by | Ir. Dr. Aziz Hassan
Personal Rapid Transit or PRT is an elevated monorail system with driverless six passenger electric car. These would be controlled and routed by a sophisticated computer system.
Passengers travel with people of their choosing. The PRT approach customised individual route precisely to the final destination.
The PRT Shuttle solves the “last mile” problem, connecting different multimodal transportation alternatives to final destinations. It provides nonstop, no-wait, 50 kph short feeder shuttle services operating in highly populated areas such as airports, shopping centers, and campuses.
Stations are located along the route to minimize walking once the trip ends. These stations would be placed off the mainline of the guideway, so that the little vehicles could access the station and embarking or disembarking passengers without stopping other PRT traffic on the main guideway. The light weight vehicle used by the PRT greatly reduces the infrastructure cost.
Modern PRT concepts began around 1953 when Donn Fichter began research on PRT. In 1964, Fichter proposed an automated public transit system for areas of medium to low population density. One of the key points was that people would not leave their cars for public transit unless the system offered flexibility and shorter end-to-end transit. He felt only a PRT could fulfil these requirements. This approach requires a relatively vast network of guideways and stations.
