BAA Heathrow ULTra PRT

[adamcrookedsmile]

what about snow on the ground?

[L1verpool10]

came to heathrow 2011 stupid

[L1verpool10]

Built now innit bro!

[TheBadkid1001]

Does this go to any other terminal?

[andreipetunin]

Bring some to Bournemouth.

[BabexayKelsieej167]

uhm_Ï_fEél_sØ_lonëly_tôÐäY

[aka4god]

There are similar transportations like this in JFK airport. I don't see why we shouldn't invest in building more in varies cities.

[pdxtran]

This is only a slightly more elaborate version of the people movers that already exist at airports such as Chicago O'Hare.

[Pvemaster2]

These things already drive in Rotterdam, they're meh imo.



[darwincity]

@Pvemaster2 On which line?

[AstroChickenII]

I kinda hate the fact that it is automated and how it will replace human drivers

[OMGitsSTEVEable]

Song?



[SatoTM3]

its a nice dream

[iopy95]

looks brilliant and shall help Heathrow become a world-class airport that we can be proud of. 

[supergreatpower]

is this in operation yet ??

[cprich22]

it would be good to have these going around every city

[neuralwarp]

When's it starting service? Still waiting. Bored now.

[wishingstar22]

A light rail system can cost about $100,000,000 a mile. A system like this will cost about $10,000,000 a mile.  Pretty cool.

[Vigormaster]

SO COOL!

[tri400]

This should be implemented along all major roads in the world!!!

[uea978]

Good idea. If implemented in cities there would be no more car crashes and lots of lives would be saves. Just like taking an elevator......

[jasm5052]

howcome its 4 2009 when its 2010 and i dont see them in use AND THE TRACK NEAR t5 is uncomplete

[AdeV2]

@jasm5052 Because all British transport projects run late - preferably between 2-3 years; and ideally they should be 4-5 times over budget. I've no idea how far ULTra is over-budget, but it's currently on course to be fashionably late.

[dpatton1661]

This is the same airport where it can take more than an hour to get through customs, right, where no mechanical transport is needed?

This cannot work. See Bruno Latour and "Aramis".

[georgecurrysama]

this is sik

[th3thrilld3m0n]

What's the music?

[th3thrilld3m0n]

Light rail is significantly more expensive than these. One mile of light rail track is 14 times more money than a mile of this. It is actually pretty amazing, I say. If you would see the freaking NY subway, those ULTra cars will be so clean. I am very surprised how well the D.C. Metro sustains so well.

[goldenconnectionTV]

It almost has a face to it

[fsman94]

that would be so sick

[MLeyden91]

That is a great idea!

How long will it take for the good old British public to trash it?

[TheMusicCloud]

That will be great for the 2012 London Olympics.

[d5onald2]

Labanex, I'm with u, this is a very nice item, ever city needs one. airport to down town

[sclavos]

Gee,

it looks like the box in the fridge in that we store tha eggs

cool design, so to say

[sclavos]

and FINALLY

no more accidents caused by bl0wj0bs while driving

Goo, do I need a flight ticket to use it or can we use it just for phun ?

[strassenbahntk]

As long as this is used for transporting people from and to stinking parking lots where stinking cars arrive and depart, I can't see the progress and use for the mankind. Why not connecting the terminals with a light rail then stopping at an airport rail station before proceeding to the city? No need to in bringing innovative technologies to people who still use stinking and noisy fossil-fuel cars. These folks should merely be forced to walk around on their own feet!

[i99xx]

reminds me on half life 2 ;)

[CardiffCentral]

I was thinking the same thing MotherJennie, London isn't Japan, of even most of Europe for that matter. Everything is so filthy here. Before long these pods will have the same putrid 'stink' thats found in trains throughout the UK.

[MotherJennie]

In three months' time the "pods" will all be full of fag ends, crisp packets, discarded ice creams and pools of urine, and the passengers will be ordered about by rude, bossy staff -- as predominate at T5 already

[labanex]

Awesome video. I love the look, feel, I just can't wait to see this in the U.S.

