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"Video: Foster+Partners Video of Masdar City (NPR)" - 7 May 08
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"National Public Radio details PRT in Masdar City, Abu Dhabi" - 7 May 08
Abu Dhabi Aims to Build First Carbon-Neutral City
by Joe Palca
Listen Now [7 min 46 sec] add to playlist
Courtesy: Foster+Partners
View an animated fly-through promotional tour of Masdar City, with narration in English or in Arabic.
watch now|add
Read Part 1 in This Series
May 5, 2008
Oil-Rich Abu Dhabi Builds Renewable-Energy City
Rebecca Davis, NPR
The future site of Masdar City is currently just an expanse of desert.
Enlarge
Streets in Masdar City will be flanked by tall buildings to shade most of the city and minimize need for air conditioning. Foster+Partners
Enlarge
A personal rapid transit system will replace cars in Masdar City, running on batteries powered by solar energy. Foster+Partners
Morning Edition, May 6, 2008 · In Abu Dhabi, there's an area of nothing but wind-swept desert. But 10 years from now, if all goes according to plan, a city of 6 square kilometers housing 50,000 people will rise in the United Arab Emirates — and it will be carbon neutral.
The project, called Masdar City, will burn no gas or oil, so its contribution to greenhouse gases will be minimal. Masdar is the centerpiece of emirate Abu Dhabi's plans to get into the renewable energy market, a hedge against the day its oil wells run dry.
A computer animation of the design depicts narrow streets shaded by buildings that, though modern, capture the flavor of an ancient Arabic city. It turns out that copying those historic designs will help planners reach ambitious energy goals, they claim.
A Goal to Curb Energy Use
A video of the future site identifies several goals.
One goal: "Masdar will be the first city where carbon emissions are zero."
Narrow streets and shaded walks would reduce the need for air conditioning. The city would be oriented northeast to minimize the amount of direct sunlight on buildings' sides and windows. Solar panels and solar collectors on roofs and elsewhere would generate enough electricity to meet most of Masdar City's needs.
Another goal is to ban cars in the city, which wouldn't be small enough for people to get around just by walking. Designers envision something called a personal rapid transit (PRT) system.
"Really, all it is is a car," says Scott McGuigan of CH2M Hill, the construction firm that's building Masdar City. "It's a simple vehicle [for] six passengers. It's designed like a car, but obviously it's powered by solar energy with batteries."
These solar-powered cars would run under the city like a subway system. But McGuigan says the cars wouldn't run on fixed routes. Basically, they'dl take you anywhere you wanted to go.
McGuigan says PRTs represent an energy-efficient way of moving people among roughly 1,500 stations.
"You program what station you want to go to, and [the vehicle] will directly take you to that station," he says. "If you look at things like Blade Runner, etc., that we had 15 years ago, it's really bringing that to the fore now."
An Approach to Recycling Water
The city planners also say that "80 percent of water will be recycled."
This requires a change in thinking, says Peter Sharratt, who works with the British energy consulting firm WSP.
"We have a fairly linear process normally," he says. "We take water in through the tap. We use it, and then it goes straight in the drain. So it gets used once."
But the plan for Masdar City will be to reuse water as many times as possible. For instance, one idea involves capturing the leftovers of watering crops, called irrigation recovery.
It works like this: After irrigation water goes through the top 2 or 3 feet of soil and meets plants' needs, underground collection systems recover whatever's left over. That water then can be used to irrigate on another day or directed to another purpose.
Dealing with Waste Management
Another main goal is "to be the first city where waste is converted to energy and reduced to zero," according to the planners' video.
In reality, it could come very close to zero, since some stuff just can't be converted to energy or recycled. But when it comes to human waste, Sharratt says it will all be "repurposed."
Ideally, nutrients will be recovered and used "to create soil [that] can then be used as part of the landscaping requirement," he says. "And also a component of the sewer sludge will again go for a waste-to-power scheme."
This strategy to reuse or recycle as much as possible permeates the planning.
McGuigan, the construction manager, says he's constantly looking for materials that can be reused.
