Personal Rapid Transit in Derby, England

Last month it was +Wellington's turn on the PRT merry-go-round. This month, the BBC reports that ATS is pitching ULTra to Derby, England.

The PRTistas are always trying to get some government agency or city council to "study" PRT. The number of cities that have been approached by PRT proponents over the last thirty years is huge and how many of them have PRT systems?.... none.

When the PRTistas find a gullible alderman or legislator to sponsor a resolution to "consider" the feasibility of PRT in their ward, county, city... out goes the press releases. The media publishes a variation on the "gee-whiz it looks like the Jetsons" theme article which gets linked on the dozens of PRT websites where the happy news helps them bash LRT and finance their phony PRT companies.

This University of MInnesota web page has a breathless description of the Raytheon PRT project for Rosemount Illinois:

As soon as next year, Raytheon hopes to take the next step in deploying a PRT layout design to service a conference center and hotel complex at Rosemount near O'Hare Airport. The five-kilometer layout, with its eight stations and 45 cars, would carry up to 2,000 passengers per hour to and from the Chicago Regional Transportation Authority's Blue Line rail transit station.

...and...

If the Rosemount project succeeds, the city of SeaTac, Washington, says it will consider spending more than $300 million to buy up to 265 cars and build 12 to 18 miles of guideway, linking 40 hotels, parking lots, and car-rental agencies in and around the booming Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Several other transportation authorities are keeping their eyes on the Raytheon project as well.

What happened to the Raytheon PRT? It went bust... costing the taxpayers over $22 million. But, that puff piece on Raytheon's PRT will live forever in cyberspace.

Here's a website for Skyloop. Is Skyloop still a going concern?

Nope..it was voted down in 2001 after a study found many serious flaws in the PRT design. That study cost the taxpayers in the Cincinnati area $625,000.

But, Skyloop is listed on Wikipedia as if folks in Cincinatti can expect to hop on a pod any day now.

Here's a PRT project that the PRTistas won't mention on their web sites... hmmmm... why won't they?