Mar 19, 2010

In March of 2010, ULTra PRT demonstrated 48 passengers departing from the four-berth London Heathrow (LHR) Terminal 5 station in 5 minutes, for a world-record hourly PRT outbound station capacity of 576 passengers per hour.* The ULTra system will continue to set PRT world records throughout 2010.

With the further enhancements that are being implemented, this 48-passenger station processing time will be reduced to three and a half minutes. Hence the station will be able to serve as many as 800 passengers per hour -- equivalent to a long-haul bus (or coach) arriving every three to four minutes -- far more traffic than is currently anticipated for the Phase I LHR system. This excess capacity allows the station to serve passengers quickly, even when they arrive as part of large groups. This excess capacity also accommodates the future growth of passenger traffic at the airport.

Despite its high capacity, the Terminal 5 station was primarily designed to fit into an existing parking structure with minimum impact. With more capacity-oriented designs, ULTra stations can accommodate passenger flows at twice the rate of the Terminal 5 station. The operating principles remain the same however, and these have been validated by the testing experience at Heathrow. Capacity-oriented stations optimize "vehicle cycle time," the time clocked between the following actions: vehicle1 stops at the berth, exiting passengers unload, new passengers load, vehicle1 exits the berth, and vehicle2 stops at the berth.

* Outbound station capacity world record notes:

• The venerable Morgantown Group Rapid Transit (GRT) system features 21-person vehicles and delivers significant passenger capacity. Confusingly, this GRT system is named the Morgantown PRT System, though it is clearly not PRT. For PRT & GRT definitions, see: http://www.cities21.org/cms/index.php?page=prt-grt-apm-agt-defined.
• ULTra PRT restricts capacity world records to those achieved at a customer site.