NORTH CAROLINA TRIANGULATION

A very potent combination of forces has emerged in the growth center of North Carolina where managers of a public-interest commercial district pride themselves in state-of-the-art development and land management.

Research Triangle Park (RTP) is in the center of the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel metroplex not far from the area’s major airport (RDU). This triangular region grew impressively in the second half of the 20^th century and gained a reputation as an island of progress and enlightenment in a sea of rural poverty and backwardness.

= courtesy of the Durham Visitor & Convention Bureau

Raleigh is the state capital and home to North Carolina State University, so it historically has been an important center. However, in terms of urban agglomeration, Raleigh was not that large. In 1950 the whole region’s population was under 400,000. RTP was established in the 1950s to  inspire big ideas. It called out to dreamers, believers, planners and creators. In fact, it has given its name to the area, now widely known as the Research Triangle. By 1970 the population was 541,000. In 1990 it had swollen to 863,000.

Growth continued as it hit a million around the beginning of the 21^st century. Recently hit Two Million! Few fear that growth prospects will turn sour. Except for national reactions to North Carolina’s objections to mandates for gender-free bathrooms, the outlook for continued growth is widespread. Of course, development brings traffic.

Congestion is a growing challenge to the Triangle’s future. There is no substantial transit infrastructure. Big decisions need to be made soon as highways and arterials become overloaded.

 A Breath of Fresh Mobility Thinking

There are those at RTP and NCSU and in the halls of power of Raleigh willing to take a new look at these needs. This is largely the result of  the thoughtful designs and arguments espoused by NCSU-based EcoPRT -- a local start-up getting lots of attention. RTP wants to become a center of modern transit automation, a place where PRT is not a scary word. 

RTP has an opportunity to consider
transit through buildings (above)
as opposed to on-street tradition.

This is coming into being as RTP offers room for a large on-site NCSU facility that will include and maybe showcase an EcoPRT presence. Will they get interest and support from other progressive voices for modern urban mobility from across the whole country and around the world?

Today RTP is home to many large companies and about 25,000 employees. Its slogan is inspiring bold ideas. It encourages and supports dreamers, believers, planners and creators. It is run by a “Foundation” with an endowment -- income-producing properties that provide a significant level of independence. A 2011 master plan includes a LRT line connecting to three stations of a proposed but stalled regional rail line.

This seems to be a major alignment of forces for a mobility breakthrough in 2017. Look out Silicon Valley!

HUDSON VALLEY VISION

Sorry, Governor Cuomo, leader of the Empire State: your planners and policy-makers lack vision. A new century is upon us, and it does not help to dwell in 20^th century thinking.

The Hudson Valley is a centrally located, hilly, treed region with abundant fresh water that runs south with a mighty flow. Further north is Montreal, but the Hudson River is only large there. In the one hundred miles from Albany to NYC, the Hudson in most places seems more like a linear lake than a wide river.

In theory, this region could be developed into a 21^st century urban corridor. It could absorb millions of new residents with plenty of land left over for green space. The current population of the seven counties (excluding suburban Westchester and metro Albany) is about 1.5 million. Albany County has 0.3m -- all dwarfed by the 15-25 million (depending on who draws the border) who make up Greater NYC.

Hudson Valley Vision:  Modern transit using existing cross-river bridges
(black lines) linking APM networks (blue) on both sides.

No one in a position of power is proposing that several million residents could be added to the Hudson Valley with vibrant new jobs serving the entire Northeast of the US and the corridor west to the Great Lakes. Quite the opposite, strong opposition from citizens who love green hills and large yards might quickly arise. Never mind the frequent complaints that jobs are few here. Never mind the ugly scars of abandoned factories and parking lots and semi-abandoned centers of small cities and towns.

Most official thinking and citizen reactions are mired in 20^th century thinking. They interpret plans for large-scale growth to mean more deforested hills and vales with more highways and parking lots to accommodate auto-dependent living.

