A Field Study of Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) in Shanghai

The survey objective is to clarify the feasibility of Personal Rapid Transit (PRT), a rail bound transit system, in Shanghai. It includes a technical description of the system, a survey of conditions in Shanghai and statistical analysis of traffic data for Shanghai.
Personal Rapid Transit, or PRT, is the name for a group of pod car systems. The cover page image shows a PRT made by Vectus Ltd., an Uppsala based company. PRT systems are considerably cheaper to build than metro or light rail and the fact that the pods do not stop at intermediate stations makes PRT faster providing higher levels of utilization than other transit systems reducing complete lifecycle costs per person transported.
Shanghai is a province of 19 million registered citizens of whom about 12 million make up the urban population. The main transit systems in Shanghai are the metro, the elevated light rail, buses and taxis. The passenger use trend for all these systems point towards increasing use and demand for affordable transportation in Shanghai is greater than the supply of such transportation at this point.
This survey concludes that PRT is a feasible option for Shanghai. PRT could be utilized further in the future when the demand for safe, fast, and comfortable transit is predicted to grow. The capacity of a PRT system can be estimated in the following manner;
- Safety distance: 3 seconds
- Speed of 50 km/h
- 4 out of 6 seats used
The capacity will amount to 4,800 passengers per hour and if every two pods were to interconnect the capacity would increase to maximum 9,600 passengers per hour. As a comparison, the Shanghai metro lines have a maximum capacity of 30,000 passengers per hour and the light rail half of that. Given the fact that the cost of building PRT is about one tenth of building metro and one forth of light rail it is a superior complement for the transit system in a new modern Shanghai.

Available from: Global Energy Systems