PRT Guys Talk Trash About Rep. Tim Walz

In the aftermath of the failure to obtain a $25 million earmark for a pod facility in Winona, CPRT member and PRT consultant Dick Gronning had this to say about Congressman Tim Walz at the Transport Innovators forum:

It may be a DEM - REP thing. The democrats have been lobbied to death by the LRT folks. Our CPRT group did informational lobbying a few years back. The republicans would hear us out, but the democrats would either not see us, or show us glazed-over eyes. "That's REAL nice!" And, out-a here.

I doubt if he even knows what PRT stands for let alone what it looks like. Things ARE changing, but maybe not where this guy comes from. It IS true that SWE/T2C made the first bid on the project. The mayor is enamored with T2C. The idea behind the effort is to prove a Minnesota-based system. He doesn't get that either.

Dick

Others joined in the Walz-bashing... TriTrack "inventor" Jerry Roane:

Jerry

Notice he is not even asking for the funding but is personally standing in the way. How much does it cost him to ask the question? I did not have the time to submit TriTrack to Minn. I have enough snakes to kill around here but perhaps I should have submitted something to show support for my buds in Minn.

Jerry Roane

Skytrek "inventor" Jack Slade:

At a guess (scale of 1 to 10) he is almost up to 1....Jack Slade

Pod booster Walter Brewer:

How about minus 5?

Keep it KLASSY PRT Guys!

Time for a review....

No $25 million earmark for PRT pork project in Winona, Minnesota.

The ULTra PRT launch at Heathrow has been delayed at least 3 times.

The Swedish/Korean PRT prototype malfunctioned recently in front of the media.

The Masdar PRT (actually computer-guided golf carts that follow magnets imbedded in the roadway) has been scaled way back.

The much-hyped PRT project in Daventry ended in fiasco.

The so-called Morgantown PRT (it's a mundane people-mover) was the subject of a recent student newspaper editorial after a serious malfunction created a "fireball" and filled a vehicle with smoke.

Transit Expert Comments on Vectus Pod Snafu

Michael Setty at Public Transit has this to say about the Vectus model PRT malfunctioning in front of reporters in February.

This embarrassing incident only goes to prove one of my predictions: the undue complexity of the Vectus guidance and switching mechanisms would lead to problems--and did.

Read the whole thing.

They're going to need taller ladders:



UPDATE:Michael Setty has a postscript:

Postscript: A PRT news website run by David Gow, the most vociferous, consistent critic of Avidor (every time Avidor posts something at http://prtboondoggle.blogspot.com/, usually within a day Gow has some sort of snarky reply to Avidor up at PRT is a Joke is a Joke), says that a Vectus spokesperson claims that a minor problem with the Vectus wireless communications system was the cause of the vehicle stalling on the track, as shown in the Swedish newspaper article and photograph. See http://sites.google.com/site/prtshtuffpage/swedish-prt-news/vectus-test-track-glitch-explained.

But this begs a question: what the heck was that person on the ladder looking at under the vehicle or on the guideway under the vehicle (an action not consistent with an electronics problem--presumably the electronics aren't at the same location as the vehicle undercarriage??)? Given our role as PRT skeptics, we're not taking Gow's word for this; rather, we see it perhaps as "something that goes 'bump' in the night" with some things we'll never know for sure, or at least, as outspoken PRT skeptics, we'll never be allowed to be privy to.

Exactly.

Vectus PRT - FAIL

It got stuck (in Swedish):

- Vi har testkört de här dagarna helt utan problem. Trots att vi har låtit det snöa igen helt och hållet på spåret har det ändå varit lätt att komma i gång, säger Jörgen Gustavsson.

Men när vi på torsdagen besöker den 400 meter långa testbanan vid Uppsala biomedicinska centrum i Uppsala går det inte lika smärtfritt.

- Stopp, stopp, stopp, stopp. Slå av limmarna, ropar Leif Åsberg, teknisk konsult, in till kontrollrummet.

Google English translation:

- We have test driven these days without any problems. Although we have let it snow again entirely on the track, it has nevertheless been easy to get started, "says Jörgen Gustavsson.

But when we're on Thursday the 400-meter long test track in Uppsala Biomedical Center in Uppsala, it is not as painless.

