In thinking more and more about how accessible public transit and urban planning using green building principles can dovetail, I came across this video. Take a look!
The system is to be implemented as a means of accessing Terminal Five at London’s Heathrow airpport by the Spring of 2010. A test track is currently in place in Cardiff, Wales. Proposals for systems in San Jose, St.Louis, Ithaca NY, and other projects are at various points of development as well.
Being something of a sci-fi geek, this reminded me a lot of some of the movies I watched as a kid, most notably the transit system featured in Logan’s Run. But, in putting my green building hat on, it seemed to me that a key step in making sure that this kind of system is successful is that it be integrated with city planning, and with individual development projects as well. Allowing for track access into popular areas like commercial towers, educational centers, shopping areas, major transportation hubs, and tourist locations seem to be only the beginning of the potential to improve quality of life in urban centers.
The vehicles in the PPT system are battery-powered. What if green buildings in a downtown core provided power to them while at rest? And what if in turn the movement of these vehicles along the track generated power that returned to those grids, much like power-generating elevators work in many green buildings today? That’s just one way I can think of that a public system, and a private property could be integrated. And I imagine that the cost to run an integrated system like that would be far lower than the systems we know currently.
In this, the cooperation between municipalities and private companies will become a vital component in making transportation of this kind possible. For my part, it’s an exciting prospect to see that accessible transportation that connects living and working so seamlessly is potentially within reach in just a few short years. Of course, this is assuming that municipalities and private sectors in general are as excited as I am.
In sharing this video with some of my followers on Twitter, the question of cleanliness, hygene, and daily maintenance of the pods was raised. This is an important question too, of course, which I’d love to hear more about, just as I would for our current public transit system. But for now, I’d just as soon think about the problems this will solve, as opposed to ones it may create.
Learn more about the ULTra PPT system at www.ultraprt.com.
Cheers,
Rob.
About Rob Jones
First of all, it looks great. The idea that you could get into a module, choose a destination, then arrive, with no fuss or hassle, is a great one. I can imagine this being a much more efficient method of transportation than anything we currently have today, especially streets full of cars.
Would the system be scalable? It seems like all you would need is to occasionally increase the size of the platforms to accommodate more concurrent travellers as use of the system increases, which could be a good thing. A large selection of nearby platforms would make things easy if a station were out of service or being renovated.
The only real problem I see with this is the same problem we’re seeing caused by the prevalence of 3G and digital map services like Google Maps. If you can go directly from where you are to where you’re going, you’ll miss out on a lot of the city. The faster and easier you get from point A to point B, the less attention you’ll pay to what’s between them. We’re already seeing today with mapping services that people travel directly to their destination, without aimless wandering around or inquisitive exploring. I worry that a system as efficient as this would only encourage that.
Still, it’s far better than being stuck in traffic, even if you’re on a bus, and it’s exciting to see Heathrow exploring alternate methods of transportation. I look forward to trying this out during my next trip, and I guess we’ll see how it holds up during the olympics in 2012.
Thanks a lot for your comments, Dan.
I think you bring up a very interesting issue regarding efficiency making the idea of ‘exploration’ of a city less likely. One thing which leapt to mind was the urban planning would need to account for supplementary routes by bike, by foot, which would certainly be an option. To me, you’d have to revise the way that cities *are* explored by people, which in my experience only starts with efficient transit. Roof gardens, green spaces, and other aesthetically pleasing (and air-filtering) elements would also play a part in the encouragement of the exploration I think you’re talking about. Still, it’s an interesting discussion that would certainly require city planners to think about what is most important to citizens with regard to culture, climate, and other important aspects.
If you do get to test it out on your next trip to Heathrow, let me know – and maybe put some impressions on this very post.
Thanks for comments!
There’s a guy on Boris Johnson’s forum (at http://www.boris-johnson.com ) who’s been talking about this for years. It does sound like a terrific idea, but I have absolutely no faith whatsoever that it will be doable. I mean, look at the Denver airport: it’s a similar system of package delivery, essentially, and it’s gone so horribly wrong that it’s still easier to mail your luggage to Denver than to travel with it by plane.
Hey Raincoaster- thanks for comments.
I actually don’t know much about the Denver Airport system, and of course have never traveled on it. My thing is that I’m a transit nerd. I think rail systems should be everywhere to enable anyone to get fom A to B without having to worry about traffic, gas, and parking. I think with a system like this, there are bound to be bugs. But, as the technology evolves and expertise is streamlined, I can’t help but think that easy access to popular destinations is a very attainable goal.
Having said that, I’d like to hear of your experience on the Denver system.
I haven’t been to Denver, but here’s a link to a piece about the Denver airport:
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1828&dat=19940506&id=1QAkAAAAIBAJ&sjid=c8AEAAAAIBAJ&pg=1302,4405870
Thanks for posting the link! I see when you were talking about a baggage system, you were being literal!