"We're looking at recyclable plastic for [construction] site fencing," he says. Later, the fencing can be sold back to the manufacturer, and "he can recycle that or resell that ... again. So it has a useful life at the end."
Planners even have begun to think about how the concrete used to build Masdar City could be recycled for purposes such as road construction when the city is ultimately torn down.
Emissions Related to Construction
The idea is to build a city that will have no carbon footprint. But because a lot construction equipment uses gas, some CO2 will be released into the atmosphere during that phase. That will have to be offset by planting trees or putting surplus solar energy back into Abu Dhabi's national power grid.
But calculating a carbon footprint is trickier than that, says Liz Darley, who works with the British firm Bioregional, which will assess Masdar City's carbon calculations.
"What they're currently doing is deciding where that boundary is drawn," Darley says. "That is, in itself, quite a complex thing to decide on as a project team ... because it could include all the carbon expenditure of flying between Europe and the Middle East the design team is incurring. It could go to the extent of you guys coming here to interview us. Once you start peeling back the layers of the onion, it just goes on and on and on forever."
So achieving the goal of being a zero-carbon city can be made more difficult, depending on where you draw you boundaries.
Achieving the Reality
Skeptics say reducing Masdar City's total carbon footprint to zero will be difficult, if not impossible. Besides, they say, Masdar would not encompass the millions of others guzzling gas in the United Arab Emirates.
Khaled Awad, who is in charge of turning the plans into a reality, says he's heard the skeptics. Bring it on, he says to them. He invites their suggestions about where they think improvements can be made.
"Look, we're serious about this," he says. "We're going to put so [many] resources to do it right. And this is the ideal place where you can demonstrate what you believe in — in ... a meaningful scale."
The plan is to build Masdar City in record time. The first buildings are scheduled to be up by the end of next summer.
Whether the city will meet its ambitious energy goals is uncertain. But even the skeptics admit it's worth a try.
Radio story produced by Rebecca Davis
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"Fortune: Building the world's cleanest city" - 10 Mar 08
In a Persian Gulf desert, a U.S. engineering firm drives clean tech forward.
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"More details on Heathrow's installation of ULTra PRT sytem" - 23 Dec 07
From Railway Gazette.com - 'Airport casts pods in future transport role.' Good details on operations and network layout including several pictures.
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"Vectus begins mult-vehicle tests" - 30 Nov 07
Vectus begins testing mult-vehicle operations at their Uppsala test facility.
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"Delivery of first full-production ULTra vehicle" - 30 Nov 07
The first full-production vehicle for ULTra was delivered to the Cardiff test center for trials.
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"CNN: The next pod revolution" - 19 Jun 07
The next pod revolution
By Chris Morrison, Business 2.0 Magazine
June 19 2007: 4:42 PM EDT
Tomorrow's public transit could look very different from today's if Martin Lowson's $20 million project at Heathrow Airport in London is a hit. Starting in 2008, Lowson's company, Advanced Transport Systems, will be whisking passengers between Heathrow's new Terminal 5 and a parking lot a mile away in tiny driverless vehicles that run on an elevated concrete track.
Unlike buses or trains, Lowson's "pods" are private -- about the size of a taxi, fitting as many as four adults -- and arrive on demand, within five minutes after passengers press a call button.
The concept behind Lowson's system, called "personal rapid transit," is not new. PRT dates back to the Nixon administration, and it's probably the best transit system you've never seen.
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"60 Million Riders Later... WVU Eyes Expanding their "PRT"" - 4 Jun 07
For 32 years, the PRT has provided a unique solution to growing pains in Morgantown
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
By Joe Grata, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. -- Like the "Energizer Bunny," West Virginia University's PRT is an icon that keeps on going. And going.
PRT stands for Personal Rapid Transit, a one-of-a-kind, computer-run, electric people mover system whose 73 gold-and-blue transit cars have been whisking riders around hilly Morgantown and the school complex since 1975.
