The ASCE APM and Automated Transit System Conference was held in Toronto last month and was very successful. There were about eleven ATN-focused presentations including the presentation of the ATRA Award for Outstanding Contributions to Advanced Transit to Dr Jerry B. Schneider.

Best regards,

Peter Muller, P.E., ATRA President

ATRA Award For Outstanding Contributions To Advanced Transit

At the ASCE Automated People Mover and Automated Transit System Conference in Toronto on April 20, 2016, Dr. Ingmar Andreasson, ATRA VP, presented the above award to Dr. Jerry B. Schneider for creating the world's leading source of information on innovative transit technologies, thereby attracting interest in transit solutions for livable cities and a better world.

His website "Innovative Transportation Technologies" describes all kinds of PRT/GRT/ATN/DualMode systems together with relevant papers, reports and presentations. It attracts more than 16,000 visits each day, has three times been ranked among the top 50 of all websites, and now contains over 650 megabytes in over 2 700 files.

Imagine if instead of wasting hours in traffic, you could  one day fly above it for a price only slightly higher than a subway ride. That's the idea behind  SkyTran, a self-driving monorail designed to hover 20 feet above roads and travel up to 155 mph. The system would turn a two-hour car commute into a 10-minute trip, SkyTran CEO Jerry Sanders tells Tech Insider. 

The Dutch company which transport operator SMRT joined hands with two weeks ago to provide automated shuttle services may be in financial difficulty. Checks by The Straits Times revealed that 2getthere and its driverless freight-moving unit, Frog, had applied for insolvency in April 2007. The company, led by Mr Carel van Helsdingen, has since been looking for financial backers. Read More...

Driverless "pods" ferrying passengers within private estates, university campuses and business parks could arrive in a big way, with a new joint venture announced yesterday. Local transport operator SMRT and Netherlands-based 2getthere have formed 2getthere Asia - an outfit to bring such automated vehicle systems into Singapore and the Asia-Pacific region. The joint venture is 51 per cent owned by SMRT and 49 per cent by 2getthere. Read More...

Abhishek Behl

The much-hyped pod taxi project, which has been in the pipeline for almost a decade, is taking concrete shape with the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) seeking land from Haryana to set up the personal rapid transport system.

Recently, the highways authority had invited bids for setting up the pod taxi project on a design, build, finance, operate and transfer basis (DBFOT).

The project was envisaged by the erstwhile Bhupinder Singh Hooda government and is yet to be implemented. Read More...

SINGAPORE - Before the year is up, Singaporeans could be hopping on these driverless pod vehicles to get to school and work. The pods run on electricity, and are able to travel autonomously on smaller roads, such as those within a gated community or school campus. Read More...

Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport is soliciting bids for a pod car transit system that would be the first of its kind at a U.S. airport and the sixth such system in the world, according to experts. The proposed Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) system - if it gets built - would carry passengers between GSP's economy parking lot and the airport terminal building. Passengers would ride in driverless, computer-controlled pod cars along a dedicated guideway that would be nearly 14 feet high in places. Read More...

In an Indian city that  hasn't had a functioning government in 40 years (these days, it's run mostly by corporations), federal oversight from New Delhi is finally relieving some of the burden - with driverless taxi pods. In 2001, Gurgaon, India had 173,000 people. Today, it's nearing one million. All those extra people have made traveling on roadways incredibly difficult, to the point where the government sees leaving the roads altogether as one of the only immediate solutions. That's where the  Metrino personal rapid transit (PRT) pods come in. Read More...

The Union Government has given nod for setting up India's first personal rapid transit (PRT) network for Gurgaon, Haryana.  As per the reports, the groundwork to roll the country's first Metrino Pod project is being laid by the National Highways Authority of India. The final approval of the project by the government was recently announced by Public Works (Building and Roads) Minister, Rao Narbir Singh.  Read More...

NHAI starts work on first phase of pod transport

BY Rao Jaswant Singh

Gurgaon: Personal Rapid Transit (PRT), the proposed pod taxi service between Sirhaul and Rajiv Chowk in Gurgaon, could soon become a reality, after NHAI presented a feasibility report of the project and invited expressions of interest (EOI) from international agencies, including the favourite Metrino of Poland, to start work on it. Read More...