4 ms·

West Virginia's 70s Automated Personal Rapid Transit

25 points by 8bitsrule 4y ago

jhbadger 4y ago
The WVU PRT is amazing, but impractical. Duke University had a sister system which was decommissioned in 2009. I totally get why they did that, but I'm still sad. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_University_Medical_Center_Patient_Rapid_Transit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_University_Medical_Center...
euroderf 4y ago
The concepts "personal" and "confined to bulky, expensive tracks" don't seem terribly compatible.
- junon 4y ago
  As opposed to "bulky, expensive roads"?
  - euroderf 4y ago
    "bulky, expensive, already-built roads" ?
    - junon 4y ago
      Ah yes, because we never build new roads.
jonahbenton 4y ago
Thanks, very cool reference, was not aware of these. I as a lifelong NYC resident have long thought the subway tracks are a singularly underutilized resource. We should have the capability now to deploy a fleet of autonomous small scale people movers, 3 to 5 people per, available for private scheduling and point to point travel, without having to make any changes to the existing ancient and decrepid signalling system. Would be revolutionary.
- yuppie_scum 4y ago
  Call an uber. The subway is MASS transit, for efficiently moving lots of people. Not just a few at a time.
  - jonahbenton 4y ago
    The equivalent of Uber running on the rails, yes. Bulk cars can carry ~200 people in a 9 foot wide by 50 foot long unit, and most trains are 10 cars long. Small, autonomous 5-10 person sized units of 9 foot wide by 5 or so feet long would offer flexibility while still being reasonably space efficient. The tracks have many many interstation connection points. There are many local/express track pairs. So there are lots of potential point to point routes for an autonomous fleet to service. Even at peak utilization more than 99% of track surface lies unused as the bulk car scheduling/signalling system is ancient and inefficient.
    - yuppie_scum 4y ago
      No, as a bit of a railfan I can assure you that this would be not nearly as efficient or easy to operate as you assume. The NYC subway believe it or not is a wonder of efficiency compared to most US transit agencies. (Many of which don’t even have double tracking) You basically want to gut it in favor of avoiding the company of the unwashed masses. In the long run this would lead to much longer wait and travel times.
      - jonahbenton 4y ago
        Agree, what the city does with transit, as in most areas, is in fact extraordinary. (In education, I had an elected position for a while on NYC equivalent to school boards and came to understand the DOE is an absolutely incredible institution that should be studied as a model...) I am not saying at all to replace what we have now. The opposite. On top of the existing bulk people movers, layer on a point to point capability to utilize spare track capacity. Lots of experimentation regarding logistics would be needed to be sure, but in principle a) we should have the technical capability to deploy small autonomous cabs without needing technical integration with the existing signalling system b) we should be able to make better use of the extraordinary amount of interconnected track surface we have been blessed with, especially outside of Manhattan and especially at off hours. The reason someone in deep Brooklyn has to wait 20 minutes for a 2 or a D or an F on a weekend is that it is inefficient to run a 10 car train that can move 2000 people when only 200 are travelling. Happy to learn of existing experiments in this vein but to my eyes we should look at supplementing the bulk system with autonomous small capacity pods.
Fatnino 4y ago
@dang can you add (video) and (2017) tags?

25 points by 8bitsrule 4y ago

The WVU PRT is amazing, but impractical. Duke University had a sister system which was decommissioned in 2009. I totally get why they did that, but I'm still sad. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_University_Medical_Center_Patient_Rapid_Transit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_University_Medical_Center...

euroderf 4y ago

The concepts "personal" and "confined to bulky, expensive tracks" don't seem terribly compatible.

junon 4y ago
As opposed to "bulky, expensive roads"?
- euroderf 4y ago
  "bulky, expensive, already-built roads" ?
  - junon 4y ago
    Ah yes, because we never build new roads.

jonahbenton 4y ago

Thanks, very cool reference, was not aware of these. I as a lifelong NYC resident have long thought the subway tracks are a singularly underutilized resource. We should have the capability now to deploy a fleet of autonomous small scale people movers, 3 to 5 people per, available for private scheduling and point to point travel, without having to make any changes to the existing ancient and decrepid signalling system. Would be revolutionary.

yuppie_scum 4y ago
Call an uber. The subway is MASS transit, for efficiently moving lots of people. Not just a few at a time.
- jonahbenton 4y ago
  The equivalent of Uber running on the rails, yes. Bulk cars can carry ~200 people in a 9 foot wide by 50 foot long unit, and most trains are 10 cars long. Small, autonomous 5-10 person sized units of 9 foot wide by 5 or so feet long would offer flexibility while still being reasonably space efficient. The tracks have many many interstation connection points. There are many local/express track pairs. So there are lots of potential point to point routes for an autonomous fleet to service. Even at peak utilization more than 99% of track surface lies unused as the bulk car scheduling/signalling system is ancient and inefficient.
  - yuppie_scum 4y ago
    No, as a bit of a railfan I can assure you that this would be not nearly as efficient or easy to operate as you assume. The NYC subway believe it or not is a wonder of efficiency compared to most US transit agencies. (Many of which don’t even have double tracking) You basically want to gut it in favor of avoiding the company of the unwashed masses. In the long run this would lead to much longer wait and travel times.
    - jonahbenton 4y ago
      Agree, what the city does with transit, as in most areas, is in fact extraordinary. (In education, I had an elected position for a while on NYC equivalent to school boards and came to understand the DOE is an absolutely incredible institution that should be studied as a model...) I am not saying at all to replace what we have now. The opposite. On top of the existing bulk people movers, layer on a point to point capability to utilize spare track capacity. Lots of experimentation regarding logistics would be needed to be sure, but in principle a) we should have the technical capability to deploy small autonomous cabs without needing technical integration with the existing signalling system b) we should be able to make better use of the extraordinary amount of interconnected track surface we have been blessed with, especially outside of Manhattan and especially at off hours. The reason someone in deep Brooklyn has to wait 20 minutes for a 2 or a D or an F on a weekend is that it is inefficient to run a 10 car train that can move 2000 people when only 200 are travelling. Happy to learn of existing experiments in this vein but to my eyes we should look at supplementing the bulk system with autonomous small capacity pods.

Fatnino 4y ago

@dang can you add (video) and (2017) tags?