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Bath Renaissance Study

This study is ongoing - for more details see http://www.atsltd.co.uk/Bath


As part of the CIVITAS Renaissance Project, ULTra PRT is investigating the potential for the ULTra PRT system to be part of a future transport solution for historic cities, with the City of Bath chosen for this feasibility study. ULTra has the potential to alleviate the congestion, energy usage, pollution, noise, and safety issues that are created by the millions of journeys made by cars, buses and other vehicles throughout the year. The purpose of this study is to quantify these benefits, as well as investigate the design and business case challenges of creating a system like this in a historically sensitive location such as Bath.

This is only a feasibility study — there are currently no plans to build a PRT system in Bath. As an UNESCO World Heritage site with thousands of years of history, Bath offers one of the most challenging possible environments in which to study a PRT application. The results of this study may or may not be applied in Bath, but will help to inform to similar historic urban environments elsewhere in the world.

Background

Although Personal Rapid Transit studies have been conducted for many cities, airports, and new developments, none of these have had the unique challenges associated with building a transport system in a historic urban environment such as Bath. Therefore, the EU has asked ULTra PRT to investigate this problem, using Bath as a hypothetical site for such a system. The results of this study will be critical in assessing the viability of PRT not only in Bath, but in similar historic environments in Europe.

Bath Network Design

The design of the hypothetical ULTra network for Bath is still ongoing, however, for the purposes of the design competition a section of a potential network was been provided to give specific locations on which the entrants could base their designs. The selected network consists of a single 3.5 km (2.2 mi) loop, with 9 stations. Every point in the city centre would be within a 4 minute walk of an ULTra station It is designed to connect the major cornerstones of the city centre, as described in the Bath's overall planning strategy, and it allows people to easily transfer betwen ULTra, National Rail, the planned Bus Rapid Transit route. This would enhance the patronage of all forms of public transit.


Inner section of the conceptual Bath ULTra network.

The route was chosen because it would provide a useful service at a minimum scale and cost. It was also chosen because of its difficulty. The locations it touches on are not the most sensitive sites in Bath, but they will still be very, very challenging places to design acceptable stations and guideway. There would certainly be easier sites for an ULTra system in Bath, but that would not fulfil the CIVITAS mandate of exploring sustainable future transport in historic urban environments.

The stations on this network each pose unique design challenges. We have selected four of these stations as sites for the design competition mentioned at the top of this page.

Beyond this selected loop, the ULTra system would be designed to offer transport throughout most of Bath, providing rapid transportation between scores of stations, ranging from the from the Royal United Hospital in the west, to the University of Bath in the east. While the environmental and economic effects of this wider network will be considered in our study, it is not being examined in detail from a design standpoint.