Planning America's First Podcar City

Driverless Personal Rapid Transit Pods Are Proposed As Part Of Ithaca, N.Y.'s Sustainable Future

(AP)  The thought of a driverless, computer-guided car transporting people where they want to go on demand is a futuristic notion to some.

To Jacob Roberts, podcars - or PRTs, for personal rapid transit - represent an important component in the here-and-now of transportation.

"It's time we design cities for the human, not for the automobile," said Roberts, president of Connect Ithaca, a group of planning and building professionals, activists and students committed to making this upstate New York college town the first podcar community in the United States.

"In the podcar ... it creates the perfect blend between the privacy and autonomy of the automobile with the public transportation aspect and, of course, it uses clean energy," Roberts said.

With the oil crisis reaching a zenith and federal lawmakers ready to begin fashioning a new national transportation bill for 2010, Roberts and his colleagues think the future is now for podcars - electric, automated, lightweight vehicles that ride on their own network separate from other traffic.

Unlike mass transit, podcars carry two to 10 passengers, giving travelers the freedom and privacy of their own car while reducing the use of fossil fuels, reducing traffic congestion and freeing up space now monopolized by parking.

At stations located every block or every half-mile, depending on the need, a rider enters a destination on a computerized pad, and a car would take the person nonstop to the location. Stations would have slanted pull-in bays so that some cars could stop for passengers, while others could continue unimpeded on the main course.

"It works almost like an elevator, but horizontally," said Roberts, adding podcar travel would be safer than automobile travel.

The podcar is not entirely new. A limited version with larger cars carrying up to 15 passengers was built in 1975 in Morgantown, W.Va., and still transports West Virginia University students.

Next year, Heathrow Airport outside London will unveil a pilot podcar system to ferry air travelers on the ground. Companies in Sweden, Poland and Korea are already operating full-scale test tracks to demonstrate the feasibility. Designers are planning a podcar network for Masdar City, outside Abu Dhabi, which is being built as the world's first zero-carbon, zero-waste city.

Meanwhile, more than a dozen cities in Sweden are planning podcar systems as part of the country's commitment to be fossil-fuel-free by 2020, said Hans Lindqvist, a councilman from Varmdo, Sweden, and chairman of Kompass, an association of groups and municipalities behind the Swedish initiative.

"Today's transportation system is reaching a dead end," said Lindqvist, a former member of the European parliament.

Cars have dominated the cityscape for nearly a century, taking up valuable space while polluting the air, said Magnus Hunhammar, chief executive officer of the Stockholm-based Institute for Sustainable Transportation, the world's leading center on podcar technology.

"Something has to change," he said. "We aren't talking about replacing the automobile entirely. We are adding something else into the transportation strategy."

(Left: A computer model of a PRT system being built at London's Heathrow Airport, scheduled to open next year.)

Skeptics, however, question whether podcars can ever be more than a novelty mode of transportation, suitable only for limited-area operations, such as airports, colleges and corporate campuses. Detractors, mainly light-rail advocates, say a podcar system would be too complex and expensive.

"It is operationally and economically unfeasible," said Vukan Vuchic, a professor of transportation and engineering at the University of Pennsylvania who has written several books on urban transportation.

"In the city, if you have that much demand, you could build these guideways and afford the millions it would take, but you wouldn't have capacity. In the suburbs, you would have capacity, but the demand would be so thin you couldn't possibly pay for those guideways, elevated stations, control systems and everything else," Vuchic said.

Podcars typically run on an elevated guideway or rails, but they also can run at street level. As a starting point, pilot podcar networks can be built along existing infrastructure, supporters say.

Ithaca Mayor Carol Peterson said a podcar network could be part of her upstate city's long-range transportation plans and its mission of developing urban neighborhoods that are environmentally sustainable and pedestrian-friendly. Ithaca has a long history of progressive achievements - this summer, it began the first community-wide car sharing program in upstate New York.

