Get On Board|Billions Served

Detractors are fond of blasting Personal Rapid Transit as "those tiny cars that only seat a few people." The many PRT high-capacity examples, such as those elsewhere on this site, are unconvincing to the anti-PRT camp, even when employing the simplest math.

Advocates of large-vehicle transit are essentially setting two groundrules about the consumer product Transit:

The only way to effectively deliver Transit is to gather Transit Consumers together in large groups and make them consume Transit all at the same time.

The only effective way to gather Transit Consumers together to partake of Transit is on a timetable, at a few large stations.

This is the conventional public transit model, used the world over. PRT is trying to show that there is another way.

An understanding of how PRT can be high capacity can be gained by looking to how one company turned the humble hamburger into an international consumer phenomenon. How could McDonald's serve "billions and billions" of burgers, fries and shakes from relatively tiny restaurants? The same way PRT proposes to deliver Transit: they may be small, but there's always one nearby. And since McDonald's is always nearby, each establishment doesn't have to serve everyone, just those who happen to be within their service area. And the formula works. Go to your nearest McDonald's-- probably you can walk there. It may be busy, but even when it's busy you don't have to wait long because the kitchen produces product to meet the walk-in demand.

See how closely this model parallels the characteristics of PRT: on-demand, no-wait or short-wait transit service. No schedule. A network of stations always within walking distance. No crowds.

Now picture "McDonald's" if it were run like a conventional rail system:

Each city has only a few "McDonald's", in a few strategic locations.

A massive mobile kitchen runs among the restaurants, dropping off burgers, fries and shakes.

"McDonald's" publicizes timetables of when the mobile kitchen will be at each restaurant. This might be once every 4 to 8 minutes, but late at night this might be only once an hour.

If someone wants to eat, they have to show up at one of the scheduled times, line up with possibly a few hundred other people, wait for the mobile kitchen to arrive, and then order.

If you live too far away from a "McDonald's", they will send a special shuttle through your neighborhood to pick you up. These also run on timetables. You have to wait out in the rain and hope it's on time.

Pretty ridiculous. Yet backers of conventional transit insist this is the only form Transit can take. To carry the analogy further, the only hamburger alternative to "McDonald's" is to go to Safeway, buy the ingredients, and make it yourself. Sure, Safeway may be crowded, but you know what? It takes about as long as going to "McDonald's", and it tastes better. To mix our metaphors, most people would rather make their own burgers than take mass transit.

The McDonald's model-- "Personal Fast Food". It demonstrates that non-centralized service delivery isn't just successful, it can be wildly successful. So when it comes to Transit, why not "Have it your way"?

Get on board! Personal Rapid Transit

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