Personal Rapid Transport (PRT): The forgotten option

摘要

A few years ago I wrote a paper that was published in this journal (Kilsby 2002) titled "How can Menorca progress towards sustainable transport?". At the time, the focus was on Menorca and sustainability. The paper pointed out the very high car usage of the island, the similarities with Australia despite the great difference in size, and the concentration of car-dependency-related problems it brought. It reviewed the main modes of transport on the island, and concluded that none of the conventional alternatives would shake the stranglehold of the internal combustion engined vehicle. It briefly suggested three unconventional alternatives: car sharing, the Segway "human transporter", and personal rapid transit (PRT) - referred to as a type of "Ultra-Light Rail" in the original paper - as being worth trying and evaluating.