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"IEEE - Made-to-Measure Mass Transit" - 1 Jun 07
Made-to-Measure Mass Transit
By: Willie D. Jones
IMAGE:Advanced Transport Systems
ON TRACK: One of
the automated vehicles
that will shuttle people around London’s
Heathrow Airport.
A snaking array of steel pillars outside the newly renovated Terminal 5 at London's Heathrow Airport will, by the end of next year, hold up a guideway upon which little automated electric vehicles will shuttle passengers and airport workers back and forth between the terminal and a distant parking lot. In doing so, the pillars will also be supporting a transportation movement decades in the making.
The project—dubbed ULTra (Ultra Light Transport) and designed and built by Advanced Transport Systems, of Bristol, England—is but one example of a mode of quasi-public transportation known as personal rapid transit, or PRT. According to PRT purists—including the board of the Advanced Transit Association, which advocates the use of technology to solve transportation problems—this label can be applied to transit systems that have all the following characteristics: fully automated vehicles that run on a reserved guideway; small vehicles that can, like taxis, provide exclusive use for small groups or even a single passenger; nonstop service using the most direct route available; off-line way stations; and on-demand access to vehicles instead of fixed schedules [see photo, “At Your Service”].
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"WorldChanging.com - No Efficiency Without Controls" - 24 May 07
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"Business Week: Moving More People, Making Less Impact" - 15 May 07
Moving More People, Making Less Impact
The greening of the world's mass transit systems calls for innovative thinking, public regulation—and private funding
by Douglas MacMillan
The venerable yellow cab, once a symbol of cosmopolitan efficiency, has come to represent all that is wrong with transit in congested urban centers like New York City. "We can't afford to have 13,000 gas guzzlers," says Deborah Marton, executive director of the Design Trust for Public Space, a nonprofit taking strides to bring sustainability and accessibility to taxi design in New York and abroad (see BusinessWeek.com, 10/28/05, "A Taxi for the Next Hundred Years").
The Design Trust's Taxi '07 exhibit at this year's New York International Auto Show gave visitors the chance to see taxis they might hail in the not-too-distant future. Participating companies displayed taxi prototypes addressing at least 5 out of 10 design challenges, such as incorporating hybrid or alternate-fuel engines, wheelchair accessibility, a driver partition, a skylight, and integral child seats.
While some entrants put a new spin on an existing vehicle— such as Chrysler's (DCX) PT Cruiser with a lithium battery and Kia's (KIMTF) Rondo with enhanced safety lighting—lesser-known Troy (Mich.)-based Vehicle Production Group fielded its Standard Taxi, a boxy vehicle measuring more than six feet in height.
It allows for wheelchair access, seats up to four passengers, and has a smaller footprint than most cabs along with an engine that gets as much as 20 miles per gallon. The cab will cost about $25,000, nearly the same as the old standby for cabs, Ford's (F) Crown Victoria.
The Standard Taxi goes into production in 2008, and the company expects to sell as many as 5,000 in the U.S. and in Canada in the first year alone.
Sweeping Past Tollbooths
Meanwhile, rising congestion and pollution are sparking innovative designs for buses, trains —and even toll roads. The Illinois State Toll Highway Authority in 2005 launched a $5.3 billion congestion-relief program that aims to reduce the average commute time by 20 minutes before 2015.
In addition to a new highway infrastructure, the plan calls for statewide automated tolling—lanes where vehicles with prepaid electronic cards can pass through toll plazas at highway speeds. In the past two years, Kansas City (Mo.)-based urban transportation and architecture firm HNTB (HNTB) automated 20 toll plazas in the state at a cost of $400 million.
In addition to easing traffic flow, automatic tolling could lower vehicle emissions. "Any time cars are delayed at a tollbooth, the emissions run up," says Jack Finn, HNTB's national director of toll services.
Some city planners are already looking ahead to a day when transportation is not so dependent on cars. About 21 years ago, the California Department of Transportation and the University of California founded Partners for Advanced Transit & Highways (PATH), a research group focused on creating a high-tech, automated transit system that would reduce congestion and pollution —and increase safety.
