WEBVTT - How Personal Rapid Transport Works

0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:02.840
<v Speaker 1>Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:07.320
<v Speaker 1>It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know

0:00:07.920 --> 0:00:10.680
<v Speaker 1>from how Stuff Works dot Com? Brought to you by

0:00:10.840 --> 0:00:15.320
<v Speaker 1>consumer guy at Automotive we make carbine easier. I'm welcome

0:00:15.360 --> 0:00:17.920
<v Speaker 1>to the podcast on Josh Clark, a staff writer here

0:00:17.920 --> 0:00:20.880
<v Speaker 1>at how Stuff Works dot Com with me is uh

0:00:21.040 --> 0:00:25.080
<v Speaker 1>the writer's editor extraordinary. Mr Chris Pallette, how's it going, Chris?

0:00:25.480 --> 0:00:28.080
<v Speaker 1>It's going great, Josh, thanks for asking. So, Chris, I

0:00:28.120 --> 0:00:32.120
<v Speaker 1>notice you shaved your goatee. It's startlingly different. Yeah. Yeah,

0:00:32.120 --> 0:00:34.000
<v Speaker 1>I'm not used to the air conditioning on my chain,

0:00:34.120 --> 0:00:35.760
<v Speaker 1>but I'll get used to it. Well, we're not used

0:00:35.800 --> 0:00:38.080
<v Speaker 1>to it around the office. We're actually lamenting the loss

0:00:38.120 --> 0:00:40.720
<v Speaker 1>of it. We're sitting shiva over chris is goatee. We've

0:00:40.720 --> 0:00:43.760
<v Speaker 1>got the mirrors covered. But we have to soldier on,

0:00:43.920 --> 0:00:47.880
<v Speaker 1>don't we, Chris? Yeah? So I'm thinking we could soldier

0:00:47.960 --> 0:00:49.640
<v Speaker 1>on by talking about whether or not there's going to

0:00:49.680 --> 0:00:51.840
<v Speaker 1>be a new kind of taxi cab in the future.

0:00:51.880 --> 0:00:54.360
<v Speaker 1>What do you know about this? Well, I do know

0:00:54.400 --> 0:00:57.000
<v Speaker 1>that gas prices are going up and people are looking

0:00:57.040 --> 0:01:00.920
<v Speaker 1>at all kinds of alternatives, even something that might seem

0:01:00.920 --> 0:01:04.200
<v Speaker 1>like it's right out of one of those uh nineties

0:01:04.280 --> 0:01:07.959
<v Speaker 1>nine fifties art deco. Uh, this is the wave of

0:01:08.000 --> 0:01:14.080
<v Speaker 1>the future, like the wed Way people move her. So

0:01:14.120 --> 0:01:17.360
<v Speaker 1>what we're talking about is personal rapid transit or PRT.

0:01:17.840 --> 0:01:20.280
<v Speaker 1>And it's actually not a new idea. It does find

0:01:20.319 --> 0:01:24.039
<v Speaker 1>its roots in the fifties um an American urban designers

0:01:24.040 --> 0:01:27.400
<v Speaker 1>started toying with the idea. What it does is it

0:01:27.440 --> 0:01:30.760
<v Speaker 1>takes the the um the best of both worlds of

0:01:30.800 --> 0:01:34.600
<v Speaker 1>subways and taxis and put them together. Uh. It's personal

0:01:34.680 --> 0:01:37.559
<v Speaker 1>rapid transit because there's so many cars on this rail

0:01:37.640 --> 0:01:40.480
<v Speaker 1>line that you don't have to share with anybody. So

0:01:40.720 --> 0:01:43.720
<v Speaker 1>people who are unsettled by the homeless or are xenophobic

0:01:43.800 --> 0:01:47.800
<v Speaker 1>to a clinical degree can rest easy on this ride. Uh.

0:01:47.840 --> 0:01:50.880
<v Speaker 1>And it also takes you pretty much exactly where you

0:01:50.920 --> 0:01:57.080
<v Speaker 1>want to go. Surprisingly, it's less less to build than

0:01:57.480 --> 0:02:00.600
<v Speaker 1>light rail by a long shot. There doing one at

0:02:00.680 --> 0:02:05.400
<v Speaker 1>Heathrow Airport in the infamous Terminal five UM and it's

0:02:05.440 --> 0:02:09.800
<v Speaker 1>costs about sixteen million for a mile of track. Total costs.

