the money to put something we're assured
we'll benefit us all. Since "us" is in fact all of us, we do need this
kind of scrutiny.
My colleague at Stanford, Richard White, wrote about this in his op ed in
the NY Times a few weeks ago:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/opinion/lweb01train.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=high%20speed%20rail%20richard&st=cse

While you may think high speed rail is a good thing (or not), and you may
or may not agree with his stance, you have to admit that the issue of who
takes risks and who gets benefits must be discussed. For all public
transit systems, the risks are political, monetary, and often
environmental if a system (like the Lima metro) fails but leaves a huge
scar across the space it was supposed to serve.

I don't know how to solve the OPM problem in my own country, and I would
not claim I know how to solve that problem in India, but I do know that
building any system of relatively low transport capacity per unit of
investment, in a place where transport demand is spilling over every
where, is risky. Whether it is the best use of public funds, I don't know
-- that's for those of you in India to decide. But given the dominance
until now of roads over other modes of transport in terms of where
spending for Indian urban transport has gone, I think it's important to
look at a specific city, take a long-run view, and see how combinations of
options fit in, who pays and who benefits.
This is not the way one sorts out what kind of ipod or other individual
device should be made next.
-- 
Lee Schipper, Ph.D
Project Scientist
Global Metropolitan Studies
http://metrostudies.berkeley.edu/

Street/Mail Address:
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Berkeley CA 94704-2647


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skype: mrmeter



> Eric and Todd raise invalid objections to PRT. For example, Todd was
> interviewed for a 2009 article on PRT, but the Boston Globe writer found
> Todd's objections invalid, hence: a) there are no quotes by Todd in the
> article and b) the writer dismisses a group of stale objections:
> http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/10/04/invasion_of_the_
> pod_car/.
>
>
>
> I am not claiming that that Eric and Todd are deficient. I applaud most of
> their contributions to sustainable transportation. But, for "PRT under
> Capitalism," private sector companies have to address a much larger set of
> objections/issues, in much more detail, in order to obtain equity
> investments and project funding. Readers should envision the equivalent of
> 1,000 pages of Q&A back and forth regarding objections/issues. There are
> now
> three "established" PRT vendors who have "run Capitalism's gauntlet:"
> ULTra
> PRT, 2getthere, and Vectus. To me, objections based on
> "non-gauntlet-proven"
> PRT systems are straw man (false) arguments (see
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man). I agree with Eric that
> comic-strip
> writer Ken Avidor's PRT straw man would be unsafe, expensive, unreliable,
> low-capacity, smelly, dirty, poorly-maintained, and ugly.
>
>
>
> PRT is not the best alternative for every transportation application.
> Time-consuming, expensive, expert processes are used to evaluate
> transportation alternatives (with O/D flows, benefit-cost analysis,
> stakeholder input, etc). It is common for PRT and BRT to be considered as
> complementary solutions in a multi-modal mosaic. It is rare for PRT and
> BRT
> to compete directly. Historically, the bias in alternatives analyses has
> favored the status quo.
>
>
>
> Apple would not debate "the iPod concept" on a listserv, nor would Apple
> use
> a simplistic survey to "vote" on the iPod. There were many failed attempts
> at digital music players (Creative Labs, etc) before the iPod succeeded.
> Apple would say, "Eric and Todd, in our product research, we came across a
> superset of your issues/objections. We would not have moved forward if we
> had not convinced ourselves that we could address those objections."
>
>
>
> Here is a link,
> http://www.ultraprt.com/news/89/149/May-2011-News-LHR-HSR-India-Apple-tools/
> , to some current, commercially-oriented information on one of the three
> established PRT systems (I am an employee). Item #4 provides
> characteristics
> of Indian PRT applications.
>
>
>
> I have had the opportunity to spend 15,000 hours of my working career on
> PRT. My peer-reviewed research supports PRT "niche applications" where PRT
> synergistically enhances other green modes.
>
>
>
> ============================================
>
> Steve Raney, Cities21: advanced transit & smart growth
>
> Transportation Research Board Committee Member, AP020 and AP040
>
>
>
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