During the height of the group's funding, in the mid-1990s, such a system wasn't too far away from implementation. But severe cuts in funding have rendered this a more distant goal, says Deputy Director Steven Shladover.
Now, Shladover hopes to see a surge of interest from the private sector. "In a field like this, you need a combination of public and private [funding]; they need to work together," he says.
Ultra Futuristic
Should resources become available, one model PATH may consider is the ULTra—or urban light transport —system, produced by Cardiff (Wales)-based Advanced Transport Systems. Involving futuristic, automated vehicles, carrying up to four passengers, it was first tested in 2002 and will see its first commercial application at London's Heathrow Airport in 2008.
While British government agencies invested heavily in the ULTra's development, airport company BAA (BAA plc) will invest as much as $14.9 million in Advanced Transport Systems (Advanced Transport Systems :td.) to see the Heathrow project through.
The grandest-scale experiment in automated mass transit will launch in 2010, when Dubai cuts the ribbon on its automated metro. Plans for the 200-mile fully automated rail system come with a $4.2 billion price tag.
Click here to see a roundup of tomorrow's transportation technologies.
MacMillan is a reporter at BusinessWeek.com in New York.
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"Daventry PRT network shown to cut car use" - 25 Mar 07
Summary of study of proposed Daventry, UK PRT systems shows significant benefits with a system that could pay its operating and most of its capital costs.
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"UK: Personal rapid transit scoped out for Daventry" - 23 Jan 07
Personal rapid transit scoped out for Daventry
Filed 22/01/07
Daventry District Council has launched a masterplan for future development which could see the Northamptonshire area become the first town in Britain to have a personal rapid transit public transport system.
The masterplan aims to create a framework for the creation of high quality developments in Daventry’s town centre and a high degree of environmental, social and economic sustainability. Part of this involves measures designed to make public transport more attractive to residents. Full recommendations will be detailed in the final report of the Daventry Development Transport Study, expected to be published in the spring.
However in the meantime, councillors have commissioned a study to look at how a pilot personal rapid transit scheme could work in Daventry. Senior staff believe PRT could encourage hi-tech businesses to invest in the area and would produce 90% fewer emissons than car travel. A team led by Sinclair Knight Merz and including representatives from Serco, Banaim and Interfleet are understood to have been appointed to recommend a pilot route and are due to report in March. Funding for the scheme would come from the East Midlands Development Agency, which has already been consulted about the PRT project.
Personal rapid transit consists of automated vehicles, such as ULTra technology, which carry a small number of people along a rail or guideway. A number of schemes have been mooted but have failed to secure funding. The first UK system is being developed at Heathrow Airport to link car parks with terminal areas.
The Daventry masterplan also details proposals for several site developments in Daventry including a canal marina and modern leisure and retail facilities.
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"ULTra Test Track from Above" - 18 Jan 07
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"Vectus Newsletter No 4 (Nov 2006)" - 29 Nov 06
This is the forth issue of a series of newsletters that Vectus intend to distribute. The aim is to communicate the development of the Vectus PRT (personal rapid transit) work mainly at the test site in Sweden. The content of the newsletter is free to use and distribute, but please name the source. More information about Vectus can be found at www.vectus.se and www.vectusprt.com. If you are not part of the distribution list but want to be part, please send an e-mail to vectus.newsletter@fireflycomms.com.
The test track outer loop is complete
Work with the track construction started in September and Vectus has now finalised the outer loop of the track. As seen on the website the test track will consist of an outer loop and an inner track that passes the station. The inner track will also be completed soon and later the station platform.
First chassis arrived in Sweden
The first Vectus chassis, the bottom part of the vehicle, has been delivered to the Uppsala site. It has been designed and manufactured by Vectus supplier WGH. The chassis, which includes wheels, hydraulics, control and communications systems, arrived late November. The newly completed outer loop of the track is being finally adjusted and commissioned to allow putting the chassis on the track and start running tests within the next few days.
First approval from SRA Vectus has received approval from the Swedish Rail Agency for the infrastructure and for testing with one vehicle without passengers. This approval is just the first of several steps towards a full system approval.
