Dear {First Name}, please allow me to explain why your membership of ATRA is important. The focus of driverless technology is on road-based vehicles. Roads take up 30% to 70% of our city space, are unsafe and often congested. The promise of driverless road vehicles will do little to change these problems – probably for decades. ATRA’s focus is on driverless transit. Here we have the opportunity to provide far superior service to buses and trains for much less cost and with much higher ridership. Automated transit networks (ATN) can provide true urban mass transit attracting drivers from cars, boosting train ridership and reducing emissions and congestion. ATRA is the only association focused mostly on ATN.

ATRA was instrumental in recent changes to the Automated People Mover (APM) Standards. The Standards now define ATN as a subset of APM. This have given ATN a boost in credibility because people now understand it is a subset of an existing proven technology and not just an amusement ride. One change removed the “brick wall stop” criterion for ATN. This change could have a significant impact on the speed and capacity of next-generation ATN systems.

ATRA recently sponsored and participated in Podcar City in Atlanta. This conference was very successful in getting our message out and provided a platform for a number of key elected officials to express their strong support for ATN.

This newsletter is produced by ATRA. We hope you enjoy receiving it.

ATRA needs your membership to continue these and other activities. The APM Committee is starting the next round of revisions to the standards. See the story below for a description of the additional changes ATRA is seeking after conferring with ATN suppliers.

Podcar City will be in Lisbon next year and ATRA is sponsoring it and helping with the programming.

The newsletter will continue to be freely available anyone.

We believe these endeavors to be very valuable, but they take time and money. Please support us by joining ATRA or renewing your membership NOW.

As always, enjoy reading!

Best regards,

Peter Muller, ATRA President

a) Table 3-1 Risk Assessment. Basing mean time between hazardous events (MTBHE) on system operating hours is not equitable. Different systems have differing numbers of passengers, vehicles and stations. Some ATN systems under consideration have hundreds of stations, tens of thousands of vehicles and millions of daily passengers while some systems only have two stations and a few vehicles with hundreds of daily passengers. Furthermore, MTBHE requirements that are too strict may limit capacity, resulting in thousands more people being relegated to road transportation and made more likely to get killed. Exploration of these issues is proposed in hopes of developing improved criteria that increase overall transportation safety while maintaining high standards for ATN.

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skyTran, the US-based developer of an innovative Personal Rapid Transit solution, has chosen Ricardo to perform a rigorous safety assessment of its magnetic levitation technology.

The patented skyTran system envisages two-seater and four-seater pods operating on a network of elevated guideways. Using maglev propulsion, the pods travel along the track direct to the passenger’s chosen destination. As well as providing high-capacity, zero-emission transportation, the system uses a small fraction of the ground space required by a typical light rail scheme.

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Montgomery County is large and prosperous with a highly educated workforce. But that doesn’t mean we can throw money away.

The County Executive and members of the Council have approved plans to expand their Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system despite its failure to attract riders. The BRT, marketed as the Flash bus, is an expensive solution for a bygone time. Meantime, county leadership turns a blind eye to alternative transit options.

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Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport Tests takes a major step forward in the development of a landside automated transit network to reduce emissions and costs.

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Khattar said that Union Minister Nitin Gadkari always works on new technology and has scientific thinking. Recently he himself drove a car powered by hydrogen. To overcome the problem of petrol and diesel, he has been emphasizing on the use of ethanol. The initiative of a ropeway in the mountains is under process. Nowadays working on air taxis (pod taxis), the Chief Minister assured the Union Minister that the Central Government should plan for Pod Taxi and the Haryana Government is ready to fully cooperate with the Central Government. He said that Haryana wants to be the first state to run pod taxi service.

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