PRT (Personal Rapid Transit) is a revolutionary way to solve urban transportation problems. PRT combines the advantages of the car with those of transit. PRT thereby offers the fastest, most comfortable and most environmentally friendly travel mode in the city. Read more about how PRT works.
The Beamways PRT system has its focus on low investment requirement, high capacity and minimal energy consumption. These properties will be very important in the emerging PRT market. Beamways AB was formed in January 2008 and is located in Linköping, Sweden.
During the latest years two PRT systems have been sold, and RFQs for two more projects are being prepared. This shows that the PRT market is now opening after a long pause since the first system was installed in Morgantown, Virginia in the seventies. Thanks to the incredible improvements within the computer and electronics fields we have seen in the last decades PRT today has great possibilities of succeding on a large scale.
A portable PRT station with a real Vectus cabin on the side is on display at the museum of technology in Stockholm during June 9-21, 2009. Subsequently the display will be shown to all the ministers of transportation and the ministers of environment of the 27 EU countries at a summit meeting in Åre, Sweden, and similarly during the fall at several of these top level meetings throughout Sweden.
The exhibition consists of a "station" in three parts: The station proper with automatic glass doors towards the entrance and towards the cabin. An information area with three flat screens and some bar style tables, and a film room with three projectors, currently showing a film with Vectus track layed out in Åre, from the perspecitve of the passenger.
The exhibition was opened by the Swedish minister of transportation last monday, June 8. Her speech was very positive and optimistic and it seems that the government is very much on track towards supporting a pilot track in Sweden.
The exhibition was funded by the Swedish railroad administration (Banverket). The director general of Banverket also gave a speech at the opening ceremony and pointed out that now that PRT is sorted in as a railroad technology (which is a policy decision in Sweden) Banverket has an obligation to support this new technology.
During the years 2010 and 2011 the exhibition will be available to cities in the KOMPASS group for display in their respective cities. KOMPASS was extended by a further three cities during the last weeks, including Trollhättan (where the Saab cars are built) and two in the Stockholm area.
Beamways is represented by a descriptive text on one of the exhibition posters. All in all the commercial aspect is very played down. Although the Vectus cabin is there, and all films show Vectus vehicles in Uppsala and animated, their logo is totally absent.
Museum home page, featuring an image of the displayed cabin:
http://www.tekniskamuseet.se/templates/StartPage.aspx?id=30
IST's page:
http://podcar.org/podcar/Kalendarium/8junibanverkstation.htm
The first iteration of the Beamways cabin design is finished. An excerpt of the results can be viewed here!
Frost & Sullivan have released a report on PRT which indicates a very strong market development resulting in a market of €30 billion per year by 2020. While the full report is available at a cost only, a summary has been released and is available here.
Lawrence Fabian has written a piece on Podcars for Planning, the magazine of American Planning Association. The article features a Podcar network sketch for Ithaca, NY drawn with BeamEd.
The article is not available online for non-subscribers anymore.
Bengt Gustafsson from Beamways held a "tech talk" at Google headquarters in Mountain View, Californa on November 20. The entire talk can be viewed on YouTube.
The new BeamEd 1.2 version is available for download here.
This release offers a number of small improvements, many related to the user interface.
SIKA, the Swedish transportation analysis institute, has published two new reports (summary in English) which show that PRT is a viable solution for part of the transportation problems in Stockholm and the surrounding area "mälardalen" which has a total population of 3 million.
The properties they wish for in this PRT system closely resembles those of the Beamways system. Most notably the network is designed with only double direction lines.
The reports have given a certain echo in Swedish media:
SVD (One of the largest and most influential papers in Sweden)
P1 (Swedish national radio)
At last the real Beamways web site is ready to be launched. We hope that you find a lot of interesting stuff already. Of course we will update the site with new information now and again.
If you find something that is amiss on the site please send your remarks to webmaster@beamways.com
The city of Santa Cruz, California is a university city on the pacific coast. A long standing problem has been for all the students to get to and from the campus as the road is narrow and winding. There is also a parking problem on the campus. For quite a while the idea of solving this using a PRT system has been pondered upon. According to the Podcar City newsletter the City Council has now decided to go forward with creating a RFQ for a PRT system.
Come and meet Beamways representatives on the Podcar city conference on the 13-15 of september in Ithaca, New York. Here most of the PRT expertise from all over the world is gathered to exchange knowledge and experiences. Of course Beamways is there!
Registration and information here!