An article by Peter Muller, President, PRT Consulting, Inc
The recent University of Utah Campus Parking and Transportation & Research Park Mobility Master Plan tabulates the travel times and by walk, bike, shuttle bus and UTA (commuter) Bus between different origins and destinations. It also presents a potential PRT layout and a brief discussion of a PRT solution.
We took their PRT layout, rationalized it a bit and used Podaris to figure connect times. We then added half the headway (time between buses) to the bus trip times to develop connect times for the bus systems. Our findings for two different origin points are in tables 1 and 2 below.
Table 1. Total Trip Time Comparison from President’s Circle
Walk plus wait plus primary mode
| Primary Mode | Medical Plaza Towers | Sage Point | Marriott Residential | West Village | East Village |
| Walk | 32 | 32 | 21 | 35 | 41 |
| Bike | 15 | 15 | 8 | 16 | 18 |
| Shuttle | 21 | 25 | 13 | 24 | 25 |
| UTA Bus | 41 | 45 | 40 | 43 | 52 |
| PRT | 10 | 13 | 8 | 13 | 14 |
Table 2. Total Trip Time Comparison from Student Union
Walk plus wait plus primary mode
| Primary Mode | Medical Plaza Towers | Sage Point | Marriott Residential | West Village | East Village |
| Walk | 26 | 25 | 14 | 32 | 35 |
| Bike | 12 | 11 | 6 | 11 | 12 |
| Shuttle | 23 | 22 | 24 | 28 | 29 |
| UTA Bus | 49 | 48 | 38 | 48 | 42 |
| PRT | 8 | 13 | 4 | 13 | 14 |
Figure 1 shows PRT travel times for trips starting from the middle of President’s Circle. Any point on campus can be reached in fifteen minutes including walking, waiting and traveling.
Figure 1. Travel Times from President’s Circle
PRT clearly provides a superior solution. However, capital costs are a hurdle despite the fact that lower operating costs may result in life-cycle costs being less.