{"id":5310,"date":"2014-05-10T05:01:32","date_gmt":"2014-05-10T12:01:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/first2board.com\/wanderlusty\/?p=5310"},"modified":"2014-05-11T07:45:30","modified_gmt":"2014-05-11T14:45:30","slug":"joyriding-heathrow-pods-layover-idea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/first2board.com\/wanderlusty\/2014\/05\/joyriding-heathrow-pods-layover-idea\/","title":{"rendered":"Joyriding on the Heathrow Pods (Layover Idea!)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"IMG_7014\"<\/a>for as long as i can remember, the future of public transit has been one of three things: monorails<\/a>, maglev trains, and personal rapid transit<\/a>, or PRT. i hope to ride the Shanghai Maglev<\/a> this fall but have long been looking forward to today when i was able to try out the Heathrow Pods<\/a> Personal Rapid Transit system.<\/p>\n

while there has been talk of PRTs for a while now, it seems like the only large-scale deployment is in Morgantown, West Virginia<\/a> and dates from the ’70s. as the first new PRT in a long time and the one that’s most accessible to me (i wouldn’t call WV a transit hub…), i couldn’t wait to take it for a spin (or two).<\/p>\n

\"Some<\/a>

Some Heathrow Pods waiting to be called into action<\/p><\/div>\n

what’s PRT?<\/h3>\n

think of personal rapid transit as your own private on-demand taxi — except it’s public transportation. you call up a private pod, punch in your destination, and voila, it takes you there! do you remember Minority Report and how the cars sort of merged onto a common guideway? same concept with PRT systems except you don’t own your own car; you call it up from a pool of waiting vehicles.<\/p>\n