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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know

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Speaker 1: from how Stuff Works dot Com? Brought to you by

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Speaker 1: consumer guy at Automotive we make carbine easier. I'm welcome

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Speaker 1: to the podcast on Josh Clark, a staff writer here

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Speaker 1: at how Stuff Works dot Com with me is uh

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Speaker 1: the writer's editor extraordinary. Mr Chris Pallette, how's it going, Chris?

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Speaker 1: It's going great, Josh, thanks for asking. So, Chris, I

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Speaker 1: notice you shaved your goatee. It's startlingly different. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I'm not used to the air conditioning on my chain,

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Speaker 1: but I'll get used to it. Well, we're not used

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Speaker 1: to it around the office. We're actually lamenting the loss

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Speaker 1: of it. We're sitting shiva over chris is goatee. We've

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Speaker 1: got the mirrors covered. But we have to soldier on,

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Speaker 1: don't we, Chris? Yeah? So I'm thinking we could soldier

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Speaker 1: on by talking about whether or not there's going to

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Speaker 1: be a new kind of taxi cab in the future.

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Speaker 1: What do you know about this? Well, I do know

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Speaker 1: that gas prices are going up and people are looking

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Speaker 1: at all kinds of alternatives, even something that might seem

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Speaker 1: like it's right out of one of those uh nineties

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Speaker 1: nine fifties art deco. Uh, this is the wave of

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Speaker 1: the future, like the wed Way people move her. So

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Speaker 1: what we're talking about is personal rapid transit or PRT.

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Speaker 1: And it's actually not a new idea. It does find

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Speaker 1: its roots in the fifties um an American urban designers

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Speaker 1: started toying with the idea. What it does is it

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Speaker 1: takes the the um the best of both worlds of

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Speaker 1: subways and taxis and put them together. Uh. It's personal

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Speaker 1: rapid transit because there's so many cars on this rail

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Speaker 1: line that you don't have to share with anybody. So

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Speaker 1: people who are unsettled by the homeless or are xenophobic

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Speaker 1: to a clinical degree can rest easy on this ride. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And it also takes you pretty much exactly where you

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Speaker 1: want to go. Surprisingly, it's less less to build than

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Speaker 1: light rail by a long shot. There doing one at

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Speaker 1: Heathrow Airport in the infamous Terminal five UM and it's

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Speaker 1: costs about sixteen million for a mile of track. Total costs.

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Speaker 1: Most light rail costs about forty million, which is amazing

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Speaker 1: that it's got it beat by that. Why don't we

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Speaker 1: have this installed everywhere? Now, Well, I would guess that

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Speaker 1: even though uh they're claiming that it is less expensive

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Speaker 1: than light rail, um, that there's just so much more

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Speaker 1: infrastructure involved in building a light rail system. You know,

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Speaker 1: from from what I've read and researching for the podcast,

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Speaker 1: the the cars we're talking about here for these PRT

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Speaker 1: systems are are small. They're they're like a you know,

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Speaker 1: a personal automobile rather than a big honking train, which

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Speaker 1: I'm sure you know costs a lot to build. Um. Plus,

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Speaker 1: the track would probably need to be considerably wider for

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Speaker 1: a light rail train, so you know, it sort of

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Speaker 1: makes sense that it would be a little bit more

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Speaker 1: cost efficient even with the number of stops going up.

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Speaker 1: But even with hard numbers, there's a lot of people

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Speaker 1: who aren't swayed. Um. Personal rapid transit systems have found

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Speaker 1: vocal opponents everywhere that they've been proposed. You watched The Simpsons, right,

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Speaker 1: oh yeah, okay, you've seen the mono rail episode. It's

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Speaker 1: it's one of my favorites. It is a great so

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Speaker 1: it has it all, has Leonard di moy apossums, it's

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Speaker 1: a from the music man. But really, when I was

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Speaker 1: researching personal rapid transit, I realized that the mono rail

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Speaker 1: episode of The Simpsons is a subtle indictment of PRT systems.

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Speaker 1: Um and while in the episode, Homer Simpson is the

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Speaker 1: conductor of the mono rail, Uh, what better metaphor for

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Speaker 1: a failing computer system than Homer himself? Right, that's true? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and uh, that's one of the big criticisms of the

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Speaker 1: PRT system is is that you know what happens if

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Speaker 1: one of the cars fails, if you're on the same

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Speaker 1: track as everyone else, and especially if they're moving as

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Speaker 1: in a close proximity as it suggests that we will

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Speaker 1: be if we use these systems, it will be essentially

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Speaker 1: bumper to bumper. And they are in man they are computerized,

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Speaker 1: their computer driven, which is good because they can run

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Speaker 1: twenty four hours a day. But if they're unmanned, then

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Speaker 1: what happens when they stop? Uh, like you said, you've

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Speaker 1: got all the cars behind you stopped behind you. Uh,

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Speaker 1: it's it could be just a complete nightmare. It's like

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Speaker 1: being stuck on a roller coaster. But you know, you're

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Speaker 1: not at an amusement park. You're trying to get home

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Speaker 1: or get to work. Maybe they'll install horns in them,

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Speaker 1: so at least we can you know, have the satisfaction

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Speaker 1: of honking if you Yeah, that would be awesome actually,

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Speaker 1: But I was intrigued that they're being installed in some places, uh,

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Speaker 1: I think Sweden and Abu Dhabi, which is sort of

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Speaker 1: ironic considering that's they would have gotten the money from

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Speaker 1: that from oil. Yeah, yeah, that is ironic. But they

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Speaker 1: are starting to uh they're actually the the United Arab

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Speaker 1: Emirates and and do buying some of these other areas

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Speaker 1: are really starting to lead the charge on going green.

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Speaker 1: And the city called Masdar City, it's the development outside

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Speaker 1: of Abu Dat. They're they're aiming to become the first

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Speaker 1: zero carbon footprint city ever. And part of that is

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Speaker 1: the personal rapid transit system they're implementing. And this is

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Speaker 1: not a test. I mean, they're putting in a whole

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Speaker 1: stop uh system. So it's it's a huge deal and

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Speaker 1: there's going to be a lot of eyes on Abu

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Speaker 1: Dhabi to find out, you know, if this can really

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Speaker 1: work and if it will fail like people expect, or

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Speaker 1: if it could be the wave of the future for

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Speaker 1: taxis that's fascinating. It'll be it'll be exciting to see

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Speaker 1: you know that this may be a real solution. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I hope so, because we're drowning here. If you want

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Speaker 1: to learn more about personal rapid transit, read will there

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Speaker 1: be a new kind of Taxicab? On how stuff works

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Speaker 1: dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.

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Speaker 1: Does it how stuff works dot com. Let us know

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