[fermmm]

this is alredy invented idiots!!!

[TheDeadlyAvenger]

Whoever did the animation is 'Such' a genius!

;)

[RyanAtlantic]

I like this new ULTra system as well. Quite smart and sleek attractive pods! I like Heathrow airport itself, by the way. It's got quite alot there. Mainline and tube stations at each terminal. Thats handy isn't it? Can't wait until this ULTra opens in autumn this year i think it is. I've made a 3D model of it on Google SketchUp 7. Using the help of the aerial view of Heathrow's terminal 5 in Google Earth

[planeboy737]

I cannot wait for this to start in commercial service. I have already seen them being tested. Cannot wait. LHR will be transformed

[LiiV3LoNDoNLiiF3]

Wow those cute pods look great!

[welll0]

im working on these now and there amazing so cute and dinky! Cant wait to see them up and running the the airport!!

[reazrj]

cool , what do u do?

[bagelboi66]

Cool it's like Logan's Run.

[kenvelloteam]

the future !!!

[MCswizzy]

I seriously dont quite get how this is going to make me travel more at the world's crappiest airport!!! I mean a new gadget....wow??

[gourmetlunch]

MCswizzy, it's not supposed to make you travel there more. It's supposed to make it easier to get around. They're not a tourist attraction, they're for efficiency.

[PJ23490]

cool, are they private or public?

[eggaweb]

There is something of a boom in the air for transport. There are dozens of different ideas using similar principals. Some examples I have looked at to date are SkyTran (U.S.), CyberTran (U.S.), PRT 2000, SkyWeb Express, AusTran, Mist-er (Poland) etc. Many look promising. For example, the Polish attempt (Mist-er) has been approved for construction. It will be the first urban PRT to be installed.

[Calculon01]

I find it funny how they like to plug these things like they are brand new and cutting edge...when the truth is, this stuff isnt anything new, it has been around for decades.

I know for one theyve had these at WVU since the 70s

[skybum]

Although the WVU system is *called* a PRT (and was initially intentended to be an actual PRT), it doesn't actually work like one. It uses much larger vehicle, which you share with strangers, who you have to wait upon to show up. And sometimes it runs in line-haul mode, stopping like a bus at intermediate stations. True PRT never involves waiting, riding with strangers, or intermediate stops. This is indeed the first commercial application for it.

[Calculon01]

Thanks for the reply, this is really informative, I didn't know those things. Those are pretty interesting points. I still think the idea is amazing, and thrilled that it's finally progressing from concept to reality. even if the wvu system was true PRT, it sure looks pretty trashy.

[Piscivorus]

Everything is new to each generation.

[Piscivorus]

Why weren't PRTs constructed back in the mid to late 1900s as the primary forms of public transportation in all major cities and towns? They had the technology- electric generators, electric motors and railroads. I wish they had.

[SeaScrabbler]

High-speed small-scale distributed computing power was the sticking point until quite recently. Now the bottleneck is entirely political. Because the oil companies realize that if this gets around, their best revenue stream is GONE unless they OWN it completely.

[ahoog69]

Part of it also had to do with the software required to effectively and safely operate the system. A fully realized PRT system - a large grid with many miles of guideway and hundreds of pods - needs foolproof software to send pods where needed and maximize efficiency.

[Piscivorus]

I don't buy that nonsense- no offense to you. For decades now, federal, state and local transportation authorities have known about the simplicity and practicality of PRTs but, they've been absolutely determined not to compete with the oil driven private transportation economy. They've been stonewalling and sabotaging ever effort to create a workable PRT system. That is why, when you try to use public transportation, you'll quickly discover that the people who run them obviously never use them.

[CyrusGuitar]

love that organ sound :D I heard that heathrow will take 100million passengers per year now with the new terminal, thats pretty crazy.