0:02:10.080 --> 0:02:14.040
<v Speaker 1>Most light rail costs about forty million, which is amazing

0:02:14.480 --> 0:02:17.160
<v Speaker 1>that it's got it beat by that. Why don't we

0:02:17.240 --> 0:02:21.280
<v Speaker 1>have this installed everywhere? Now, Well, I would guess that

0:02:21.760 --> 0:02:25.840
<v Speaker 1>even though uh they're claiming that it is less expensive

0:02:25.919 --> 0:02:29.440
<v Speaker 1>than light rail, um, that there's just so much more

0:02:29.560 --> 0:02:33.040
<v Speaker 1>infrastructure involved in building a light rail system. You know,

0:02:33.120 --> 0:02:37.000
<v Speaker 1>from from what I've read and researching for the podcast,

0:02:37.560 --> 0:02:40.720
<v Speaker 1>the the cars we're talking about here for these PRT

0:02:40.919 --> 0:02:44.200
<v Speaker 1>systems are are small. They're they're like a you know,

0:02:44.240 --> 0:02:48.560
<v Speaker 1>a personal automobile rather than a big honking train, which

0:02:48.600 --> 0:02:52.680
<v Speaker 1>I'm sure you know costs a lot to build. Um. Plus,

0:02:52.919 --> 0:02:55.840
<v Speaker 1>the track would probably need to be considerably wider for

0:02:55.960 --> 0:02:58.160
<v Speaker 1>a light rail train, so you know, it sort of

0:02:58.200 --> 0:03:00.560
<v Speaker 1>makes sense that it would be a little bit more

0:03:00.600 --> 0:03:03.760
<v Speaker 1>cost efficient even with the number of stops going up.

0:03:04.040 --> 0:03:06.000
<v Speaker 1>But even with hard numbers, there's a lot of people

0:03:06.040 --> 0:03:10.280
<v Speaker 1>who aren't swayed. Um. Personal rapid transit systems have found

0:03:10.440 --> 0:03:14.800
<v Speaker 1>vocal opponents everywhere that they've been proposed. You watched The Simpsons, right,

0:03:14.880 --> 0:03:17.440
<v Speaker 1>oh yeah, okay, you've seen the mono rail episode. It's

0:03:17.480 --> 0:03:19.320
<v Speaker 1>it's one of my favorites. It is a great so

0:03:19.400 --> 0:03:22.520
<v Speaker 1>it has it all, has Leonard di moy apossums, it's

0:03:22.560 --> 0:03:25.200
<v Speaker 1>a from the music man. But really, when I was

0:03:25.280 --> 0:03:28.440
<v Speaker 1>researching personal rapid transit, I realized that the mono rail

0:03:28.480 --> 0:03:33.000
<v Speaker 1>episode of The Simpsons is a subtle indictment of PRT systems.

0:03:33.400 --> 0:03:36.560
<v Speaker 1>Um and while in the episode, Homer Simpson is the

0:03:36.600 --> 0:03:39.960
<v Speaker 1>conductor of the mono rail, Uh, what better metaphor for

0:03:40.000 --> 0:03:45.880
<v Speaker 1>a failing computer system than Homer himself? Right, that's true? Yeah,

0:03:45.960 --> 0:03:49.040
<v Speaker 1>and uh, that's one of the big criticisms of the

0:03:49.040 --> 0:03:52.520
<v Speaker 1>PRT system is is that you know what happens if

0:03:52.560 --> 0:03:54.720
<v Speaker 1>one of the cars fails, if you're on the same

0:03:54.760 --> 0:03:58.360
<v Speaker 1>track as everyone else, and especially if they're moving as

0:03:58.600 --> 0:04:01.400
<v Speaker 1>in a close proximity as it suggests that we will

0:04:01.440 --> 0:04:04.160
<v Speaker 1>be if we use these systems, it will be essentially

0:04:04.160 --> 0:04:07.440
<v Speaker 1>bumper to bumper. And they are in man they are computerized,