- Stop, stop, stop, stop. Turn off the glue and shout Leif Åsberg, technical consultant, into the control room.

I'm guessing "glue" isn't the right word.

- You can turn on the glue, otherwise it will be difficult, "says Leif Åsberg and begins to push the cart with all his body weight. Cart rolls off and accelerates to about 30 km / h but a hundred meters into the cart path stops again - "technical problems". Something that does not have the weather to do, declares Project Manager Marianne Ogéus.

- You should have come on Monday instead, then it was problem-free, "she says.

But 30 minutes and several attempts later, we simply leave the test track with its tail between his legs.

Columnist: Naperville, Illinois Needs a PRT Boondoggle

Last week, Bill Mego of the Naperville Sun wrote a column titled; "Public transportation is going away in U.S.".

It will have to be safe and private. Naperville people don't want to travel in groups or mingle with the lower classes or the homeless.

So, to be successful, public transportation will have to be less than a fifth as expensive as light rail, not need a right of way, and run on a very small amount of electricity. Its cars will have to be safe and private, have essentially no moving parts that require maintenance, and not need a driver. So is there such a system? Yes, fortunately there is, but the "experts" aren't considering it.

I'll explain next week what it is.

Right.. the old, you don't want to ride with scary (fill in the blank) people, anti-transit canard.

This week Bill Mego lets us know what the "system" that excludes lower classes and homeless people is... and you guessed it:

The real genius of this system, called Personal Rapid Transit, is the computer system that controls the space between cars, called headway, their speed, their route though branches in the guideway system, and the distribution of unoccupied cars throughout the system. There are no schedules. A car is usually waiting at a station whenever you wish to ride. You pay by the ride, or by the day, with a credit card, an RFID device like an I-Pass transponder, or some kind of ticket.

A main spine from far south to far north Naperville might cost less than a high school. Because the guideways are easily installed and moved, loops and branches can easily be added as the system develops.

Because of low labor, fuel, insurance and maintenance costs, PRT can be financially self-supporting through tickets and dynamic, location-related advertising telling, for example, what is available at the stores and restaurants you are approaching. The more it is used, the less each ride costs.

The first step for us might be to plan a PRT line from a remote parking lot to the downtown Metra station, perhaps powered by our Green Fuels Depot. Given the negative and contentious political climate today, I think it would be foolish to proceed further without a super-majority referendum. I believe PRT is, however, the only form of public transportation we could ever implement. Fortunately, it's also the best.

Just what Illinois needs, another PRT boondoggle like the Raytheon,/Rosemount PRT project:

Fast-forward to the middle to late 1990s. J. Edward Anderson, the USA's leading PRT guru, managed to convince Raytheon, a major military hardware contractor, to buy into his PRT technology (a scheme developed in 1981), which he licensed to Raytheon in 1993. Raytheon then poured R&D money into the concept, bringing forth PRT 2000, a proprietary Personal Rapid Transit product. One way or another, PRT promoters had managed to attract the interest of the Northeastern illinois Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) in the concept, and a study concluded in 1992 that a suburban PRT system appeared feasible.

Lured by Raytheon's promise of a 1.3% commission on any additional sales of the PRT 2000 technology, RTA bought heavily into the venture, investing tens of millions of dollars in a proposed PRT system in the Chicago suburb of Rosemont, illinois, where a conference center and hotel complex near the Chicago O'Hare airport were planned. A 3.5-mile (5.6-km) triple-looping layout with about 8 stations and 40 cars, operating 20 hours a day, was intended to feed passengers to the RTA's Blue Line rail transit station (actually, not a bad test application for PRT). The system was projected to attract about 2 million rider-trips a year, at a cost of $1.00 a trip.

--snip--

An article in Mechanical Engineering Design (2004) relates that "after eight years and $40 million, the system proved to be unworkable." (Actually, according to another report in the Advanced Transit Association Newsletter (Spring 2000), total public and private investment in the project came to $67 million, virtually all of it wasted.)

In any case, work on PRT 2000 was discontinued by Raytheon and the RTA in 1999 ("Raytheon's PRT 2000", innovative Transportation Technologies website, 18 August 2002). An interview with Raytheon's project manager (ITS international, November/December 1999) notes that the company gave up after realizing that they could not build the system for less than $50 million per mile – and that for single-direction guideway loops.

Some people never learn...