[iopy95]

@CyrusGuitar no heathrow is limited to around 70 million passengers per year, maybe with an extra runway it could reach 100 million.

[bill2893]

i can't stand aeroplanes

they're unsafe, un ecofriedly, and security is such a kerfuffle

but I do like airports

especially terminal5

it was on channel5 last night and they were showing the immensely complicated and amazing baggage handling machine, and the pod prt things and all that else

it seems to me that much more thought is going into the airports than the aeroplanes themselves

[plane717]

Are u scared of flying? THEY ARE ONE OF THE SAFEST WAY'S TO TRAVEL. THEY POLLUTE MUCH LESS THAN OTHER MODES OF TRANSPORT. AND SECURITY IS THERE FOR A RESON! WOULD U LIKE TO BE BLOWN UP?

[granatapfel83]

what makes you think that flying causes less pollution than other forms of transportation. at least concerning CO2 (although it's not really pollution) that's absolute nonsense.

[airbuscrazy]

I've recently been through Heathrow, and we'd gotten lost and ran through T5. They actualy have several hundred feet of the track set up. I also saw one of the little pods. I thougt it was just a transport system for the workers going between T5 and the ground work. It looks awesome though.

[plane717]

Hope u had a nice time

[snuffyduffy]

looks like a toaster

[bred2k6]

How fast will these things go?

[esbielab]

25 mph without stopping. Cars driving around cities generally go about 12 mph, what with stopping at stoplights and traffic.

[sheeplvl1]

@esbielab Does it has the potential to move faster? Cuz I was hopping for it be a replacement system for subways.

[AdelphoiMusic]

Music was created by Adelphoi Music and the video animation by Venture Three.

[whiskboy]

Well done LHR, for too long you have been tired and outdated, im looking forward to seeing a new airport, one that i can be proud to collect business associates from, BKK is a great new airport, but will not rival LHR. Im looking forward to 2012, we will have a country we can be proud of again

[granatapfel83]

So the highest criteria if you are proud of your country or not is the airport? man, can't you think of something else, it's sad somehow.

[uPostiView]

This is very exciting! There's been opposition to PRT from the auto, rail, and oil industries, as well as pessimistic naysayers and negative skeptics. But when millions of people see that it works, perhaps it will finally get the corporate and public investment it needs to transform the face of our cities.

[trisk77]

Automating people movements is just such a hard concept for the masses...Automation in industry has been used since the early 1900's and technology is being updated monthly in this respect.The media and politicians in most countries including my own (Australia) continue to bicker over transport funding, public/private ownership, state fedral funding...I have recently e-mailed Australian state and federal transport departments to let them know about this 'trial' in the UK. Hopefully gets through

[PRTguru]

I like not only the interesting CGI simulation of a PRT ride, but also the animation at the end, which illustrates the planned expansion of the system. That sort of makes up for the fact that the simulation itself showed only two possible destinations for the PRT pod: Parking and Terminal 5. Taking a pod from parking to the terminal and back is certainly cool enough for now. But someday soon, the ability to serve multiple origins and destinations will show the system's real strength.

[marshallhall]

Haha....They open up their promotion with a lie. Heathrow is not the busiest airport in the world.....that distinction would go to Atlanta by a very large number of passengers.

[intelevision]

It says international Airport. As in, one that sevices more than just one country.

[marshallhall]

Atlanta has 741 international flights every week serveing 80 international airports. I believe that would fit the definition of "international airport."

[intelevision]

My bad. I think you'll find though that Heathrow has a greater number of international passengers anually. So if one was to exclude domestic terminals from the definition of "international airport", Heathrow is the busiest.

Indeed, counting only international traffic, Atlana doesn't even make the top 30 busiest international airports. In 2005 Atlanta served 6,739,452 international passengers, compared to Heathrow's 60,964,323.

[747K]

Very very very cool to see that!!!!!!!!!

[shadowguy032]

Perfect, exactly what the worlds cities need.