PRT-Centered Green Community

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The Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) system is not a brand new concept. One of a few cases in United States is the one in Morgantown, West Virginia serving West Virginia University students on campus. Another one is in Masdar City in Abu Dhabi as a showcase of car-free city. There are also several cases serving in Europe.

This idea is similar to the city showcase of Masdar City, a concept of green community showcase centered of PRT system.

A general introduction of personal rapid transit system: A PRT concept has been brought up as an alternative solution to regional or short transportation in cities. It's aiming at replacing cars with advantages such as lower overall cost, lower or zero pollution, shorter waiting and commuting time, better comfort and larger individual space. A typical PRT system has a fixed trail running across the city with several stations that are connected to the main activity areas in the walking distance. Each station connects to the main track by the branch ramp. The ideal power for the PRT is from renewable energy resources and converted to the vehicle by magnetic induction. A typical PRT vehicle is in a small size that could contain 2 to 4 people with some extra space for luggage. The frequency of each vehicle is ideally less than 1 minute and coming to the station upon demand by the passenger. The speed is maintained 30 to 40 miles per hour for the safety concern. The vehicle will travel unstopped to the destination in a short time. All the on-track vehicle and idle vehicle are managed by a central controlling system to avoid delay, collision, unexpected cutting-in and so on. All the local residents and visitors are expecting to use PRT to deal with all the local travelling.

For the concept of PRT-centered green community, as shown in the picture, it could be considered that the city design would based on the route of PRT system. That is to say, a secondary US city is picked, taking Greenville, South Carolina as an example, to firstly build in a PRT system. And then, along the trail, residential area, living supply area, business center, entertainment park and more functional area are built within reasonable spacing, as shown in the picture. A huge parking lot would be built adjunct to the community boundary where cars for driving in or out are parking. The parking lot could also be built in the renewable energy generation station for the PRT system and the main station. With eliminating the road for cars, the community could have a more sophisticated cycling route design to encourage people to have healthy way to move around. The feature of the green community are expected to be zero emission, low carbon footprint, quiet environment, safe and comfortable traveling time, healthy and sustainable living style.

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  • ABOUT THE ENTRANT

  • Name:
    Peng Cao
  • Type of entry:
    team
    Team members:
    Peng Cao
    Professor Joachim Taiber
  • Profession:
    Student
  • Peng's hobbies and activities:
    Car design
  • Peng is inspired by:
    PRT and future sustainable city
  • Software used for this entry:
    Windows Paint
  • Patent status:
    none