In Ithaca, a network could connect the downtown business district and main business boulevard with the campuses of Cornell University and Ithaca College, which sit on hillsides flanking the city. When the two colleges are in session, Ithaca's population balloons from about 30,000 to about 80,000, causing big-city congestion on the city's roads.

Santa Cruz, Calif., recently hired a contractor to design a small solar-powered podcar system that would loop through the city's downtown and along its beach front.

The Institute for Sustainable Transportation predicts a podcar system will be installed in an American city within the next five years, although it is likely to cost tens of millions of dollars. Because of the huge initial investment, funding would have to come from both public and private sectors, IST officials said.

The capital cost is about $25 million to $40 million per mile, which includes guideways, vehicles and stations, compared with $100 million to $300 million a mile for light-rail or subway systems, according to the IST.

Although the plan for Ithaca is only in the conceptual stages, Roberts sees the city as a logical place for the country's first community-wide podcar network, noting that construction of the Erie Canal across upstate New York in the early 1800s revolutionized commercial transportation in a young America.

"Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Albany are connected along a single line, the Erie Canal. Now, they are connected by the (New York State) Thruway. It would be easy to adapt. You could have a high-speed rail line, or even buses, deliver travelers to the podcar stations, and the podcars take them wherever they want to go in the city," he said.

But podcar developers say they have overcome most technological obstacles and now must overcome the political and cultural barriers that lie ahead, equating it to the mind-set revolution that occurred when Americans hitched up their horses for good to become a nation of motorists.

"We are introducing an alternative to the automobile for the first time in 100 years," said Christopher Perkins, chief executive officer of Unimodal Transport Solutions, a California company that builds podcars that operate on magnetic levitation instead of wheels.

"But if you look back 100 years, you saw that we made the transition from the horse to the car. I think we are ready to make another transition," he said.


For more information on Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) systems, visit the following Web sites:

"Podcar City: Ithaca" Sustainable Transportation Conference

Citizens For Personal Rapid Transit

Advanced Transport Systems Ltd. (U.K.)

Institute for Sustainable Transportation (Sweden) - English version

Unimodal Transport Solutions

[kansas1946]

100 years ago, we had a far superior inter urban system in many major cities of the time. Streetcar tracks were torn up to makeway for the auto. Transportation in cities was efficient and cities were compact with dynamic central business districts. This is the 21st century version of the "flying Cars" promised to prior generations.
Culture needs to change and mass trasit needs to be more embraced before this type of concept would even remotely work.


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Posted by ralan40 at 09:07 AM : Oct 14, 2008
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I agree. The auto is king, especially in the area of the country I live in, the middle of the continent. Everything is spread out because land is (was) cheap. I live 10/12 miles from the city and a car is absolutely the only way to get to the city (where I work). No trains, busses, etc.
Also, along this same note, a lot of towns are trying to pass ordinaces against electric powered carts, such as golf carts, personal vehicles like HoverRounds being on the streets. They should be trying to accomodate those types of transportation, not making them illegal. Of course they cite safety concerns, but they should be trying to build in places for alternate vehicles in their planning of neighbor hoods.

[indianaman13]

You want to know why cars won''t drive themselves in the future?
1. Insurance companies would no longer be able to over charge you on your bill, hell, they might not be able to charge you at all.
2. Police states (America) will no longer make money on your bad driving. No more tickets, speeding, drunk driving, just think of how many lives could be saved, but how much less money the state will make.

[ralan40]

Jesuseyes is correct, The auto industry killed mass transit of the past in many cities. One consolation, the current Interstate system could easily be partially converted to rail when the car is no longer an affordable mode of transportation.

[ralan40]

100 years ago, we had a far superior inter urban system in many major cities of the time. Streetcar tracks were torn up to makeway for the auto. Transportation in cities was efficient and cities were compact with dynamic central business districts. This is the 21st century version of the "flying Cars" promised to prior generations.
Culture needs to change and mass trasit needs to be more embraced before this type of concept would even remotely work.