About the Vectus PRT test project
The test project consists of multiple parts. At the moment, various tests for wheel types and emergency brake system, parts of the communication and control system, and the propulsion system are being performed in Sweden, the U.K. and Korea. The first tests on the test track in Uppsala are scheduled for spring 2007, and the ambition is to receive approval from the Swedish Rail Agency by the middle of 2007. Vectus is planning to operate the test track until 2010. Please visit www.vectus.se and www.vectusprt.com for more information and images.
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"CA - Orange County Paper, PRT one of Four Options" - 5 Oct 06
The Pros and Cons are a little inaccurate, but PRT is listed as first of four options being put forward to solve transit problems in the City of Irvine. Thanks to Bob Dunning for forwarding the article.
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"Arkansas Business : PRT Could Be Future of Travel (Market Forecast by Paul Justus)" - 30 Aug 06
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"Vectus PRT Test Track Progress" - 14 Aug 06
Vectus PRT has begun updating their Test Track page giving you a glimpse of the guideway production and the landscape.
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"Future of Airports Tied to Transit Evolution - Mass Transit Magazine" - 6 Jul 06
June 15, 2006
Tom Smith
Online Editor in Chief
The airport of the future could seamlessly integrate security screenings and future transit modes which would change the footprint of the terminal building.
The key to the new airport – and improved security – would be the successful implementation of personal rapid transit (PRT) technology, according to presentations made at a security seminar on June 5 in Baltimore sponsored by the International Air Rail Organization.
London´s Heathrow Airport will be the first to build a PRT system. Dubbed ULTra, the system will involve driverless, four-person cars which will travel along rail-less guide paths and link the airport’s premium parking lots to the terminals. The system is scheduled to be fully deployed by December 2007 and in commercial operation six months later.
Read Full Story Here
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"Recent startup Singapore based MonicPRT " - 27 Jun 06
MonicPRT a Singapore based startup. Not sure yet if they are inventing a PRT vehicle/system, or will be implementing someone else's designs. Stay tuned.
First found in a news article found here.
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"June 2006 ATS (Ultra) begins Heathrow Pilot contruction" - 15 Jun 06
ATS Begins Heathrow Pilot
ATS have started the work programme under contract to BAA which will lead to the Pilot operation at Heathrow. The planned route for the pilot is from the N3 passenger car park to the new Heathrow Terminal 5. The route requires 4.2 km of track including station loops, and 18 vehicles. The guideway will connect into the Multi Story Car Park at T5 to provide a station at the entrance to the Terminal. The system will open for carrying passengers in Summer 2008 following the opening of T5 in March 2008.
Martin Lowson CEO of ATS said "This is another major step for the ULTra PRT system and is a result of the excellent joint efforts of the ATS and BAA teams".
An outline diagram of the route is available here
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"April 2006 ATS (ULTra) begins vehicle production - Debut mid '07" - 15 Jun 06
ATS has launched the final "C" vehicle production programme. This is being undertaken by ARRK Technical Services, based in Basildon Essex. The new vehicle builds on the substantial experience from the testing to date. Production launch follows an extensive detail design phase, incorporating requirements for city and airport applications from ATS and BAA. It also incorporates necessary refinements for a vehicle for passenger service including climate control, crashworthiness and a fuller passenger interface. Initial production vehicles will be available in the second Quarter of 2007.
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"San Francisco Chronicle covering Steve Raney and PRT" - 30 May 06
Published Saturday, May 27, 2006, by the San Francisco Chronicle
BUSINESS PARK 2.0
Can sprawling office campuses become commute-cutting communities?
By Charles Smith
Special to The Chronicle
If Steve Raney's vision of the near future pans out, nightmare
commutes and 20-minute car trips to get a half gallon of milk will
be fading memories, for you'll be living close to work: real close,
as in the same business park, or a five-minute high-tech monorail
ride away.
