This paper presents reasons and constraints which have made Automated People Movers extremely expensive for airport applications and subsequently prevented smaller airports from considering technological solutions to their surface traffic problems. The paper also offers some recipes for better and more diversified use of People Mover technologies and project implementation techniques for both intra-airport and airport transit link applications. Furthermore, the paper describes the overwhelming ratio of feasibility studies versus installations often due to misleading presentations of technological opportunities as well as explains the unnecessary constraints imposed on cable technologies, which are ideal for most airport applications. It presents selected new technologies holding promise for medium and smaller airports. In addition, the paper discusses the specification impact on innovation and cost, as well as reversed trends in procurement methods. To summarize, the paper presents the status of the airport People Mover industry in the beginning of a new millennium when the airport market is booming, but continues to be dominated by a single technology developed in the early 1960's.
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