This is a round up of the latest news related Personal Rapid Tramsport and Advanced Transport. If you would like to submit a news item please email news@atra.org
A new white paper from ATRA has been published.
Beyond Traffic – Choosing the Future has been developed in order to bring attention to different driverless car-centric and driverless transit-centric futures that could emerge.
Date: May 20th at 15.00pm UTC/GMT
The webinar will address where advanced transit systems such as personal rapid transit (PRT) and group rapid transit (GRT) are now. Ranging from the proven applications in operation for several years (Rivium, Masdar City and Heathrow) to the test tracks (Modutram) and the planned applications (Hsinchu City) and technology developments. Featured expert speakers represent 2getthere, Modutram and ULTra PRT.
The webinar will last approximately 40 minutes after which there will be opportunity to ask questions to the speakers and members of the ATRA Industry Group. There is no need to register; you can access the webinar via the link below. As the room accommodates 100 attendees only, please be sure to join on time! You can participate under your name or an alias if you desire to remain anonymous.
webmeeting.umd.edu/atraigwebinar
This webinar is the second in a series of three webinars, with the final webinar scheduled for June 17th: “Where is autonomous transit going next?” The first webinar can be viewed on www.advancedtransit.org/library/videos
Thanks to the efforts of Ron Swenson and INIST (International Institute of Sustainable Transportation), the fourth year architecture students at SIU (Southern Illinois University) are designing a multi-modal station for downtown Santa Cruz. The station design includes solar powered PodCars along with 14 buses, 210 parking spaces, 165 bicycle spaces and 60,000 square feet of station and site. The goal for the station design is for the station to operate close to net zero energy as possible. They will be using an Encitra model for the final presentation, a physical built model of the site, and IESVE energy analysis for their plans, sections and elevations of the individual station designs.
Five of the SIU students visited the site in Santa Cruz, staying in California for a week. They presented to multiple groups including The City of Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz University, PodCar advocates, Watry Design, citizens and transportation officials. They also visited the engineering students at San Jose State University who are designing solar powered podcars. The SIU architecture students were invited to exhibit their final designs at the Maker Faire at San Jose, CA in mid May.
Ron Swenson provided tours of several solar installations while also showing the SIU group multiple sites for the proposed podcar line in Santa Cruz. The SIU students will also be designing smaller podcar stations at three different sites in Santa Cruz.
Shannon McDonald, Southern Illinois University
ATRA Pulse is the newsletter of ATRA. It was formally known as Transit Pulse.
ATRA Pulse is now available to download here:
www.advancedtransit.org/newsroom/newsletter
You can subscribe to our newsletter by emailing us at info @ prtconsulting.com
ATRA IG held a webinar titled “What to plan for when planning for Automated Transit Networks” on April 22, 2015. Speakers were David Watkins, Arup; David Little, Lea + Elliott and Peter Muller, PRT Consulting.
The webinar lasted one hour and a recording of it can be viewed at www.advancedtransit.org/library/videos
Podcar City 9 November 4-6, 2015: Invitation for Presenters Abstracts due April 30Podcar City 9 is the go-to event for the Automated Transit Networks community
Podcar City is coming to Silicon Valley, the home of technology innovation, automation and entrepreneurship – but also an area with severe highway congestion, increasing employment and growing need for sustainable mobility.
Podcar City conferences are organized by the Institute for Sustainable Transportation of Sweden and its California sister organization, the International Institute of Sustainable Transportation, INIST, and sponsored by the Advanced Transit Association, ATRA. Podcar City conferences have been held since 2007 in Sweden, Germany and the USA.
Opportunities for presenters
The conference provides the prime opportunity for reaching a leading professional group of individuals and institutions in the Automated Transit Network community, and organizations involved in related development. All proceedings are recorded and distributed through INIST, the Podcar City website, and YouTube. The material gets considerable attention with many downloads every year.
The conference program will address the role of podcars and automated transit networks in multimodal shared mobility; and the interplay between mobility, energy, cityscape and livability. We invite you to submit an abstract for a paper, poster and/or presentation. We also encourage publication in the Journal of Advanced Transportation or the Transportation Research Board.
Expected participants and target groups
We anticipate an audience of 150-250 professionals and an additional 100 university students from several career paths. The main target groups are:
Ingmar Andréasson, Program Chair, program [at] podcarcity.org
Date: April 22nd at 15.00pm UTC/GMT
The webinar is to discuss the key aspects of assessing whether advanced transit systems such as personal rapid transit (PRT) and group rapid transit (GRT) are a fit with the application’s requirements and characteristics. Featured expert speakers represent ARUP, Lea+Elliott and PRT Consulting.
