Personal Rapid Transit in Daventry? - An Update

Daventry Town Council page on the pods:

Following our Annual Town Meeting in April when over 100 residents attended and voiced their opposition to the proposed POD transport system, the Town council resolved to hold a Public Meeting. The purpose of the meeting was to allow members of the public to raise questions and receive information on how Daventry District Council’s proposed PRT plans would benefit the residents of Daventry.

However, following a recent statement by the DDC confirming that proposals for a futuristic Personal Rapid Transport System have been put on hold, the Town Council agreed this negates a need for a public meeting and resolved to defer holding a Public Meeting at this time.

The Town Council have further resolved to work in partnership with the DDC, NCC and WNDC and be actively involved in discussions on future public transport options for Daventry Town.

Further details will be available in the Autumn edition of our newsletter.

Daventry District Council Town Crier, October 2009 (PDF)

People Power Puts Pods on Hold?

Following our Annual Town Meeting in April when over 100 residents turned up to voice their opposition to the proposed pod transport system, it was agreed at full council to hold a Public Meeting to allow members of the public to raise questions and receive information on how the DDC’s proposed PRT plans are likely impact on the Daventry community. It was subsequently decided to broaden the scope of the meeting, allowing both public and council representatives to open up the debate by discussing the future transport needs for Daventry in the wider sense. With DDC refusing to participate, and publicly stating in the press that proposals for PRT are now on hold, this raises the question of the need, or timing of such a meeting, and as organisers we must ask what we expect to achieve by holding such a Public Meeting at this time.

It must be noted that DDC continues to promote PRT on their website; in fact there are no changes in the text or mention of any change in their position – the official line from DDC on their website is: “Plans for a pioneering driverless public vehicle system in the heart of Daventry are being developed.” The DDC have also now disbanded the PRT public advisory panel of which we had two members. The Daventry Town Council feels it would be useful, timely and informative to meet with the DDC and Northamptonshire County Council to discuss all public transport options for Daventry. We will keep you updated on the latest news from these talks whenever we can and we will tell you more in the next issue of The Town Crier.

As is usually the case when the PRT hucksters come to town, the public process is minimal or non-existent:

The town council has decided it will organise its own meeting on the personal rapid transport (PRT) system, also known as the pods, after DDC said it would not hold one in the near future.

DDC instead said it will consult with the public once proposals are sufficiently detailed to give people ‘meaningful information’ including the commercial viability of whatever transport scheme is chosen.

At a meeting on Tuesday last week town councillors unanimously agreed to reject the PRT proposals and pilot scheme saying it is ‘inappropriate for and unacceptable to the people of Daventry’ and to hold their own public meeting where officers and councillors from DDC will be invited to give townspeople the opportunity to ask questions on the PRT proposals.

Lynne Taylor, leader of the town council, said: “A lot of comments we received from the public show they believe they’ve not been informed and they don’t know what a PRT system would mean for the town and they are getting more entrenched in their views.

“The district council said there’s not plans out there yet and that it hasn’t looked into the system it would use.

“Our decision was unanimous because we felt that the public isn’t being listened to.”

More about the Daventry pod fiasco here.

Comments on PRT from the Daventry Town Council website:

City Council Vote Soon on Winona Pods

Winona Daily News:

Planning for pods

City leaders are likely to continue a bid to bring a controversial transportation system to Winona.

Council members may vote as early as this month on whether to ask local lawmakers to sponsor a bill seeking state funds to support testing Personal Rapid Transit, a futuristic system of small vehicles moving on guideways that take passengers straight to their destination. City leaders have outlined a $25 million proposal using state, federal and private funds that would create a PRT test lab at the Minnesota State College-Southeast Technical campus.

But as with high-speed rail, Winona will likely have competition from other municipalities throughout the state, as the Minnesota Department of Transportation soon may solicit proposals for test sites elsewhere, a spokesman said last month.

Winona City Council member Debbie White gave me this comment about the pod plan:

As currently proposed, the PRT would be a test/pilot project which Winona would be ideal for. With the mix of private, federal, and state money, it has the potential to benefit a broad range of stakeholders, e.g. education, R & D, transportation efficiencies, industry/manufacturing, job creation, new business incubators, green infrastructure, and renewable energy initiatives. As well, the concept brings a wealth of opportunities for Minnesota.

I hope Debbie White has an opportunity, before the vote to perform some due diligence in regards to PRT... for instance, she could contact elected officials in Daventry, England who were also wooed with similar claims about the potential benefits of PRT and were left only with a bill for £485,936.43:

Shock at cost of pod scheme

Published Date: 04 June 2009

I RECENTLY requested some information from Daventry District Council (DDC) regarding expenditure on
the PRT system proposed for Daventry.

I was more than shocked by the result and thought it incumbent on me to share the information with your readership. See quoted response below.

"The total expenditure on Personal Rapid Transit (PRT), including consideration of alternative transport modes, in the period of February 12 2007 to April 1 2009 was £485,936.43. This figure includes commissioned studies and all associated expenses.