There are currently only six major bridges that cross the Hudson between Albany and NYC. Each one was expensive. The largest is the southernmost Tappan Zee, which is being replaced for several billion dollars. Fixed on heavy rail, planners and engineers concluded that adding transit would be too expensive and attract modest ridership. Given their 20^th century thinking, they were right.

But it is the 21^st  century! Modern automated transit systems with off-line stations have much smaller dimensions and could be appended to highway bridges. Flexibly and sensitively laid out networks -- not lines -- could connect existing (and future) activities centers, creating a cross-river backbone for non-auto circulation. Dual-mode operation could extend this service into an pervasive, dominant mode of future travel

Transit in today’s Hudson Valley plays a minor role in everyday mobility. With visionary planning, modern could dominate and accommodate sustainable, tree-preserving development. Recent trends away from auto-dependent suburban living to shared mobility could flourish.

It is time to envision dramatically superior and sustainable urban mobility options.

RETHINKING MODES

US DOT invested significant research and development resources into possible new modes of ground transport in the early 1970s. Out of its AGT programs came many airport APM applications, a few amusement rides and, in Europe, driverless metros. Also studied, with little result, were AHS - automated highway systems -- including ways to get electric power from road surfaces to motors in vehicles.

Congress opted for conventional roads and spiffed-up but still conventional mass transit.

USDOT research had little to show from work on dual mode concepts. The gist of DMT is that vehicles can be driven (manually back then) over streets, arterials and highways. When needed for longer trips, they enter into exclusive guideway networks to go faster and recharge batteries. In theory, a blend of car travel and mass transit results. This concept started Alden’s staRRcar in the 1960s. It morphed into the uni-modal (only on guideway) Morgantown PRT of the 1970s.

This Jpod layout would deliver service to stations. In DMT, vehicles
would exit and get to all points of the mall complex.

Many large companies -- including GM -- studied DMT with FHWA support.  They overlap into Automated Highway System (AHS) concepts that were also explored. It was grand conjectural thinking backed by big numbers with vast commercial implications.

DMT and AHS were two sides of the same hypothetical coin. Neither, however, hit pay dirt.

Where Are We Today?

Fast forward to 2016. Stunning technological advances are putting robocars in campus settings and on some streets. This should not be surprising. Automation and digitization are transforming all human activities -- emailing, web research, train and plane movements, shopping, community life, security response, to name but a few examples.

Satellites circling the globe keep a watch over what is happening on earth, almost in real-time.  All of life, it seems, is becoming digitized. Cars with eyes and brains help finding their own way without drivers. Robocars on streets -- maybe not busy arterials at first -- are around the corner.

The EU has run several fleets of robo-shuttles in tame European ways and plaza. The UK has its own robo-services. In the US they have been demoed in Greenville, Silicon Valley and recently DC. Robocars will become more common in progressive districts that value pedestrian-friendly, traffic-tamed streets. At first they will be slow and of limited range. The service options are many. Today no one can predict with certainty how robo-services will evolve.

Dual-Mode Concepts

What is predictable is that people will frequently want to send things or transport themselves more than a few miles. For longer travel, higher speeds are needed. Battery range becomes an issue. You need speed, and that draws more power from on-board batteries that need to be recharged.

\

A guideway allows both! Your robocar can check into a guideway portal. Your account activates and you purchase speed and recharge your batteries. DMT use could be that smooth..

Who is working on DMT concepts today? Trans.21 has identified only a handful:

                        BiModal Glideway of California’s Bay Area

                        EcoPRT of Raleigh, NC housed within NCSU now with NCDOT support

                        Innovate has Texan Big thinking but eludes public exposure

                        RUF of Denmark, dormant since 2012

                        SST is little more than the thinking of an Albuquerque NM retiree

                        2getthere of The Netherlands has market-ready products

                        Ultra of the UK, with prototype in operation, but back-shelved by BAA

That’s a pretty small and motley club -- ranging from individuals to experienced suppliers.

Today’s Policy Responses

How can cities, towns and counties examine DMT options as they rethink their modal policies to have a policy for oncoming robocars?  Today decisions-makers face immediate questions on when and how to regulate robocars on streets and other zoned spaces.

