Taxi 2000 Corporation's"Risk Factors"
Taxi 2000 Document Reveals Safety Concerns Can Make PRT Systems "Unworkable".
This "Risk Factors" document, prepared for investors was filed by Taxi 2000 with Commerce Department of Minnesota is in the court records of "Taxi 2000 Corporation vs J. Edward Anderson lawsuit. The following are excerpts that show that Taxi 2000 itself believes that PRT is a very risky investment.
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"Federal and State safety regulation of automated transit systems can make PRT systems unworkable.
Since there are no examples of our technology
currently in operation, we cannot predict what sort of state or federal government
safety regulation might apply. At this juncture, the Federal Transit Administration
- which would exercise whatever regulation might apply at this level - has
left the matter up to the states. Management believes the states will look
foremost to the work of a committee of the American Society of Civil Engineers,
which has developed a set of safety standards for "Automated People Movers"
(APM's). We have been following that work and think at this point it will
pose only one problem: eg., "brick wall stopping" requirements for
the control system (borrowed from railroad signaling practice). The requirement
is that if one vehicle stops instantaneously, the next vehicle must be able
to stop before hitting the stopped one. That requirement would inhibit the
sort of minimum vehicle headway used in our design, but it would not affect
operation of the first, lower density systems. In the context of PRT, "headway"
means the nose-to- nose time spacing between two sequential vehicles. Setting
a minimum allowable headway determines the maximum carrying capacity of the
guideway. We will work to have the headway requirement amended, since we believe
it is inappropriate to PRT technology, but there is no guarantee we will be
successful in that regard."
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The Taxi 2000 "Risk Factors"document is also critical of the ULTra PRT system.
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"This technology [Ultra] is different in many respects from the Taxi 2000 technology and has some distinct disadvantages. It uses a larger and heavier guideway that we believe will be more obtrusive and more expensive. It uses larger cars that we believe will be more expensive. Because it uses rotary propulsion and braking, it cannot operate in ice and snow conditions and cannot run at the close headways planned for the Taxi 2000 system. Because it uses battery power, it is speed limited. At this point it lacks a complete control system, as well as other vital features of a commercial product."
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