Dallas DFW Airport Airtrans APM in 1998

Opening in 1974 the DFW Airtrans APM was probably the largest and most extensive airport transport system to have been built anywhere globally.

Whereas most airport people-movers usually just shuttle to and fro between two stations (and possibly calling at an intermediate station or two) this one was different as it was 15 miles (24km) in length and featured over 30 stations.

So it was more like a transit system for a small town(!) providing a variety of services serving different stations and featuring one, two and three car formations.

The fleet consisted of 68 cabin-sized vehicles which seated 16 passengers and offered standing room for a further 24 passengers. The system had an overall capacity rated at 9,000 people/hr. The top speed was just 17mph (27km/h).

Although there were some initial teething problems it eventually became very reliable. During its 31 years of operation there were many technical upgrades, some of which took advantage of advancing technology, eg: circuit boards were replaced with microchips and the original eight-track cartridge system which was used for the passenger announcements was later updated to a compact cassette system and still later to a digital voice synthesizer.

Although very successful it suffered from a few shortcomings and these, combined with changes in how the airport operated (the rise of the 'spoke and hub' system meant that an increasing number of passengers changed flights here) caused its eventual demise.

Its closure was partly because services operated as a one-way loop which coupled with the somewhat sedate top speed meant that some journeys took much longer in one direction than the other direction (possibly as much as 30+ minutes), resulting in transfer times being too long for passengers on multi-stage journeys where they also needed to change terminals when changing flights here.

In 2003 the airport staff and 'non-secure' passenger services were replaced by contracted-out motor bus services - airports were never known for their environmental credentials so its very unlikely that anyone even considered the extra air pollution from the motor bus exhaust fumes.

The APM closed in 2005, replaced by an airside (ie: 'secure') people-mover dedicated to speeding passengers between terminals known as the 'Skylink' and which (like the former APM) is electrically operated.

--------------------------------------
Additional Information:
Despite not serving the car parks, hotels, etc., Skylink is now the largest airport people-mover system anywhere globally. Its 64-vehicle fleet serves 10 stations on 5 miles (8km) of two-way elevated guideways. Services run every two minutes and travel at speeds up to 37mph (60km/h) with an average passenger ride time of just 5 to 8 minutes. (Skylink is not seen in this video).

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• DFW
• Airtrans
• APM
• airport
• transit
• people
• mover
• AGT
• PRT
• shuttle
• train
• cabin
• transport
• skyride
• skylink

[crichey1000]

Was this video taken 1998?

[joshrules1414]

my dad took me on it when i was little i sadly dont remmember it . its kind sad to see the few tracks and staitons just sitin there gathering dust.also thanks for posting this now i kno wat it looked like to ride it other than my dad telling me and seeing those sad leftover tracks

[lobstertexas]

Also, if you lifted up the bench pillow on the forward right side, there was a wired handheld control box you could pick up, and it had a speed knob , door switch, and digital speedometer on it.. the announcement voice was provided by Texas Instruments, as it's the same "guy" you'd hear on their Speak N' Spell toy. Good times.

[lobstertexas]

Howdy.. incidentally, the original setup had five routes (red, yellow, orange, green, blue), where each extreme end's remote parking had its own loop that connected it just to the nearest one terminal (north end parking + Terminal 2W, and south end parking + Terminal 4E) .. then there were three in the middle.

:)

[DL1011]

Boy does this bring back childhood memories. Watching this video makes you wonder how we ever got along without Skylink...

[saxmanb777]

Although I like Skylink, I sort of wish they had just done a total reconstruct of this system. Perhaps run in two directions, and get faster cars to run around the airport. I miss parking at the employee lot and taking this to work. It's kinda sad to see some of the old stations and track just collecting dust now.

[Xnodis]

I use to love riding thoughs when i was little.....

[DFWdeno]

i remember those days :)

[jetbluedad]

thank you so so so so much man you dont know how many memories this brings back i love this video for the memories so dont ever take it off

[NeoDerGrose]

Realy cool system but I don't understand why airports are always afraid of using rails. Why did they use this, sorry, ugly concrete guideways?

Is there any chance the new Skylink will be extended to the old size of this system? I'm allways sad to hear of trainsystems being replaced by busses even if they are ugly like this one. ;)