Hi Folks,

For the sake of brevity, I’ve paraphrased Mike’s comments while adding my responses. His original email follows this response.

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Questions that need to be answered or be included in the next Pod Car public outreach.

1. What is a PRT system? Presentation slides 8 & 9 answer that briefly. Longer answers are contained in various presentations.

2. Cost comparisons have been done for various transit modes, but I’ll leave it to SC-PRT to estimate the cost of widening the highway. Here are just PRT estimates.

3. Concerns about PRT serving handicapped people stem, I believe, from fear of losing ParaCruz (operated by Santa Cruz Metro). We’re talking about change, which is generally stressful and suspect. We’re also talking about people without much power, who are being squeezed by life. I don’t want to make things worse for the roughly 5% of our population that need attendant help to get around. I want to make it easier to get around for the 95% that can get themselves to and from a podcar stop in their neighborhood. (METRO could investigate the cost of sending an attendant via PRT to the customer versus the cost of a ParaCruz trip.)
The one unanswered question I recall had to do with securing a wheelchair in a podcar. At an acceleration and deceleration rate of 0.2g, and a guideway separated from human traffic errors, will a tie-down be needed?

4. Elevators are not expensive. We need them at all stations to accommodate everyone. If each elevator costs $60,000, and we need 2 per mile of guideway, that’s only 1% ($0.12M) of the total cost of $15M per mile that includes guideways, cabs, tops, and controls. Podcar stops using ground-based boarding present their own costs, primarily in extended footprint – a scarce resource in congested areas.

5. The socialization argument is really exaggerated. Agreed, and addressed in part 2 of Continuing our discussion emails.

6. Choosing how to handle emergencies is both a hardware and software issue, both of which can be designed to the customer’s desires. So, what do you want? I think bi-directional communication with the control room will solve a lot of customer emergencies. Many others could be mitigated by mid-trip destination corrections. ITNS addresses emergencies and prevention in their Technical Specifications. As for hardware failures, multi-layered redundancy ensure a MTBF that is extremely long, well beyond our lifetimes. For details, see J. E. Anderson’s “Failure Modes and Effects.”

7. Bandwidth or throughput is how many people can be transported per hour. If you want to move 1800 people per hour like a freeway lane or a PRT guideway, it would require 36 50-person buses every hour, or a bus every 2 minutes (1800/50=36 buses/hour). Similar calculations can be done with trains. The real question is how much bandwidth do you need? In San Jose, VTA is digging a subway that can move 50,000 people per hour, but only expects ridership of 50,000 per day.

8. Security, especially for women at night and by themselves, is enhanced by PRT by 1) reducing time spent waiting at the podcar stop, 2) riding solo in transit, and 3) bi-directional communication with the control room.

9. Job retention at Metro was addressed in part 3 of Continuing our discussion emails.

10. Whether to allow Metro to run the show, or a private firm, or a community-owned company is up to the community. (Clearly, my preference is for a non-profit mutual benefit corporations controlled by the local community.) The type and number of jobs to operate and maintain a podcar network is small, and bus-driving experience is not directly applicable. So, the bus drivers union should focus on the increased demand for bus service that will likely result from adding PRT to the existing transportation options.

11. Toxic tire particles was addressed in part 2 of Continuing our discussion emails. Also, comments about “a PRT system we agree upon” suggests a single design throughout the County. Please note this line from Points for transit planners to consider about PRT: “Due to no-wait transfers, connecting networks using different PRT designs does not substantially affect origin-to-destination transit time.”

12. Visual intrusion by elevated guideway was addressed in part 2 of Continuing our discussion emails. Frankly, I can’t take seriously people who fear guideways without also objecting to visual (and audio) intrusion of streets, freeways, bridges, and rail lines.

Yes, our future podcasts should address these concerns. We should also address the illusion that “Metro has these issues figured out”. If METRO was including PRT technology in their long-term planning, I would agree with you. Or if they had cracked their financial problems, and learned how to turn a profit, I would agree. But METRO, like VTA, is an institution that resists change, just like all systems, institutional or organic.

To get the community on board with dedicated raised guideways, we can ask “where is there room to put or expand another system on the ground?” Without substantial community disruption and huge cost to acquire right of way, re-purposing our commons (roads, railways, and levees) may be the only way to accommodate the increasing transportation demands of an expanding population.

I agree that reducing road congestion should be our goal. That’s why I emphasize using PRT in congested areas where the ROI is high enough to offset the costs. ROI includes environmental and service-level impacts in addition to financials.

-------- Forwarded Message --------

Hi all

Just finished watching the Pod car forum on March 26th. Overall it was done very well and the key success to this format is the questions it brought from the community on areas that need attention if we are to convince the community that a PRT system is viable and necessary.

Questions that need to be answered or be included in the next Pod Car public outreach.

1. A gentleman from the audience was disappointed that PRT was not explained at the beginning of this presentation. What is a PRT system?

2. No cost comparison to a train or the cost of widening the highway. Need more accurate numbers.

3. There was a lot of concern about how a Pod Car handles the handicapped.

4. Elevator usage and do we need them at all stations? People were concerned about the added cost. I did a quick math problem and if you have 50 stations at $60,000 each station that's 3 million dollars. Suggest we look at a ground based boarding PRT system.

5. The socialization argument is really exaggerated by some of the people as well as the community. I travelled Europe all by train and there were very few opportunities to start up conversations. The majority of the passengers were on their phones or I-pads, Sad but true.

6. Emergencies also came up a lot, and were somewhat explained by Rob. Need some more specifics on the subject.

7. Lani as well as the 3 Bus drivers that spoke were convinced that because the train or bus is big it could carry more people than a PRT system. Rob did a good job of explaining the idea that distance between cars (1-2 sec) allows higher passenger capability than a Bus or train. I think that went over most people's heads. Also no numbers were mentioned to compare trains or buses.

8. Safety especially for women at night and by themselves.

9. Job retention at Metro. Rob did a good job of explaining his vision of job creation.

10. Allow Metro to run the show? What jobs are needed for a PRT system is a big concern from the bus drivers.

11. Rubber tires came up a few times from Lani as environmentally bad. Suggest we delete rubber tires from a PRT system we agree upon.

12. An elevated guideway seemed very unpopular by the community. Not sure what to suggest about that issue.

The community forum input gives us guidance for our next steps of researching and addressing some very important issues related to handicap needs, safety, and dealing with emergencies. These issues are important, and our future podcasts should address these very real concerns.

A common response or theme came out of this forum. A lot of answers about PRT were answered with some doubt or making it feel as though there were answers but not definitely sure how that would work. One of the bus drivers said he didn't like maybe or it might be possible answers, especially when Metro has these issues figured out and have been doing so for years. Especially the emergency issues.