The webinar will last approximately 40 minutes after which there will be opportunity to ask questions to the speakers and members of the ATRA Industry Group.
During the session we will be covering topics such as:
You can register for the webinar via the link below. As the room accommodates 100 attendees only, please be sure to join on time! You can participate under your name or an alias if you desire to remain anonymous.
https://webmeeting.umd.edu/atraigwebinar/
This webinar is the first in a series of three webinars.
The other webinars in this series are:
$500.00 paper award DUE BY March 31, 2015
Due to the generous support from the Lowson family, an annual student paper award has been established. The late Martin Lowson was the visionary behind the ATN system at Heathrow airport. He loved working with students and fostering their creative and innovative ideas. Due to his dedication, hard work and entrepreneurial qualities the modern ATN vision was realized. ATRA thanks his family and honors his legacy with this award.
ATRA fosters the development of automation and networking to advance the quality and sustainability of transportation, particularly for our urban areas. The objective is to recognize high quality, original work that advances the thought and practice of fully automated networked public mobility systems. The inaugural student ATRA paper competition is now accepting papers! Papers must be authored and/or published by students within the last 5 years. To qualify as a student, the person must be enrolled at a degree granting institution either at the time of the authorship or publication/presentation of the paper, or time of submittal to the ATRA competition. The paper can have been previously published or have received prior awards. Papers may have been submitted to journals and/or conferences (in fact ATRA encourages this), or may be unique to the ATRA competition. The emphasis in the inaugural 2015 award is on Automated Transit Networks toward sustainable urban mobility.
In addition to the award amount, assistance may be provided to attend and present that paper at a suitable conference. The competition requires that you follow TRB paper guidelines for a blind peer review and selection process. ATRA reserves the right to publish all submitted papers on its website. Please submit all papers to: smcdonald@siu.edu by March 31, 2015.
by Rob Means
The $4000M (million) price tag of burrowing a tunnel under San Jose for BART is too costly financially, and draws resources away from other transit options. The projected 55,000 passengers/day service level in 2045 is too small relative to the need for transit. And the construction schedule ensures that global climate disruption will overwhelm us before it’s built. So, if given only two choices – build it or not – I would vote for “not” because the return on investment (ROI) is too low.
I urge you to consider another possibility for connecting the BART Berryessa station with the Caltrain station. Rather than spend roughly $4700M for a 4-station BART extension and service yard, only spend about $1500M for an Automated Transit Network (ATN). At $15M/mile (which includes elevated guideway, off-line stations, cabs, and computer control), we could build a 100-station ATN that serves the public far better and provides quick, non-stop service between stations.
In 2001, during the public comment period on the BART extension, an ATN alternative to the BART Burrow was proposed. It outlined 91 miles of ATN guideway with 117 stations. That proposed network covers the Golden Triangle and downtown San Jose. Now, we can plan a network that matches our current needs.
Based on the chart below, over 100 networked stations operating 24/7 with quiet, non-stop travel would benefit our sprawling area more than a 4-station BART corridor extension. Using VTA’s own Project Purpose list, the two options are compared. This scoping process would be served by VTA staff creating their own comparison chart and sharing it with the VTA Board.
| Purpose | BART | ATN |
| Improve public transit service | Low/Medium | High |
| Enhance regional connectivity | Medium | High |
| Increase transit ridership | Low/Medium | High |
| Support transportation solutions that will maintain the economic vitality and continuing development of Silicon Valley | Low | High |
| Improve mobility options | Medium | High |
| Enhance level and quality of transit service to areas of existing and planned affordable housing | Medium | High |
| Improve regional air quality | Low | High |
| Support local and regional land use plans | Medium | High |
Omitted from this VTA-generated list of purposes is any reference to ROI or comparison with other transit technologies. Also missing is any reference to the present and growing danger of our global climate crisis, and the need to act quickly and boldly to avoid huge and costly problems. If Zero-Based Budgeting were applied to this BART extension, would it survive?
In 2001, BART promoters rejected the concept of bridging the gap between an eastside BART station and Caltrain using ATN. They responded that the need for a transfer “would result in longer travel times and inconveniences to the rider that would not be consistent with the project’s purpose to ‘maximize transit usage and ridership’ nor would it facilitate regional connectivity.” I assert that 100 stations will, in fact, be consistent with VTA’s purposes. And transfers are not a problem for transit users in San Francisco who enjoy frequently scheduled transit. In suburban areas, however, transferring users generally must wait for the next vehicle.
