The pods will carry the 500,000 passengers travelling between the Terminal 5 Business Car Park and the main terminal each year. Each temperature-controlled Heathrow pod has been designed for privacy and comfort and allows passengers to select their own direct destination.

There are no timetables as a central computer ensures that pods are distributed at each station according to passenger demand. When waiting for a passenger, the pods recharge themselves at battery points, so are always ready to go.

The Heathrow pods were designed and built in Britain by Ultra Global PRT. airrail NEWS speaks with Dr. John Hammersley, Bid Managerat Ultra, about the journey from design to operations and the future of personal rapid transit.

- Take me through the history of this dramatic invention
- PRT as a concept has been around for a long time, originally conceived in the fifties. In around 1995 Martin Lowson, President of Ultra, laid the foundation for and set out the design requirements for the current Ultra system. We then went through an extensive design and prototype manufacturing period, partly funded by the UK government and partly by private parties. In 2003 BAA undertook a study to look at their transport options for the airport and concluded that PRT was the only feasible solution. This led to a decision to run a pilot system from Business Parking to Terminal 5. Since then we have done extensive design, implementation and testing, and on 18th April 2011 we opened the system to the public. On 7th May the bus service was withdrawn from the Business Parking and the pods are now the only public transport option to get from there to the Terminal 5.

- How many passengers have used the pods already?
- Since the opening in April, around 800 passengers a day have used the pods to go to and from the Business Parking, totalling to 100,000. The demand patterns have followed what we have predicted and what the system was designed to cope with. The system has performed very well so far with the average waiting time of 30 seconds.

- What's the feedback?
- We are receiving the feedback in two forms. Twitter plays a big part in promoting the pods with users posting their experience and sharing it with their friends. “Cool”; “wow”; “the future has arrived”; “this is amazing” – is the general mood among the tweeters. We have also run a short survey in May as part of the EU City Mobil project and received feedback scoring an average of 4.58 out of 5 over 12 categories relating to access, the vehicle, and the service as a whole. People loved the fact that it is on demand, doesn't stop for anybody else and gets you quickly to the terminal.

- Will you continue expanding the pod network in the airport?
- The decision on that rests with BAA, they have always said that first they want to see the system in place before making any extensive plans for the future, and to see how the passengers will respond. As a company we are continuing to develop our product to make it better, more reliable, robust and more attractive for the passenger. At the moment we’re in the process of going from the launch of the pilot through the assessment of it and then, hopefully, into extension further, if that is the decision taken by BAA.

- What are your views on how the pods can be used in an airport environment or the city? What is the future for the PRT’s?
- Originally the Ultra system was designed to meet the needs of the 21st century city as an urban transport mode. The pods can help free up the roads and congestion and is a good option for the so-called "last mile" journey. Having a PRT network in the city enables the increase of other forms of public transport. However cities are very complicated environments with many authorities and owners of the land, whilst airports or campus environment generally has one major stakeholder. The process of integrating a new system in an airport is smoother and, I think, this is why airports were the first, who start looking into adopting PRT systems. Also it fits in nicely with what airports need - they have a lot of people moving around the terminals and they need to make those transfers as smooth and simple as possible.

- Did you receive a lot of interest from other airports and companies?
- Yes, we have considerable interest. We have done numerous studies for other airports, towns and campuses. But a lot of people have been waiting to actually see the pods operating and hear the passenger feedback before deciding to go ahead. It was a very bold and brave decision of BAA to go ahead with the pilot system and we hope that now we have the pods up and running (and generating such positive feedback!), the studies we have done and the interest we have maintained will move forward.

- How much a system like this cost to build?
- It is difficult to talk about finances because it's so dependent on the environment where you are installing the pod network. For example in Heathrow the PRT had to fit into an already very complicated environment and without disrupting the airport services. It also depends on the expected demand which determines the number of vehicles required. The typical range is between £4-8 million per kilometre. That includes the guideway, the stations along the way, the vehicles and the control systems.

- What are the challenges for the future?
- One of the biggest challenges is proving to people that it is robust and reliable transport system, when you only have a small operation to demonstrate. We took a major step forward in going from having a test site in Cardiff to having an Ultra system at the world’s busiest airport. What we learned from doing the Heathrow project is how to deliver, operate and maintain a live system, which is now fully part of the airport’s operations - it has taken a lot of effort to do that and one of the reasons it had such a long testing stage was to make sure that we did all the adjustments and tweaking necessary to get it right. The main challenge now is to show to people that his kind of transportation will work on a larger scale and in a busier environment.

- The concept of personal rapid transport is getting quite popular and there are different technologies on how to do it. Do you think there is a future for that kind of transport?
- Definitely. What we have seen since the opening of Ultra is that the passengers really love it. It is completely different way of getting from the car park to the terminal and it has resulted in a real shift in the satisfaction of the passengers. No one really appreciated that you can get that kind of service for lower costs and without a driver and heavy infrastructure. On Ultra itself, I don't think that the future will look exactly as we have it now, this is the first system in operation and as we will develop, we will find new ways to refine the pods, and we have already identified alternative guideway designs which may be more suitable in non airport locations. As I said earlier , PRT works well for the “last mile” journeys, and is a complementary service to other forms of public transport. It will not replace trains or busses for the longer distances, but it meets the needs of a localised area very well, and by being very compact the guideway can be easily routed where needed - even within buildings - offering a very high level of service and convenience.

Hear from John about the Ultra Global PRT and see the system in action at the Future of AirRail - Airport Rail Terminal Integration conference, taking place at London Heathrow on 20th October this year.

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