Will Heathrow project see personal rapid transit take off... at long last?

Participants at the LTT-sponsored ‘People Movers’ seminar last week debated the future of PRT now that the ULTra system at Heathrow Airport, Terminal Five, is officially open. Rik Thomas reports

Rik Thomas

23 September 2011

The Ultra PRT system at Heathrow Airport was formally launched on September 15

There are currently a grand total of three personal rapid transit (PRT) systems operational in the entire world, following the formal opening of a new system at Heathrow Airport last week, the best part of 50 years after the first such system opened for business in the small university town of Morgantown, West Virginia, in the USA. And yet, as participants at the People Movers seminar heard, the long-awaited ‘breakthrough’ of the PRT concept (the definition of which is a public...