Is it better to enlarge the sidewalk for robocars,
or implant an elevated guideway?

Robocars can operate in parking lots and structures, on bike and jogging paths, on some sidewalks and in utility ways, in parks and on private property if owners are welcoming. 

These issues open other questions, many of them critical to public safety and security. Not the least of which is who is responsible for maintenance and management? The potemtial gains in clean mobility are great.

PRT’s CONUNDRUM

Why the business case for personal rapid transit is blocked.

Lawrence J. Fabian, Trans.21 and Stan Young, NREL

May 2016

Urban transport policy-makers have new street-based mobility options. The emergence of robo-cars, robo-cabs, robo-delivery vehicles, robo-vans and robo-buses is upon us. How real and safe and affordable they will be remains to be seen. The major economic appeal of such possibilities -- accompanied by ride-sharing and community-based mobility networks -- is that they use already existing streets.

The Morgantown PRT has served
West Virginia Universitysince the 1970s.

Driverless cars are bringing fresh air to discussions of envisioning and supplying urban mobility. They clash with PRT promoters who speak with bravado and hypothesis. They promise a sort of mobility paradise, often with references to far-off places like India, China and Sweden. Upon closer inspection, these are often little more than carrots for investors.

PRT promoters speak in the conjectural tones of “could” and “would”. Or “can” and “will”.   After 50 years of such conversations, we cannot truthfully state in the present tense: PRT satisfies urban transport needs. At best, we can point to West Virginia University, which is served by a USDOT demo from the 1970s and a few recent shuttles overseas.

The Project Case Dilemma

Then and today the conundrum of PRT is in the very business case that must be made. Only a large network brings out the potentially significant benefits of non-stop service scheduled in real time that is possible with off-line stations.

By Merriam-Webster, a conundrum[1] is a confusing or difficult problem that has only a conjectural answer. What blocks PRT interest is that a large commitment to extensive guideway and stations is necessary long before the benefits are felt. As common with large infrastructure projects, big bucks go out long before substantial payoff.

An early plan for Fleminsberg, Sweden had
about twenty stations.

Urban residents, elected officials and local technocrats know that most US cities abound in streets, alleys, utility rights-of-way, and local arterials, much of them hardly used. In countless residential blocks and old retail and industrial districts that predate Eisenhower’s Interstate Highway System which reoriented urban development around interchanges, there is excess street capacity.

Adjoining many stretches of multi-lane Interstate and other expressways are little-used local streets. They offer ample opportunities for local robo-services. In contrast to PRT’s conundrum, the scenario of robo-cars shaped for public good becomes compelling, especially where icy winters are not a factor. An entrepreneur can start without major investment in infrastructure. Expansion - perhaps with guideway for longer trips -- comes later if and when desirable.
  

Ordering Our Thinking

NHTSA in 2013 published an official classification of levels of vehicle level of automation. It is well used in technical transport discussions. Yet we lack a comparable classification of street environments within which specific robo-services are to operate. The service domain can be in private property or civic campuses. ITS and AUVSI engineers increasingly talk not just of vehicle-to-vehicle communications. They foresee two-way communications between vehicles and fixed infrastructure that is itself intelligent and interconnected, with data flowing to a control center somewhere creating “big data”.

Someday a national center in Omaha or in the “cloud” may super-monitor all street movements. That is a way far off in the future. For now, it is helpful to establish a policy-friendly categorization of the two-dimensional, geographic areas or domains over which specific robocar services will operate.

Managers of private campuses of a square mile or two, for example, have pretty full control over their own property. A fleet of robo-cars that go no faster than 15 or 25 mph will do just fine.  They don’t need to put them out on the busy highways. The fleet can remain on campus roads, paths and parking lots. This is Level 0 of robo-domains: limited and controlled, private property (including some governmental owners like ports and the military).

Enter the Smart Context

Remarkable progress is being made in sensing and visioning systems. Cutting-edge thinkers are developing visions of smart cities with electronic markers dotting the landscape to facilitate (or duplicate) vehicle tracking and controls.

