Self-Driving Electric Vehicles
ULTra PRT is significantly more software, sensor, and communications intensive than traditional transit. An ULTra system may have 500 computer-driven vehicles driving with a precision better than +/- one inch laterally and longitudinally, with 100 position updates per vehicle per second.
The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) has developed a long-term vision of self-driving cars on U.S. roads called Automated Highway Systems (AHS). Automation will increase capacity (because cars will follow more closely) while improving gas mileage and safety. The current early DOT technology development project in this arena is called “Vehicle Infrastructure Integration” (link) and this effort is being complemented by automaker advances such as “stop and go adaptive cruise control.” All automobile manufacturers agree that it will be impractical to remove ultimate responsibility from the driver in a conventional road situation for many decades. In contrast, ULTra offers fully self-driving vehicles now.
The ULTra system uses a battery-powered electric vehicle (EV) and will exploit advances in EV propulsion over the coming years. As of the current ULTra Version 1.0, the system design provides opportunities for recharge after every trip and required battery pack size is low, under 10% of vehicle empty weight.
Videos
3-minute introduction to ULTra Personal Rapid Transit
Multi-vehicle operations at Cardiff (April 2009).
The ULTra passenger experience