[sustran] Re: "Valid" PRT analysis

[bruun at seas.upenn.edu]

Steve

BAA must represent the public interest as airports have a lot of  
externalities. They don't get to be
irresponsible.

If I understand correctly, the Podcar carries it own batteries instead  
of drawing from the guideway. Nor does it have positive guidance in  
case of tire failure. I don't consider this to be an advanced design.

There is no such thing as an apolitical PT evaluation. Multi-criteria  
evaluation of PT inherently includes
public concerns that are reflected in political decisions about  
investment priorities and weighting of non-monetary costs and benefits.

I also fully agree with Lee Schipper that it is vitally important to  
trace what economists blandly call the "incidence" of costs and  
benefits. There is something wrong with an evaluation/decision making  
process that usually aims benefits at one geographic or demographic  
sector and usually makes another one bear most of the costs. I  
consider PRT to be another example of project that is aimed at a  
higher demographic but would be very likely to ulimately be monetarily  
paid for, in part, by the general public.  Certainly the non-using  
public would bear the externalities of this network running around in  
the sky without being able to afford to use it. It might also  
interfere with the construction of more high capacity systems like  
BRT, LRT, RRT,etc they could afford to use.

Eric Bruun



Quoting Steve Raney <steve_raney at cities21.org>:

> Lee states that the use of OPM (other peoples' money) by public  
> transit agencies reduces creativity, innovation, and cost control  
> and also produces distorted risk-taking. The ULTra system at London  
> Heathrow uses 100% private-sector funding, so Lee?s point is  
> invalid. In the UK, Margaret Thatcher privatized transport,  
> including Heathrow Airport (BAA). Not only is BAA the ULTra  
> customer, but BAA also made an equity investment (private sector  
> risk taking).
>
> The iPhone is a software/hardware product featuring a great touch  
> screen user interface, a complex operating system, wireless  
> communications, location tracking, and appealing packaging. Same for  
> ULTra.
>
> The iPhone "delights" users. The ULTra system underwent extensive  
> design and human factors research, like most private sector  
> technology products. The ULTra system also "delights" ? examples:
> *  "Landed and used the very cool #heathrowpod ? and they're even  
> better to use - quicker, easier and greener than the buses to/from  
> the car park"
> *  "Just rode the "Heathrow Pod" It's awesome!!"
> *  "On personal Heathrow Pod - parking to T5. Awesome sci-fi system."
> *  "I am in a pod. A bit like the cab on Total Recall without the  
> mad driver! ... FAST though! ... Almost like a real life scalextric  
> ;-)"
> *  "Geek transportation par excellence!"
>
> After the iPod came the iPhone came the iPad. PRT feature sets may  
> progress along similar lines. Already, 2getthere offers a family of  
> advanced transit solutions.
>
> ***************
>
> I expect there is a consensus in favor of "rational project  
> decision-making" for PRT & all transportation alternatives studies.  
> It might be productive to attempt to define a list of "desirable  
> characteristics" beyond the initial consensus for fair, apolitical,  
> rigorous studies. A PRT-exampled first cut at desirable  
> characteristics:
>
> 1. Human-powered transportation is highly desirable.
>
> 2. 100% private sector funded business models (such as the ULTra  
> Heathrow system) are desirable.
>
> 3. "Public transit with zero general taxpayer obligation and risk  
> management" is desirable. Note the recent article on innovative  
> cleantech (including PRT) funding tools:  
> http://www.thenational.ae/lifestyle/personal-finance/new-investment-vehicles-can-boost-green-energy-projects. In addition, wind turbine financial risk management tools may be applied to other new cleantech  
> technologies.
>
> 4. User fees are desirable. It is desirable to minimize general  
> taxpayer obligation (OPM). Transit creates real-estate appreciation.  
> Where possible, value capture should be used to capture local  
> benefit, to improve business models. Historically, transit value  
> capture mechanisms are less effective than desirable. (PRT research  
> has led to the invention of a new tool, "parked car cap n trade."  
> http://www.cities21.org/CRIB.htm )
>
> 5. Social equity should be given high value.
>
> 6. Lifecycle environmental impact should be included as part of  
> rigorous analysis.
>
> 7. With new technologies, care should be taken to envision potential  
> unintended consequences.  If a new project turns humans into the  
> atrophied, former-bipeds envisioned in the movie Wall-E, this is  
> undesirable. See:  
> http://cache.heraldinteractive.com/blogs/entertainment/the_assistant/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/wall-e-human.jpg
>
> 8. Innovation (providing alternatives diversity) should be given  
> high value. Sometimes innovation is hard to measure. Sometimes  
> innovation takes time to arise/resolve. Take BART. Sir Peter Hall?s  
> 1982 book, Great Planning Disasters states, ?Had the citizenry of  
> the Bay Area the ability to foresee the true future, there seems  
> little doubt that they would have rejected the whole BART proposal  
> out of hand. But in the critical decisions between 1959 and 1962,  
> the information on which they acted was seriously deficient. The  
> cars would be controlled not by drivers but by computerized  
> automatic train control. This involved advancing the existing state  
> of the art in one giant leap.? Contrast this to one current opinion,  
> ?30 years after Great Planning Disasters, daily BART ridership is  
> beyond 300,000. That?s a catastrophic success.?
>
> -	Steve
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Lee Schipper [mailto:schipper at berkeley.edu]
> Sent: Wednesday, May 11, 2011 1:22 PM
> To: Steve Raney
> Cc: sustran-discuss at list.jca.apc.org
> Subject: Re: [sustran] "Valid" PRT analysis
>
> 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/
>
>
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