On-demand personal transport system could shuttle folks around Heathrow
By Darren Murph 
posted December 19th 2007 10:23AM
posted December 19th 2007 10:23AM
Britain's Heathrow airport has already made plans to step its game up once this year with a swank new parking garage, but the latest development most certainly outshines the prior. Reportedly, a network of 18 four-seater pods will be unveiled within two years after Terminal 5 opens next March in order to shuttle passengers "to and from a business car park to the new terminal building." Hailed as the UK's "first personal rapid transport system (PRT)," this energy-efficient, battery powered system will enable the driverless pods to be summoned on demand by individual families and taken to a variety of nearby locations. Creators claim that users will be thrilled by having their own taxi of sorts without having to ride alongside strangers, but not surprisingly, each pod will indeed support CCTV surveillance. Hey, it's Big Brother or John Doe -- pick your poison.
Unless these things have the carrying capacity of a Hummer, I doubt Americans will get one.
The world is becoming more like Minority Report everyday... It's great.
The first thing i thought of was that weird taxi from Total Recall
Reminds me of Orlando International Airport.
Looks like Heathrow is finally catching up with the developed world...
Schiphol had a similar product ten years ago...
http://faculty.washington.edu/jbs/itrans/parkshuttle.htm
Yeah, I once traveled in one of those cars on the long term parking lot on Schiphol. Though it was still was a bit sensitive (it thought there was something one the road, and stopped abrubtly) it served us well. Reason the project was finally canceled was costs at that time.
Suits me fine, I travel alot and unfortunately airfares have been getting cheaper so I am forced to be visually raped by the huddled masses who I have the misfortune of travelling with. So as long as this single vehicle/ mono rail racetrack type thing keeps my "mingling" time down and gets me on the plane without wanting to AK47 my way through crowds...yeah
18 won't be enough if Heathrow is anything like PDX in the US. The fairly largish shuttle buses fill to capacity each run with standing room only, seemingly during all times of day. I can't believe that 18 of these will be nearly enough to service a decent airport if all seats aren't guaranteed to be filled.
These look like they'll be for business travellers (presumably those actually travelling business class as well) only, so fortunately you wont have your average John and Jane Smith with their 5 council estate kids clambering to use these on their holiday to Majorca any time soon.
I'm such a snob...
Decent airport?
Depends what you mean. You're talking about passengers and LHR is the busiest international passenger airport in the world.
Shit though, so not decent in that sense.
As for these, at the moment they're for the as yet unfinished Terminal 5 so don't need to carry the millions. And even then just for the furthest car parks...
Well Heathrow and Hartsfield-Jackson are the two busiest Airports in the world so they'll be well used. If they work well then they'll probably increase the amount that they have running. I'm going to go to Heathrow just to have a go in one.....is that sad? lol.
Visiting West Virginia University in Morgantown, WV my wife and I discovered and took a trip on a PRT they have there: http://wvuminute.wvu.edu/Archive/?id=6 It was a pretty interesting and unique experience.
L O L ! It looks like a damn toaster!! Do the passengers slide in at the top and pop out when they're done? :D
Wouldn't that be an improvement over how airport travelers are treated now? :D
Umm.. yeah.. like anyone would want to climb into a giant toaster.
This is the ULTra PRT, under development for years.
http://www.atsltd.co.uk/
Pretty old news for those of us who follow PRT development.
@davesweeps - Morgantown is called the first PRT system, but really it is GRT -- Group Rapid Transit. Still, its reliability is remarkable.
I would love something like this at Heathrow. Anything to hep streamline that nightmare of a place is good. And it's pretty obvious why they have surveillance - it's the T-word.