Smart vehicles watch out for cars, kids and other obstacles on the running surfaces around them. Smart infrastructure can tell them a lot more. Local markers can communicate real-time network conditions upstream perhaps diverting vehicle to a better itineraries. Simple smart infrastructure can be confined to a parking complex, or serve fleets circulating within large university and medical complexes. More ambitious thinking takes on large-scale traffic management for entire metro regions.

USDOT’s SmartCity Challenge aims to bring these potentialities to a single demo city.

Two-Dimensional “Robocaricity” Projects

Local mobility companies can
operate at Levels 1 or 2, here
in cooperation with the transit agency.

The performance and safety of robocars in cities will increasingly depend on smart infrastructure. There is a significant scaling effect. How large and complex are the service domain?

Here are six categories of Robo-Service domains:

                Level 0   Secured, managed private or semi-private campuses

                Level 1   Supervised activity centers, probably mixed uses that rely in part on public streets

                Level 2   Urban districts with firm boundaries (physical or by policy) with residential and/or employment populations of, say, 5000 to 50,000

                Level 3   An entire city - central or suburban - but within the jurisdiction of a single legal entity or municipality, aka City Hall

                Level 4   A metropolitan area with populations of, say, 0.1-10 million

                Level 5   A very large metropolitan or inter-regional with significant long-distance trips (say, 10+ miles). In a few decades, policy makers may want to think about a sea-to-sea domain as the 6^th and international as the 7^th levels.

---

[1] The origin of this world seems to be mockery of intellectuals who mixed Latin into their 16^th century English.

PRT LITE

Mass ownership of cars surged after WW-II causing massive congestion and urban flight in the US. Eisenhower sealed the problematic deal in the 1950s in the deteriorating Interstate Highways that put down a continental network. It ripped apart cities. Transit use declined dramatically. Urban cores were almost abandoned. Some were.

In the 1960s the principles of PRT were understood, many seeing them as quite effective. Urban leaders baulked at the ugliness of widespread elevated guideways and stations. USDOT dabbled with R&D in the early 1970s, but put the option on ice for the 1980s and beyond. What was good for Detroit was judged good for the country. We become the Asphalt Nation that we are, now in a melt-down car world. 

The Morgantown PRT operated in hilly isolation. Transport engineers and urban planners ignored it.  They are still largely ignorant of it.

Three modest PRT shuttles opened in recent years outside the US. Despite fanfare and bravado from suppliers and fans, nothing has happened. Vectus and Ultra seem moribund. 2getthere - whose driverless vehicles are not locked into a guideway - has a brighter prospectus.

It’s the Elevated Spaghetti, Stupid!

PRT doesn’t make any sense without an extensive network. The more destinations served by it, the more attractive its non-stop service. Unfortunately the extent of the infrastructure becomes pervasively intrusive (and costly). 

Think no small plans!  The problem is that big PRT plans are scary. The inventor of Skytran recently said cities are ugly, so the ugliness of spaghetti-in-the-sky PRT isn’t a problem.  The proponent of TransitX is similarly oblivious to the issue. PRT promoters don’t really like to deal with it.

An urban mode needs to have extent
coverage to be effective.

Creating a network that puts tailored transit service portals into scores of urban nooks and crannies has appeal.  Eisenhower made it the post-war assumption that cars and other vehicles do it all. To be a viable urban citizen, you need a car.

In the multi-stations PRT world of the future, you will prefer to be within a quarter-mile from a PRT station.  Location, location, location!

But the guideways? Not down my street! Not in my neighborhood!

Robocars Rule!

Enter autonomous vehicles and the dozen labels already stuck on them -- automated, driverless, self-driving, i-cars, e-cars, etc. The onset of robocars is scary to many. Can they be safe? Will they solve or intensify congestion? Are they affordable?

The answers are:  yes, depends on planning, and yes.

Good links need good coordination with land management.

