ULTra
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
ULTra ("Urban Light Transport") is a personal rapid transit system from Advanced Transport Systems Ltd in Cardiff, Wales. The system was conceived by Martin Lowson and his design team, and has had £10 million and 100 man-years put into the project. As of December, 2006, there are no commercial installations of ULTra; a pilot project is under construction at London's Heathrow Airport[1], and is scheduled to open to the public in 2008.
The ULTra system uses largely off-the-shelf technologies, such as rubber tyres running on an open guideway, in order to reduce fabrication costs. This approach has resulted in a system that ATS believes to be more economical than a design requiring custom technology.
The company reports that the total cost of the system (vehicle, infrastructure and control systems) is between £3 million and £5 million per km of track.
The company also claims that their design works best as a system with a 5 mile radius in a densely populated area and designers say that the technology can handle cities with populations of less than 1 million — for larger cities, it could be used as a network link to larger mass transit systems; suitability for larger applications remains untested.
Advanced Transport Systems Ltd has twice been awarded funding from the UK National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA)[2]. Much of the original research on ULTra was done by the Aerospace Engineering department at the University of Bristol during the 1990s.
[edit] Vehicles
The electric-powered vehicles have four seats, can carry 500 kg payload, and are designed to travel at 40 km/h (25 mph) at grades up to 20%, although the company suggests limiting operating routes to 10%. It is powered by a battery pack providing an average 2 kW of power and adding 8% to the gross weight of the vehicle. Other specifications include a 5 m turning radius, an energy requirement of 0.55 MJ/passenger-km, and running noise levels of 35 dBA at 21.6 km/h and a distance of 10 m. The vehicles can accommodate wheelchairs, shopping trolleys and other luggage in addition to the passengers.
[edit] Test track
The 1 km ULTra test track was launched in January 2002. The $4 million funding for the test track came from various sources in the UK government. One electric vehicle was demonstrated running at speeds of less than 25 mph. Accurate stopping was demonstrated and the vehicle ascended and descended a steep grade. A single, rudimentary ground level station was shown.
Most of the test track guideway is at ground level. It is stated that in a commercial application, 90% or more of the guideway might have to be elevated. This elevated guideway is about 1.5 m wide.
According to an ATS study of a hypothetical city-based installation, consisting of 19.8 km of guideway (89% of it elevated), the total cost of ULTra track and associated civil engineering works is estimated to be £2.9M/km ($8.7M/mi ). Per-station costs were estimated to be £0.48M ($0.89M). Vehicle costs were not considered in this study[3].
[edit] References
- ^ "BAA signs agreement to develop innovative transport system" BAA plc Press Release - 20 October 2005
- ^ "Martin Lowson, Advanced Transport Systems Ltd awardee profile" NESTA milestones
- ^ A.D. Kerr, P.A. James (Ove Arup and Partners), C.V. Cook, A.P. Craig (ATS Ltd.), Infrastructure Cost Comparisons for PRT and APM, ASCE 10th International Conference on Automated People Movers, May, 2005.
