Greetings! ATRA worked very hard for about three years to bring about changes to the American Society of Civil Engineers' Automated People Mover Standards that would better adapt these standards to personal rapid transit (PRT). I am very pleased to announce that the latest edition of these standards has now been published and incorporates the changes we negotiated.
The most important change is that the so-called "brick wall stop" criterion no longer applies to Automated Transit Networks (ATN). This change frees up ATN technology to potentially achieve higher speeds and capacities. This technology can now truly become urban mass transit, way beyond just first/last mile service.
The document is also the first official document I know of to define ATN, which covers both PRT and group rapid transit (GRT). The word "Personal" in PRT implies both elitism and low capacity to many people I have spoken with. In addition, the term "PRT" has negative historical connotations involving failures in the U.S. and abroad. I think it is high time we replaced
As always, enjoy reading!
Best regards,
Peter Muller, ATRA President