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"Meet Mister PRT" - 16 May 06
Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) systems were invented at least a couple of decades ago, but none has succeeded commercially as yet. One reason is the resistance of various vested interests and lobbies, preserving their kingdoms which are large, expensive infrastructures. Ignorance on the part of policy and decision makers is the other factor, while lack of inexpensive means to implement computer control and sensor/automation functions played a major role too.
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"BAA & Heathrow Airport announces PRT project to begin!" - 20 Oct 05
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"Kansas State University Team reviewing Morgantown RT" - 12 Oct 05
INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS
Kansas State University Investigates Automated Transit
A personal rapid transit (PRT) system is an automated transit service based on a fleet of small, computerized, driverless vehicles that ride on a track and take passengers directly to their destinations without intermediate stops. Research has shown that an appropriately designed PRT system could improve mobility on a university campus by saving travel time, relieving traffic congestion, and making distant parking lots more accessible to the core campus area. However, the use of PRT systems on large campuses and their surrounding communities remains an untapped method of transport at most universities...
Read Article Here
[Editors Note: Morgantown PRT began as a PRT project, but quickly picked up characteristics of Group Rapid Transit in order to be up and running in a short amount of time to meet political pressures. While, in our opinion, it does not represent a PRT as defined by ATRA and others, it has run as an fully automated system and accident free for over 30 years. --Mike]
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"PRT Proposal for Microsoft (Great Video and Images)" - 29 Jun 05
A couple of other ex-MS employees and I have created a futuristic animation of Microsoft campus. Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) technology is a new transit technology under development and could be commercialized as soon as 2008.
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"Changes and Progress at Skyweb Express (Duluth News Tribune)" - 5 Mar 05
Click here for Story Mar. 03, 2005
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"Disney Resort area Columnist ponders "What's next for Walt Disney World?"" - 29 Jan 05
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"TRANSPORTATION proposals revving up at Capitol (MN)" - 29 Jan 05
Minnesota Sun - Jan 20, 2005
Sen. Gen Olson, R-33, has a lot to say about transportation and a lot of it surrounds Personal Rapid Transit (PRT), a new system being developed
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"Salon.com covers PRT, Skyweb Express, ULTRA" - 19 Nov 04
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"ULTra undergoing European Union studies (EDICT)" - 5 Oct 04
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"ULTra undergoing European Union studies (EDICT)" - 5 Oct 04
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"Christian Science Monitor covers Skyweb Express" - 1 Apr 04
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"Bill in Minnesota to Fund PRT Certification Facility" - 13 Jan 04
Bonding bill may incubate transit system
BY CHRIS HAMILTON
NEWS TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
A new Minnesota legislative bill would help pay for the construction of a demonstration track for a proposed Disney-like personal transport system in Duluth.
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"MSNBC / Biz Journal Coverage of Duluth, Skyweb Express" - 13 Jan 04
Duluth attempts to hail Taxi 2000
By Mark Reilly
The Business Journal (Minneapolis/St. Paul)
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"SkywebExpress announces new construction" - 6 Nov 03
On January 1st 2004 Taxi 2000 will
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"Good Press for Skyweb Express at Minnesota State Fair" - 19 Sep 03
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"Sign the Pro PRT Petition" - 9 Sep 03
Although this is being put on by the Minneapolis based CPRT, it is a nationwide petition aimed at removing some of the arbitrary roadblocks placed in the way of developing Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) as a viable transportation system in some communities.
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"GetThereFast.org launced in Seattle" - 5 Aug 03
A new PRT advocacy site launched for the Seattle area
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"Skyweb Express at Minnesota State Fair!" - 1 Aug 03
Pioneer Press article on the upcoming State Fair and arrangments made to have the Phase 1 demonstration track moved in to the Wonders of Technology Exhibit for the duration of this year's Minnesota State Fair. (also see www.skywebexpress.com)
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"PRT interest in Santa Cruz CA" - 1 Aug 03
As awareness of the benefits of PRT grows, a council member and members of the public encouraged consideration of Personal Rapid Transit in their upcoming Master Transportation Study.
for the Santa Cruz Sentinel, Ramona Turner
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"Skyweb Express in Duluth?" - 25 Jun 03
A news article on possible installation of Skyweb Express PRT in Duluth, MN
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"PRT Advocacy Sprouting in Tucson" - 18 Jun 03
The site for Tucsonans for Personal Rapid Transit is up. Check it out!