However, unlike traditional transit options, ATN cabs are waiting for you 90% of the time, and available within 5 minutes the other 10%. This service level is accomplished with computer control, and by adding enough cabs and stations to satisfy demand. If congestion occurs, add more infrastructure. ATN hardware costs less than 10% of BART hardware and is much easier to route and build as needed.
That scalability and flexibility of ATN dramatically reduces the risk of using the technology. In just 5 years we could be operating a $200M starter network that connects BART to Caltrain. If we like that system, then we could grow the network as appropriate.
Rapidly accelerating global climate disruption requires major changes quickly. Waiting a decade or more to use 50-year old technology to serve a small fraction of our population is like responding to an oncoming train by freezing in its path. Reversing global warming requires new thinking and bold action. As one of the wealthiest, most technologically-advanced areas in the world, Silicon Valley can lead the effort to create transit that works for our spread-out suburban cities, and promotes transportation equity. Doing so will dramatically improve our mobility options and reduce our extremely high per-capita carbon emissions.
As I see it, the BART extension is not desirable because the ROI of ridership to capital investment is too low, the financial and climate crisis risks are too high, and the opportunity costs of saving $2B and creating an effective transit system are too high.
Vote “no” on the BART extension and “yes” on an ATN connection.
You can help jump-start advanced transit by supporting a pilot project in Milpitas (see sunnyhillsneighborhood.org). Many of the questions and concerns of elected officials and VTA staff will be answered once this $8M project is operational.
Stan Young, ATRA Past President
On Dec 15 and 16, 2014 I attended the 2014 Florida Automated Vehicle Summit workshop located in Orlando. This was the second such workshop sponsored by the Florida DOT. Although there were several highlights I will touch on, the one that stole the show was the keynote address by State Senator Jeff Brandes (Chair of the Transportation Committee) who spoke on the Vision of Automated Vehicle Technologies in Florida. I am writing this entry in late January – and as my memory fades on some of the finer points of the conference, the burning vision that Mr. Brandes shared has not dimmed. It is rare that elected officials ‘get it’ in terms of the possibilities of automation in the transportation sector – yet he did. Mr. Brandes sponsored the bill that resulted in automated vehicle test regulations, and is also a member of a constituency that sees the future in robotics, and is preparing Florida to be a lead player in these emerging fields, not only in surface transportation, but also aerial and marine drones. Himself impacted by a vehicle crash that touched him personally, he harmonized with significant safety improvements that can be obtained, as well as the increased quality of life that automated surface transport would bring, particularly for a state with a high percentage of retirees that want to maintain their freedom of movement. Keep your eye on Florida – they get it.
The summit was not specifically on vehicle automation of highway, but cross-cutting more on the theme of automation in transport in general – though a majority was with respect to surface transportation. A retired officer from the military shared the path of aerial drones in the military when given the mandate for ‘pilotless’ aircraft in the 1990s. The pace of development was slow, but in the end their program was a success- however, not as originally envisioned. The military now has thousands of pilotless aircraft – but they are not necessarily replacing traditional piloted vehicles (though some are). The majority of the explosive growth was in the so called three D’ – that is tasks that are either Dull, Dirty, or Dangerous – basically task ill-suited for human pilots. As such the drone program has exploded, but in directions and mission not originally conceived. I cannot help but think that perhaps surface transportation may progress similarly – we may envision vehicles driving themselves, or as the basis for a bus fleet – however the realizations of full automation in our surface transport may take a form that surprises us all in the end.
The second day was reserved for demonstrations – and these were notable. VEEO (Induct Technologies – also known as Navia) demonstrated a driverless shuttle, similar to the systems demoed as part of the CityMobil program. Mobile Eye has a strong showing with an after market crash notification (and hopefully prevention) system based on real time video obstacle detection. At about $1000, I was seriously considering it, as a family member recently totaled a vehicle due to in-attention that such a device may have been able to prevent the incident. Mobile Eye also had a full size bus completely equipped with video detection so as to avoid pedestrians. Honda had perhaps some of the most convincing test drives. Similar to Mobile Eye, on board equipment monitored the surroundings in the event of eminent danger – but instead of warning the driver, the vehicle would directly apply the brakes to prevent rear-end collisions with obstacles. These were only a few of the demonstrations of the various products emerging for transportation. This all took place at the Disney race track. One of the most memorable rides was a test drive of the Tesla sports sedan – one of the fastest production cars in the world, and whisper quiet.
Well Florida has caught the vision – and is fertile for discussion. They are not locked into any particular realization – but are open to discuss the possibilities, and understand that in its final form, automation will bring significant benefit to their state.