The even better news is that smart vehicles in smart districts can provide PRT-like service without guideways and stations. That massive fixed infrastructure is reduced to hundreds of devices, each smaller than a fist, no more intrusive that the thousands of security cameras now laced throughout our buildings. PRT devices will be embedded into curbs, sidewalk, utility poles, and buildings.

Vehicle-to-infrastructure communications will go both ways. Data from thousands of sources will come together to inform network operators. Each robocar will get guidance (control) enhanced by real-time routing informed by network traffic conditions. 

Multiple points - everywhere, almost - will have access to driverless, taxi-like services for trips rarely over five miles. 

It’s PRT without the spaghetti!

ENVISIONING ADVANCED TRANSIT

Some twenty professionals and enthusiasts at the Technix workshop organized by ATRA at the University of Maryland on January 9 engaged in a charrette for several hours divided into three teams, each assigned to think out to 2040 and modern mobility in three different settings. Beforehand ATRA president Peter Muller described elevated guideways as one of the basic advantages of PRT but they can also be a problem.  He added, “There is no silver bullet,”. Chair Alain Kornhauser spoke of the potential of ride- and road-sharing. Curiously none of the teams saw classic elevated PRT as a significant solution for the following three scenarios. 

Environmentalists, alarmed at the effects of the rise of carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere, are pushing harder for sustainable cities.

WHITE OAKS 

A MD Growth Zone in Megalopolis

Near I-95 just north of the chronically congested DC-Beltway, White Oaks may  more than double in size. Two BRT lines are in early  planning stages, unlikely to be quickly built nor effective. Uncertainty clouds investment. The Technix team recommended an Uber solution. (Curiously, no mention of R&D with guideway section to expand if and when justifiable was made.)

HISTORIC ANNAPOLIS

A dense, walkable district hugging MD's Capitol and US Naval Academy

Not much will change in terms of density and infrastructure, although freight issues demand improvement. Elevated guideway would meet strong opposition. The Technix team envisioned street-level PRT (“automated taxis”) and a gondola over water.  A circumferential PRT with car intercepts (parking) and transit connections might be possible outside the historic core.

Elevated transit can be part of the solution.
- courtesy of Ecolvia

DOWNTOWN DC: 

A 10 Block X 7 Block Growth Hub North of the Capitol

As a national and global district, significant densification seems likely, anchored by several metro stations and restricted in height. It has great potential to be a “trendy, spendy” zone with strong international dimensions. The Technix Team prioritized rehab of metro performance and capacity, and programs to tame and reduce vehicular traffic and enhance pedestrian and bike circulation. Bus enhancements also will help, and maybe in the future PRT networks can fill gaps.

January 9 within the DC Beltway

Something extraordinary is happening, and you have an opportunity to tap into it at the University of Maryland on Saturday, January 9, 2016. ATRA will have its annual technical information exchange (dubbed Technix) structured to engage you to Envision Advanced Transit (EAT). A modest registration covers breakfast, lunch and materials. The fellowship, learning and networking are free.

What is your concept of a mobility hub anchoring an urban neighborhood?

What do driverless cars mean to us? What are connected cars? What urban infrastructure do they need? Can they operate on streets and special guideways? When and where? What are the planning dimensions? The costs? Most importantly, how can we identify the benefits?

A new USDOT Smart City initiative is raising the intensity of discussions around such questions. Interest and investment have been stimulated by the upsurge in technology-enabled mobility -- Uber, Lyft, Bridj, Vulog, etc. Millions of dollars are pouring into such smart undertakings, overwhemling the tradition outlooks of transportation policy-makers. As former Pennsylvania DOT Director Biehler recently put it, "Ten years ago we could forecast travel demand out 20-25 years with some confidence. Today, we can't."

Trends are reversing. Never-ending suburban out-growth has slowed, and infill in older urban districts is on the rise. Young people are trending away from car ownership. The reality of Climate Change are bringing new pressures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions such as vehicles burning fossil fuels.

On January 9, Technix Teams will engage in solutions in a variety of specific urban settings. People with different backgrounds and outlooks with exchange civic and professional views. ATRA invites you to come EAT with them. Visit www.advancedtransit.org for more information and to register.