The People Movers

All of the new U.S. superjets were there: Lockheed's L-1011, the McDonnell-Douglas DC-10 and Boeing's giant 747 freighter. Overhead, jet fighters of the U.S. Air Force's Thunderbirds, the Navy's Blue Angels and the R.A.F.'s Red Arrows performed dramatic aerial acrobatics. But the real stars last week at Transpo 72, the $10 million Department of Transportation show at Dulles International Airport near Washington, were little vehicles that will never leave the ground: the Personal Rapid Transit systems, or PRTs.

Designed to shuttle passengers quickly and efficiently around crowded metropolitan areas, airports, university campuses and large shopping centers, the electrically powered "people movers" have no operators or conductors, move along fixed routes under the control of a computer, and do not pollute the air. PRT passengers enter a station, push a call button and are picked up within a few minutes. By pressing an appropriate button aboard the vehicle, they can make a swift nonstop trip to another station of their choice. Says William Magruder, the President's special consultant on technology: "Think of the system as a horizontal elevator."

Five different PRT prototypes were on display on the 300-acre exposition ground, representing a total investment to date of $45 million by private industry and another $12 million by the Transportation Department:

P: The Ford Motor Co. system consists of 24-passenger vehicles that move on ground-level aluminum guideways and are controlled by a computer that not only tells them where to go next but also knows their exact locations at all times and keeps them safely separated. Theoretically, Ford says, the computer makes it possible to leave as little as two-second intervals between cars operating at 30 m.p.h. Last week the company announced that it would install its first PRT system in Dearborn, Mich. The two-mile loop will connect Ford's headquarters with another office complex, a shopping center and a hotel. Later, Ford intends to install a larger system in a 32-acre redevelopment tract in downtown Detroit.

P: The Boeing system, also wheeled and computer-operated along guide-ways, will use 21-passenger cars and is already being installed in Morgantown, W. Va. When the 31-mile circuit is opened for full operation late in 1973, it will connect the downtown area with three campuses of West Virginia University. Riders will be whisked along at 35 m.p.h. and will have to wait no longer than 27 minutes at any of twelve stations. Guideways can be warmed by circulating hot water to keep them free of snow and ice during winter.

P: The Dashaveyor-Bendix system uses 31-passenger rubber-tired vehicles that run at 40 m.p.h. in a concrete trough (small, horizontal guide wheels prevent the car from rubbing against the walls). A single line, Bendix says, would have a capacity of 10,000 persons per hour.

P: The Rohr-Monocab uses six-passenger vehicles suspended on an overhead rail. It can operate at 30 m.p.h. and, like its wheeled competitors, is computer-controlled and on call at all times.

P: The Transportation Technology-Otis system uses six-to-ten-passenger Hovair vehicles that float on a cushion of air between them and a trackway. The blast of air that keeps the vehicles suspended is produced by electric engines, but the cars are pulled along by electromagnets that are embedded in a third rail in the track and controlled by a computer.

The operatorless PRTs will sharply reduce payrolls, which amount to 60% to 70% of the operating costs of traditional transportation systems. But they leave one mass-transportation problem unsolved: Who collects the fares? The Department of Transportation is still working out a method, but is leaning toward a magnetically coded pass card that, inserted in a slot, will allow a passenger through a turnstile at the same time that his name is forwarded to a computer for later billing.

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