The PRT "Industry" Caught Behaving Badly (Yet Again) Insults and Ballot Stuffing

Eric Britton has a some thoughtful posts, a poll and a polite discussion going over at World Streets (here, here and here)

The post with the poll attracted the attention of the handful of PRT aficionados at the Google Transport Innovators forum. Here are selections from the discussion thread titled "Plea to vote for Delhi PRT"...

Peter "PRT Guru" Muller" posted an email he apparently received from Sonal Ahuja, an employee of Capita Symonds which according to the PRT Visions blog is working on PRT for India:

Dear Friends,

Please don't forget to cast your vote and ask your friends to cast one in support of PRT here. It seems to be a biased discussion here and PRT will need your support.

http://worldstreets.wordpress.com/2011/04/27/prt-proposal-for-delhi-c...

with warm regards

Sonal Ahuja
Director International Development,
CAPITA SYMONDS
Technology Transport and Infrastructure
Level 7, 52 Grosvenor Gardens, Belgravia,
London, SW1W 0AU,
United Kingdom
Tel: -----
India Mob: ----
UAE ----

ULTra PRT employee Steve Raney weighed in:

Eric Britton, the Worldstreets survey author, is a green transportation advocate and a fan of a select few advanced
technologies. I find him intellectually rigid when it comes to PRT. I would discredit any attempt by Britton to conduct a fair survey. And I think it is fundamentally a BS idea to survey about a PRT application backed by a detailed study using a few teeny bits of explanation written by an anti-PRT guy. Britton isn't interested in any detailed study that picks PRT as the favored alternative. On the Sustrans yahoo group, it was Britton who posted Ken Avidor stuff. That's further discrediting in my book. I'd rather watch Judge Judy, where I can experience a much higher level of discourse.

Jack Slade, the tactless inventor of Skytrek unloads on Eric:

I thought the request originated with Peter Muller. Eric is not part of the transportation solution, he is part of the problem. He hasn't a clue what should be done, if it is more complicated than a bicycle, and ridicules everything that his little brain cannot cope with.

Britton has taken note of these comments:

It is always interesting to have people’s unvarnished views on your work and ethics. Here are a few by some people who felt that I was being unfair to PRT and Pods

Indeed.

I am amused that Steve Raney continues to attack my credibility and suggesting that people who merely quote me can suffer a loss of credibility. Steve Raney, of course was forced to remove an entire page from the ULTra website that attempted to discredit me and other critics who merely mention the fact that ULTra has repeatedly failed to launch their much ballyhooed Heathrow pods (something Raney himself has acknowledged). Geez, BAA Heathrow still has this on their website:

"PRT offers a completely new form of public transport - one that will deliver a fast, efficient service to passengers and bring considerable environmental benefits, saving more than half of the energy used by existing forms of public or private transport. Not only that, it's a world first and we are very much looking forward to launching this to passengers in 2009."

Really! 2009?

As usual, instead responding to criticism by being honest and transparent, PRT promoters react to criticism and bad news by shooting the messenger.

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UPDATE: Eric Britton has given his verdict:

This has been good fun, but Brendan Finn has it right. These PRT enthusiasts are distracting us at a time when we need all our brains and focus for the real stuff. Out they go.

...ending with yet another example of how badly the small number of PRT hucksters are at astroturfing:

(Note on the poll results: It has in the last 24 hours been contaminated by no less than 106 visits from a single Comcast Cable site in Seattle, Washington, United States, with the result that exactly 65 votes have been recorded in favor of PRT as a solution from the one site. Now that’s interesting.)