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"Skyweb Express New Site" - 3 Jun 03
Skyweb Express, Taxi 2000's new product name, launched it's web site in late May 2003. With a much slicker presentation, it offers the casual viewer many more visualisations.
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"Taxi 2000 Unveils Skyweb Express Prototype. Photos and Video available." - 14 Apr 03
Taxi 2000 publicly unveils it's long-anticipated prototype of their PRT system - Skyweb Express.
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"Advanced Transit Association Releases PRT Status Report" - 18 Feb 03
The Advanced Transit Association has published it's second major PRT study - 'Personal Automated Transportation: Status & Potential of Personal Rapid Transit'
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"ULTra Passenger Trials Announced" - 15 Jan 03
The ULTra system being developed in Cardiff, Wales will begin passenger trial in January according to this press article from The Engineer
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"Taxi 2000 Prototype Progress" - 5 Jan 03
Taxi 2000 has updated their prototype page to include pictures of the components coming together, a sneak peak at some of the cabin design finalist, and a list of the their manufacturing partners.
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"Engineering the ULTra System available to download from the ULTra site." - 17 Dec 02
A seven page paper describing the PRT concept, the ULTra system design, and current progress from September 2002.
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"Star Tribune article on Taxi 2000 Progress" - 4 Nov 02
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Megarail releases Microrail Photos">"Megarail releases Microrail Photos" - 7 Oct 02
Megarail has posted photos of their Microrail prototype vehicle on the PRT/Dual Mode test track section. Photos include interior shots and control panels.
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"Taxi 2000 Initiates Prototype Procurement" - 3 Oct 02
Taxi 2000 has reached it's minimum private investment goal and started the procurement process for their Phase 1 Prototype Program. Everyone in the PRT community wishes them luck!
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"ULTRA video clip released" - 19 Sep 02
Advanced Transport System Ltd. has posted a short video clip of passenger trial preparations for the EDICT program on their news page.
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"Gateway PRT releases system concept diagram" - 11 Jul 02
A diagram representing the concept of Gateway PRT's proposed system, greatly simplified, based on locations in St. Louis
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"PRT interest in Tuscon" - 10 Jul 02
A recent news snippet from Tuscon, AZ.
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"Read all about it! Book Release: "The Transportation Renaissance"" - 7 Jul 02
by Edmund Rydell, PRT Proponent
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"Korean PRT effort continues!" - 24 Apr 02
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"Taxi2000 profiled on KSTP News5" - 19 Apr 02
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"Megarail awarded US Patent for Maglev Breakthrough!" - 4 Apr 02
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"Cardiff Wales - Video, Pics, Data and Progress!!" - 9 Mar 02
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"Taxi2000 Progress - New graphics, video and investment opportunities." - 5 Mar 02
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"More Progress on ULTRA" - 17 Jan 02
The ULTA system being built in Cardiff, Wales continues to progess with the completion of the test track and commencement of testing.
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"Private group proposing PRT in St. Louis" - 25 Sep 01
Gateway PRT, a private company, has begun trying to built a PRT system for the St. Louis area.
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"Press report on ULTra's progress" - 6 Sep 01
A June press report on the progress of the ULTra PRT system in Cardiff, Wales.
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""Failure Modes and Effects Analysis and Minimum Headway in Taxi 2000" released by Taxi 2000 corporation" - 8 Jun 01
More detailed information on safety issues for the Taxi 2000 system and Dr. Anderson.
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"Swedish Research Released" - 1 May 01
A survey of current developments in innovative transit systems by Ingmar Andreasson with the Swedish Agency for Innovtive Systems
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"Cincinnati's Skyloop Jumps Hurdle" - 21 Feb 01
The Skyloop PRT proposal is one of three that survived the first round of eliminations toward the selection of a system to serve downtown Cincinnati, Covington, and Newport
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