Personal rapid transit (PRT) systems were highlighted at the "New Visions in Transportation 2000" conference held Oct. 18-20 in Aspen, Colo. Participants included international system inventors from Denmark, The Netherlands, the UK and the U.S., as well as city planners, OEMs, government policy makers and fund-raising advisors. Nine vehicles were available for test driving: Toyota's Prius HEV, Honda's Insight HEV, Ford's Th!nk Mobility Neighbor and City EVs (as well as several Th!nk electric bikes), U.S. Electrica's (now Enova Systems) electric bus, two Sparrow "personal transit module" EVs (built by Corbin Motors), and two GEM EVs made available by Rocky Mountain Electric Vehicles LLC in Aspen.

Wide ranging perspectives were reflected on the future of transportation in electric single- and dual-mode mass transit systems, individual EVs/HEVs and magnetic levitation or "maglev."  Mike Gage, President and CEO of WestStart/Calstart, stated enthusiastically, "just when you thought EVs were going away, they're back with a vengeance." His company has been assessing trends in the transportation industry for the U.S. Federal Transit Administration (FTA) and DARPA for the past eight years.

The EV options Gage cited will range from short-distance, city driven car-share programs employing smaller electric vehicles to rubber-tired electric buses on guided railways to heavy trucks replacing diesel with electric, hybrid electric and natural gas powered propulsion. Gage described an effort by four California grocery chains converting from diesel fuel to natural gas in 150 trucks, "proving that a small number of vehicles can have a significant, positive effect on health and environment." He added the more far-ranging observation, "never again will be we captive to a single fuel option."

Gage pointed out that CARB is committed to enacting the 10% ZEV mandate for new vehicles sold in California, starting 2003 (with 4% pure EVs and 6% partial ZEVs), even though some OEMs may be in denial regarding this time line. "Mandates are never a cure-all, but can provide positive impetus for technology development," Gage concluded.

Rob Stevens, President of Ford Motor Companyıs Th!nk Mobility Group,  discussed the company's emphasis on consumer emotional ties to transportation products in the design of EVs that are fun to drive and environmentally friendly. The "open" design of the Neighbor vehicle (with boosted safety features, top speed of 25 mph, base price $6,000) is aimed at planned communities, national parks, military bases, airports, and industrial/commercial facilities. The two-seater plastic-bodied Th!nk City, powered by 530 lbs of water-cooled NiCd batteries "represents a way to combine mass transit and personal mobility," Stevens said. A U.S. model will be available in 2002. He added that the Th!nk Mobility Group "serves as a technology and customer interface incubator for the rest of Ford," and reported that the EV technology engineers work closely with Th!nk Technologies, Ford's FCEV development group.   

Dr. James R. Guadagno of Cimarron Technology Ltd., looked at the future of transportation by drawing upon the two laws of thermodynamics, as related to the Earth's overall energy economy. By these laws, the longevity of the Age of Petroleum will only extend hydrocarbon resources (raw feedstock for gasoline or natural gas) for another 20 to 50 years. Of the many alternative fuels suggested to date, he believes the only "non-fantasy" solution that would be clean, abundant and cost effective is solar photovoltaics, including fuel cells deriving hydrogen from water via hydrolysis.

Amory Lovins, co-CEO of Research at Rocky Mountain Institute in nearby Snowmass, reported that Hypercar Inc., a commercial effort spun off last year from RMI's Hypercar Center, now has a staff of 50 and expects to complete a virtual hypercar design within several weeks. These carbon fiber composite, hybrid vehicles (readily adaptable to fuel cell operation on H2) represent a simultaneous leap frog in multiple technologies that will " provide more opportunities to get orders of magnitude better performance," said Lovins.   

Personal but public: PRTs

Palle Jensen, Danish inventor of the RUF (Rapid, Urban, Flexible) transit system, reported that ­ according to official sources ­- some $12.4 billion/year in work time is wasted by employees sitting in congested, passenger-vehicle traffic. A dual mode PRT could make a dent in that wasted time by converting the car into a rolling office. According to the FTA's Lee Waddleton, "we need technology that bridges the gap between traditional transport and light rail now being proposed, which can be quite expensive." He was calling on the right crowd. Among the electric-powered personal rapid transit systems discussed in Aspen: RUF, CyberTran, InTranSys, ULTra, Taxi 2000, the Higherway, MegaRail, and two magnetic levitation systems: SkyTran using Inductrak technology and HiLoMag

[see emails/websites listed at the end of this story for more detailed information on each system]

Common elements among some of the PRT systems discussed in Aspen:

• Dual mode operation, where a vehicle can operate on-road conventionally, but can also access a computer-controlled public transit system via an electric-powered guideway or railway
  
• Utilization of linear synchronous motors to provide electric power to the guideway and vehicles
  
• Systems that cost less overall ­ by building narrower infrastructure in highway and rail line medians, designing for high volume with many, smaller vehicles that go 3 to 10 times faster than highway passenger car traffic, and use of conventional materials/processes
  
• Emphasis on off-line stations (integrated with in-line stations)
  
• On demand, direct-to-destination travel in addition to scheduled system stops
  
• Construction for elevated, ground level or underground operation.
  