0:04:07.480 --> 0:04:10.200
<v Speaker 1>their computer driven, which is good because they can run

0:04:10.200 --> 0:04:12.880
<v Speaker 1>twenty four hours a day. But if they're unmanned, then

0:04:12.920 --> 0:04:15.800
<v Speaker 1>what happens when they stop? Uh, like you said, you've

0:04:15.840 --> 0:04:18.400
<v Speaker 1>got all the cars behind you stopped behind you. Uh,

0:04:18.520 --> 0:04:21.440
<v Speaker 1>it's it could be just a complete nightmare. It's like

0:04:21.480 --> 0:04:24.440
<v Speaker 1>being stuck on a roller coaster. But you know, you're

0:04:24.480 --> 0:04:26.920
<v Speaker 1>not at an amusement park. You're trying to get home

0:04:27.000 --> 0:04:29.600
<v Speaker 1>or get to work. Maybe they'll install horns in them,

0:04:29.640 --> 0:04:31.480
<v Speaker 1>so at least we can you know, have the satisfaction

0:04:31.480 --> 0:04:33.960
<v Speaker 1>of honking if you Yeah, that would be awesome actually,

0:04:34.000 --> 0:04:38.040
<v Speaker 1>But I was intrigued that they're being installed in some places, uh,

0:04:38.279 --> 0:04:41.040
<v Speaker 1>I think Sweden and Abu Dhabi, which is sort of

0:04:41.080 --> 0:04:43.360
<v Speaker 1>ironic considering that's they would have gotten the money from

0:04:43.360 --> 0:04:45.800
<v Speaker 1>that from oil. Yeah, yeah, that is ironic. But they

0:04:46.200 --> 0:04:49.600
<v Speaker 1>are starting to uh they're actually the the United Arab

0:04:49.720 --> 0:04:52.200
<v Speaker 1>Emirates and and do buying some of these other areas

0:04:52.360 --> 0:04:55.159
<v Speaker 1>are really starting to lead the charge on going green.

0:04:55.640 --> 0:04:59.400
<v Speaker 1>And the city called Masdar City, it's the development outside

0:04:59.400 --> 0:05:02.080
<v Speaker 1>of Abu Dat. They're they're aiming to become the first

0:05:02.680 --> 0:05:05.880
<v Speaker 1>zero carbon footprint city ever. And part of that is

0:05:05.920 --> 0:05:09.320
<v Speaker 1>the personal rapid transit system they're implementing. And this is

0:05:09.360 --> 0:05:11.440
<v Speaker 1>not a test. I mean, they're putting in a whole

0:05:12.400 --> 0:05:15.359
<v Speaker 1>stop uh system. So it's it's a huge deal and

0:05:15.360 --> 0:05:17.680
<v Speaker 1>there's going to be a lot of eyes on Abu

0:05:17.760 --> 0:05:20.159
<v Speaker 1>Dhabi to find out, you know, if this can really

0:05:20.200 --> 0:05:23.160
<v Speaker 1>work and if it will fail like people expect, or

0:05:23.200 --> 0:05:25.359
<v Speaker 1>if it could be the wave of the future for

0:05:25.440 --> 0:05:29.200
<v Speaker 1>taxis that's fascinating. It'll be it'll be exciting to see

0:05:29.400 --> 0:05:32.240
<v Speaker 1>you know that this may be a real solution. Yeah,

0:05:32.279 --> 0:05:35.080
<v Speaker 1>I hope so, because we're drowning here. If you want

0:05:35.080 --> 0:05:38.280
<v Speaker 1>to learn more about personal rapid transit, read will there

0:05:38.320 --> 0:05:41.080
<v Speaker 1>be a new kind of Taxicab? On how stuff works

0:05:41.120 --> 0:05:44.479
<v Speaker 1>dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.

0:05:44.640 --> 0:05:47.600
<v Speaker 1>Does it how stuff works dot com. Let us know

0:05:47.640 --> 0:05:50.560
<v Speaker 1>what you think. Send an email to podcast at how

0:05:50.600 --> 0:05:55.840
<v Speaker 1>stuff works dot com. Brought to you by the reinvented

0:05:55.880 --> 0:05:58.600
<v Speaker 1>two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, Are you