"It is not a simple process to extract purely PRT costs, however for the period set out in this response PRT was coded separately within our internal finance processes.

"Please note that the council received grant funding from Northamptonshire Enterprise Limited of £200,000 (in 2007) as support for our studies.

"Hence the net Council expenditure for PRT in the period stated above was £285,936.43." (Northamptonshire Enterprise Limited (NEL) is a Government funded body) With nearly half a million pounds being spent on PRT I also asked how much money had been spent on the alternative transport systems and the answer appears to be nothing.

This begs the question what are the alternative transport systems being considered and how serious has the consideration of them been?

Councillor Mark Wesley
Abbey South
Daventry Town Council

Good question... why is PRT (an imaginary mode of transport) the only mode being considered for Winona?

What was the process that resulted in PRT and only PRT being the preferred mode for this project in Winona?

"Pods Off" - The Real Story of PRT in Daventry

Almost a year ago, Chris Millar leader of the Daventry District Council told the Daventry Express, “The eyes of the world are on Daventry with this project." The project he was talking about was a plan to install a futuristic "Personal Rapid Transit" (PRT, Podcars) system in the quiet market town of Daventry, England, population 22,36.

Now, it appears the plan to bring the much-hyped "revolution in sustainable public transport" to Daventry has been called off... what happened?

Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) is an infeasible, futuristic transportation concept with over thirty years of controversy and failure... so why does PRT keep getting proposed in city after city recently in San Francisco and Phoenix and San Jose and Boston?

Part of the answer is people, Americans in particular are suckers for futuristic monorail flim-flams.. a weakness spoofed in the Simpsons episode "Marge and the Monorail". But there is another reason, the Legacy Media as well as the New Media fail to follow-up on the well-hyped launch of PRT projects and fail to report on the inevitable crash months or years later.

Such is the case with the proposal to bring PRT to Daventry.

In September 2007, the Daventry Express, known to locals as "The Gusher" had an article about a PRT conference held in Daventry.

Daventry District Councilor channeled Lyle Langly with this quote:

"Daventry is very much at the forefront of this. Across Europe, Daventry is at the cutting edge.

“This is a state-of-the-art new form of public transport which has a lot of benefits. This is very exciting and very positive.

“If it works in Daventry, everyone else will want it.”

Fast forward to the April, 2009 when The Gusher published an article titled "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.

Why were the citizens upset?

Several people spoke angrily about the lack of consultation from DDC on the pods, and others said not enough information had been made public by the district council.

Rosemary Cooper said: "Many people are very angry about the pods and we still feel there's been a lack of information and a lack of consultation with the public."

Another said: "I feel as if I'm almost helpless and don't know how to change things that are happening."

The Daventry Town Council (a separate governing body than the DDC) agreed, saying:

"Daventry people have not been apprised of the full extent of the infrastructure required to operate the proposed PRT system. This lack of information clearly denies them the opportunity to make reasoned judgement and comment. "

In a meeting in April, after listening to a report by a councilor who had visited Heathrow 5 and saw the transportation revolution first-hand, the Daventry Town Council voted to reject the pods:

RESOLVED: That Daventry Town Council reject Daventry District Council’s proposals for a PRT system and/or pilot scheme in the town, on the basis that it is inappropriate for and unacceptable to the people of Daventry.

According to this PRT website, Chris Millar is blaming the global recession for the demise of his pod venture.

The London Times still reports that Daventry is getting PRT:

"Bath and Daventry councils are considering joining Terminal 5 in this putative revolution"

And what did this fling with futuristic pods cost?. Here's a June 4th letter to the Leamington Courier from a Daventry Town Councillor titled "Shock at cost of pod scheme"

I RECENTLY requested some information from Daventry District Council (DDC) regarding expenditure on the PRT system proposed for Daventry.

I was more than shocked by the result and thought it incumbent on me to share the information with your readership. See quoted response below.

"The total expenditure on Personal Rapid Transit (PRT), including consideration of alternative transport modes, in the period of February 12 2007 to April 1 2009 was £485,936.43. This figure includes commissioned studies and all associated expenses.

"It is not a simple process to extract purely PRT costs, however for the period set out in this response PRT was coded separately within our internal finance processes.

"Please note that the council received grant funding from Northamptonshire Enterprise Limited of £200,000 (in 2007) as support for our studies.

"Hence the net Council expenditure for PRT in the period stated above was £285,936.43." (Northamptonshire Enterprise Limited (NEL) is a Government funded body)

With nearly half a million pounds being spent on PRT I also asked how much money had been spent on the alternative transport systems and the answer appears to be nothing.

This begs the question what are the alternative transport systems being considered and how serious has the consideration of them been?

Another councilor's letter mentions a similar figure:

I am a Daventry resident and a member of the DDC PRT Implementation: Public Advisory Panel – a people's panel that was set up to look at different types of transport and give its verdict on the right type of technology for Daventry.

There are 30 members of the panel who do not all live in Daventry so a public meeting would give the town's residents an input before we spend another £497,000.

£497,000 ... that's a whole lotta mono-doh!