Broken Links at North American ULTra PRT Website

Monday, the day I learned Tim Walz did not approve a $25 million earmark for a PRT "research" facility in Winona, PRT evangelist Steve Raney posted this message on the Transport Innovator's forum:

ultraprt.com content has moved to ultraprt.net atsltd.co.uk content will soon move to ultraprt.com. We are attempting to support some of the old ultraprt.com pages on the new ultraprt.com so that web sites that link to us won't get too broken. This will all take some time and some links will break. Sorry for the inconvenience.

This change effectively scrubs the ultraprt.com site of web pages describing PRT proposals in Minnesota - web pages apparently created by Steve Raney. Raney came to Rochester, Minnesota late last year to pitch ULTra at an MnDOT symposium.

The domain ultraprt.net was apparently registered recently - no mention of ownership:

Registered through: WebDomains4u.com
Domain Name: ULTRAPRT.NET
Created on: 12-Mar-10
Expires on: 12-Mar-11
Last Updated on: 22-Mar-10

Who knows why there are now 3 websites for a company with a product that's still under wraps... my guess is this means ATS ULTra has given up selling their glorified golf carts in Minnesota.

ULtra PRT is Testing... Testing... Testing....

A recent BBC article titled "Futuristic transport for Cardiff still on hold" asked the question:

Is this the future of public transport in south east Wales? Will it ever transfer from a test track in Cardiff Bay to the city's streets?

The answer is no.

A decision by the Welsh Assembly in January 2003 to withdraw £8m of financial backing for the scheme effectively shelved the project to the dismay of Cardiff council.

But seven years later a report by the Assembly's Enterprise and Learning committee in January 2010 has called for the fresh consideration of light rail systems in Cardiff, Swansea and Newport to tackle road congestion.

However, the report makes no reference to the system the Assembly had previously supported.

Why? Here's a clue - two screenshots from the ATS ULTra website that explain the problem:

2006:



Now:




The 2006 ATS ULTra website said this:

All of the key aspects of the technology of the ULTra system have now been demonstrated.

So why are they still testing... four years later?

How may chances do the PRT guys get?