Fundamentals of Personal Rapid Transit. Based on a Program of Research, 1968 - 1976, at The Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo, California.

Octavo, tan boards (hardcover), xviii, 332 pp. Very Good, with darkening to covers. From Foreword: This book summarizes the work on Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) carried out at The Aerospace Corporation from 1968 to 1976. It is the intent of the authors that the book be useful to experts and students of transportation and engineering, but in addition we have tried to make it readable by the interested layman. Our emphasis has been in describing concepts rather than engineering details because we believe that it is the concepts that are important, whereas there may be several alternative engineering implementations of approximately equal merit. The use of mathematics is also minimized and where equations do occur, they can be bypassed without too much loss of meaning. As a not-for-profit company, The Aerospace Corporation conducts a program of company sponsored research to apply its talents to solving technical problems of public importance. In 1968 one of my duties as a Vice President of the Company was to recommend such a program of research to the management and Board of Trustees for their approval. It appeared to me that the capabilities of the company could be brought to bear effectively on problems of transportation, and no area of transportation was more critical than urban transportation. There was a tremendous cost in wasted time as people drove to work through congested traffic, and again as they returned home. The automobile was responsible for a disturbing trend in land use, especially in Central Business Districts where up to 70% of the land area was being used for streets, freeways, access lanes, parking lots, and sidewalks. Oil shortages were already apparent and it was clear that alternate sources of energy would soon be needed. In auto-oriented cities, and especially in the Los Angeles area, where The Aerospace Corporation is located, automotive air pollution was becoming a serious problem. Moreover, widespread deployment of existing transit modes was not the answer because they did not have the features to attract people out of their automobiles; door-to-door trip times would be substantially longer and comfort and privacy would be sacrificed. Transit models also were plagued either by high capital costs or high operating costs. Transportation, Urban Development, City Planning, Personal Transport bslic.…