People mover

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Singapore's LRT system is considered a people mover system.
Singapore's LRT system is considered a people mover system.

A people mover or automated people mover (APM) is a fully automated, grade-separated transit system. The term is generally used only to describe systems serving relatively small areas such as airports, downtown districts or theme parks, but is sometimes applied to considerably more complex automated systems.

The term does not imply any particular technology, and a people mover may use technologies such as monorail, duorail, automated guideway transit or maglev. Propulsion may involve conventional on-board electric motors, linear motors or cable traction.

Some complex APMs deploy fleets of small vehicles over a track network with off-line stations, and supply near non-stop service to passengers. These taxi-like systems are more usually referred to as personal rapid transit (PRT). Other complex APMs have similar characteristics to mass transit systems, and there is no clear cut distinction between a complex APM of this type and an automated mass transit system.

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[edit] History

One of the first people movers was the Never Stop Railway, constructed for the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley, London in 1924. This railway consisted of 88 unmanned carriages circling the exhibition. The carriages ran on narrow gauge track, and were propelled by a gripping a revolving screw thread running between the tracks; by adjusting the pitch of this thread at different points in the track the carriages could be speeded up, or slowed down to a slow walking pace in stations to allow passengers to join and leave. The railway ran for the two years of the exhibition and was then dismantled.[1]


Late 1949, Mike Kendall, Chief Engineer and Chairman of the Board of Stephens-Adamson Mfg. Co asked Al Neilson an engineer in the Industrial Products Division of Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co., If Goodyear had ever considered working on People Movers. He felt that with Goodyear’s ability to move materials in large quantities on conveyor belts they should consider moving batches of people.

Four years of engineering design, development, and testing, led to a joint patent being issued for three types of people movers which had been named Speedwalk, Speedramp, and Carveyor. Goodyear would sell the concept and Stephens-Adamson would manufacture and install the components.

A speedwalk consisted of a flat conveyor belt riding on a series of rollers, or a flat slippery surface, moving at 1.5 mph. (approximately half the speed of walking) the passengers would walk onto the belt and could stand or walk to the exit point. They were supported by a moving handrail.

Customers were expected to be Airline Terminals, Ballparks, Train Stations, etc. Today several manufacturers produce similar units under the generic name “Moving Sidewalks”

A Speedramp was very similar to a Speedwalk but it was used to change elevations, up or down a floor level . This could have been accomplished by an escalator ,but the Speedramp would allow wheeled luggage, small pull carts etc. to ride the belt at an operating cost predicted to be much lower than escalators or elevators.

The first successful installation of a Speedramp, spring of 1954, was in the Hudson and Manhattan RR Station in Jersey City to connect the Erie RR to the Hudson & Manhattan Tubes, This unit was 227 feet long, rose up 22 feet on a 15 degree grade and only cost $75,000.00

A Carveyor consisted of many small cubicles or cars carrying ten people riding on a flat conveyor belt from Point A to Point B. The belt would be riding on a series of Motorized Rollers. The purpose of the motorized rollers was to facilitate the gradual acceleration and deceleration speeds on the conveyor belt and over come the tendency of all belts to stretch at start up and during shutdown. At point “A” passengers would enter a Speedwalk running parallel to the belts and cars of the Carveyor. The cars would be moving at the same speed as the Speedwalk; the passengers would enter the cars and be seated, while the motorized rollers would increase the speed of the cars up to the traveling speed (which would be preset depending on the distance to be covered).

At point B Passengers could disembark and by means of a series of flat slower belts (Speedwalks) go to other Carveyors to other destinations or out to the street. The cars at point B would continue on rollers around a semicircle and then reverse the process carrying passengers back to point A. The target installation was to be the 42nd street shuttle in NYC between Times Square and Grand Central station.

Colonel Sydney H. Bingham, Chairman of the Board of Transportation, New York City had several meetings with a group of architects who were trying to revamp the whole subway system in the heart of town to connect Penn. Station, Madison Square Garden, Times Square, Grand Central and several new office complexes together. Several of these architects were involved in other programs and in later years many variations of the Carveyor people movers developed.

In November 1954 the New York Transit Authority issued an order to Goodyear and Stephens-Adamson to build a Complete Carveyor System between Times Square and Grand Central. A brief Summary and confirmation can be found in Time Magazine Monday Nov. 15, 1954. under the heading “Subway of the Future”. The cost was to be under $4 million .

Unfortunately the order was never fulfilled due to some very unpleasant politics and many other nasty little happenings that had nothing to do with the capabilities of the system.

Chocolate World In Hershey Pa., Disney Land in California and Disney World in Florida are among many other locations that have used variations of the Carveyor concept. The one in Hershey Pa. was very similar.

The generic term 'people mover' was used by Walt Disney, when he and his Imagineers were working on the new 1967 Tomorrowland at Disneyland. The name was used as a working title for a new attraction, the PeopleMover. According to Imagineer Bob Gurr, "the name got stuck," and it was no longer a working title.

The world's first airport people mover was installed in 1971 at Tampa International Airport in the United States. APMs have now become common at large airports and progressive hospitals in the United States.

Driverless metros have become common in Europe and parts of Asia. The economics of automated trains tend to reduce the scale so tied to "mass" transit, so that small-scale installations are feasible. Thus cities normally thought of as too small to build a metro (e.g. Rennes, Lausanne, Brescia, etc.) are now doing so.

On September 30, 2006, the Peachliner in Komaki, Aichi Prefecture, Japan became that nation's first people mover to cease operations.

[edit] Examples

Rokko Liner, Kobe, Japan
Rokko Liner, Kobe, Japan
New-Tram, Osaka, Japan
New-Tram, Osaka, Japan

[edit] Urban transit

[edit] Airport

Air-Rail Link at Birmingham International Airport, UK
Air-Rail Link at Birmingham International Airport, UK
An underground people mover station at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport
An underground people mover station at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport

Many people movers operate at airports and some also connect with other public transport systems. Airport examples include:

[edit] Other

Underground mover in London Stansted Airport
Underground mover in London Stansted Airport

[edit] Different meanings

The term people mover is sometimes used to refer to moving sidewalks. The name People Mover is also used by:

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Exhibiting the Empire. The Tribune, Chandigarh. Retrieved on November 6, 2006.

[edit] External links

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