[helloall34]

Hmmm... Potential fistfights over who gets the next car. Vandalism and graffiti magnets. What if one breaks down? Does it hold up the everybody behind it?

A well-meaning idea, but one that simply won''''t work.

Posted by incog-nito at 05:46 PM : Oct 13, 2008
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This ''telephone'' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value too us.

-- Western Union internal memo 1876

Conservatives are nice to have around, but without people willing to embrace change our democracy wouldn''t work. Have freedom means nothing unless you use it to express your beliefs.

[lionheart64]

Runningralph, are you talking politics, science, social structure? Which? If you''re talking politics, I don''t see the connection between conservatism/liberalism and bringing people back into the cities. I''m curious. Please elaborate.

[toolmangler-2009]

"Beam me up Scotty" is a lot more than a SciFi Icon.
That is where the future is. Biofuels and Nuke stuff is doomed. They ought to be working on that instead of all this childish BS the Oil Cartels are foisting on us.

[andyreports]

Ithaca is gorges!

[runningralph]

It could work in some places. Not everywhere. Cities shoud try to emulate New York City. More prople, less sprawl. Bring people back into cities and out of far flung places. Conservation is a way to survive. Liberalism is the way to collapse.

[incog-nito]

Hmmm... Potential fistfights over who gets the next car. Vandalism and graffiti magnets. What if one breaks down? Does it hold up the everybody behind it?

A well-meaning idea, but one that simply won''t work.

[ibzjem]

This could work very well is some situations. Think about getting students too/from a university. It''s not much different than Metro trains, but with the pod, the routes could be expanded or fanned out to more locations and would be easier to build upon.
Start small in numerous places and build upon it. The existing highway infrastructure wasn''t build all at once.

[cyinzl8r]

What a waste of time and money.

[mitchm11714]

Given that these systems seem to be elevated, the designers seem to have forgotten the damage done to the community living under/alongside these systems. When the "el" lines were dismantled in NYC, new daylight penetrated some communities for the first time in decades. It seems like a noble but misguided idea ... unless someone figures out a good way to lay out the pod "tracks."

[yongamerica]

The pod car concept could have an enormous impact on the trucking industry as well.

Consider the operating costs of an 18 wheel rig, the amount of pollution and particulates the trucks diesel engines emit, and its a no brainer to start developing this technology for the on land shipping industry first. It could be easily tied to the railways for greater efficiency, decreasing costs and improving the environment all at once.

[Torilin]

You have to revamp the entire infrastructure to implement such device. To put it another way...while the cities tear down current transit system to implement the podcar what are we going to do without roads for the interim?

[neo269]

You have to have multiple types of mass transportation. Pod Cars are one of the best solutions to getting people from mass transit centers to disbursed businesses and homes.

[buttonjockey]

Simply put, it''ll fail. I like futuristic ideas, but this one will crumble as soon as people look at the cost versus what it is capable of providing.

Bottom line, it just cannot move people the way a train or freeway can. Basically, each pod is a replacement for one or two cars. Now take all the cars you see daily on the freeway, divide that number in half (if you think people are sharing pods with strangers) and then cram them all on a single track (not a multi-lane freeway). There is NO WAY we can afford enough pods to fulfill our transit needs and get them all on the same track.

Additionally, these pods would be a good place for muggings or worse. Closed in space, few witnesses, no driver to help out....

A train moves lots of people in a shot and crime on trains far less likely.

[missingamerica]

It is a shame that the people in the oil biz know that they can only rape America for short - if extremely intense - periods before they have to take their profits and back off, is it not?

Care to speculate how low oil will go in the face of any serious assault upon their stranglehold?

[enlightenu]

hmmm, looks like that system Lyle Lanley built over in North Haverbrook. Anyway, it sounds like more of a Shelbyville idea.

[antoniof123]

Cool.