Personal Rapid Transit Planned For Heathrow

In his December 15 talk at the National Building Museum entitled "The Sustainable City: A Mythical Beast?", Sir Peter Hall, director of the Institute of Community Studies and professor of planning at the Bartlett School of Architecture and Planning, University College London, discusses PRT during a short Q&A session at the end of an introductory speech.

From the first question, on the poor social perception of public transportation:

"The social perception of public transportation depends on the quality of the transportation, and what we've seen in Europe in particular is very high-quality systems, going in over the last three or four years."

"And I think we may also in the future be looking to technological advances in public transportation to create new kinds of personal rapid transit. We had a big breakthrough announced only a week ago that a British system called, literally, PRT, Personal Rapid Transit, is going to be adapted for Heathrow Airport progressively over the next ten years. And when you drive your car into Heathrow to one of the parking lots, you will get your own personal vehicle and program it to go to your terminal, or vice versa. And if this is as successful as I think it will be, this could be a big breakthrough in developing new kinds of totally personalized rapid transit, which could transform our cities in ways that we can't yet see."

Thanks to Steve Raney