  RUF features specially-designed on-road EVs or HEVs that link together to form convoys once on the guideway; as onroad passenger cars, they use smaller battery packs that are recharged when on the guideway. MegaRail, on the other hand, incorporates existing EVs/HEVs and gasoline-powered vehicles via guideway "ferries" (next-gen system would also incorporate true dual mode EVs) along with 4-to-10 passenger mass transit cars at off-line stations, and has been estimated to cost $3 million/mile.
  
  Among the single mode systems, CyberTran expects to transport 10,000 passengers a day at $10 million/mile initial construction cost (prototype vehicle and track section built and in testing), whereas ULTra, with a composite prototype vehicle built and a full system demonstration underway funded by the UK Dept. of Transportation, estimates initial construction cost at $8 million/mile. Taxi 2000 with its wide-seat, one-to- four passenger vehicles capable of transporting 18,000 passengers/hour maximum (with 6,000 vehicles in a three-freeway line configuration) estimates $6 to $8 million/mile. InTranSys would combine PRT with maglev, and Higherway Transit Research would provide specialized vehicles for different passenger profiles. These include a three-wheeled single-passenger EV called the "Quail" that could operate both on-road and on the elevated guideway where it is suspended underneath the track.
   
  System designers made the point that innovative transit options have, in the past, involved larger vehicles and significantly larger capital investment estimates. The "smaller, faster, more vehicles" systems range from automated two-person "taxis" to 22-seater transit cars with individual entry/exit doors. Conventional materials useage will complement the low cost approach: guideways will likely use conventional concrete (possibly with some level of reinforcement either in terms of steel rebar or fiber/mineral filler in the concrete matrix); vehicle wheels will be made of steel, rubber, or polymer to resist wear; vehicles will be manufactured using steel, aluminum, and composites. Several of the systems capitalize on proprietary rail or guideway designs: Cybertran has round rails, MegaRail has shrouded stainless steel rails, RUF has triangular guideway. Each system has proprietary braking, switching and enhanced safety features.
  
  Whatever transit options emerge over the next few decades, certainly the Aspen conference provided a forum for examining the uniqueness and commonality among varied systems. In his keynote address, the FTA's Waddleton put it this way: "The way we use mobility technology ­ or abuse it ­ directly affects our liveability. New mobility options need to be accessible, convenient, safe, maintainable, reduce congestion and pollution, serve a wide variety of customers, and also reflect the fact that what we do in this country has international implications."

Access the conference website, www.nvt2000.com or co-organizers Bill. Flanigan/Kathy Mueller at Markusson Design, Carbondale, CO, (970) 963-6824, fax (970) 704-9577, email staff@nvt2000.com; Palle Jensen, RUF, Copenhagen, Denmark, (45) 3324-7033, fax (45) 3324-7044, email PRJ@RUF.DK, www.ruf.dk; Jake Vickery, Rocky Mountain Electric Vehicles LLC, Aspen, CO, (970) 925-3660, email rmev@aol.com; Michael Gage, WestStart/Calstart, Pasadena, CA, (626) 744-5600, fax (626) 744-5610, email mgage@weststart.org, www.weststart.org; Dr. John A. Dearien, CyberTran, Alameda, CA, (510) 864-3221, fax (510) 864-3010, jad@cybertran.com; Amory Lovins, RMI, Snowmass, CO, (970) 927-3807, fax (970) 927-4510, email ablovins@rmi.org, www.rmi.org; Martin Lowson, ULTra, Bristol, UK, (44) 117-974-4733, fax (44) 117-973-6497, email martin@atsltd.co.uk, ,www.atsltd.co.uk; Ed Anderson, Taxi 2000 Corp., Minneapolis, MN (612) 586-0878, email JEAnderson@taxi2000.com, www.taxi2000.com; Kirston Henderson, MegaRail Transportation Systems Inc., Ft. Worth, TX, (817) 738-9507, fax (817) 367-2373, kirston.henderson@megarail.com, www.megarail.com; Robert Stevens, Th!nk Mobility LLC, Dearborn, MI, (313) 594-0543, fax (313) 390-4911, rsteven1@ford.com, www.thinkmobility.com; Dr. J.R. Guadagno, Cimarron Technologies (InTranSys), Paonia, CO, (303) 527-4563, email cimarron@co.tds.net; Tad Winiecki of The Higherway System, Vancouver, WA, (360) 574-8724, email winiecki@pacifier.com, www.artwerkz.com/h/; Francis Reynolds, HiLoMag, Bellevue, WA, (425) 885-2647, email FreynoldsD@aol.com; Douglas Malewicki, SkyTran Corp., Irvine, CA, (949) 559-7113, email Dmalewicki@SkyTran.net, www.SkyTran.net; Tom Corbin, Corbin Motors, Hollister, CA, (831) 634-1100, (831) 635-1026, www.ev-sparrow.com.    

OTHER TRANSPORTATION-RELATED ALEXANDER COMMUNICATIONS GROUP/Scientific American newsletters: AltFuels Advisor, Fuel Cell Industry Report,  The Intelligent Highway, Inside ITS, Advanced Traffic Detection, and Electronic Toll Collection. For more info, go to www.sciam.com/marketplace/mrktproducts_nletter.html, or request sample copies at info@Sanewsletters.com.

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Last modified: May 27, 2001