PRT (Personal Rapid Transit) systems, which convey passengers along tracks in automated battery-powered pods, like a high-tech ski lift, offer a visionary solution to our reliance on fossil fuels.  These systems are about 50% more energy efficient than buses or trains, and give riders a greater sense of privacy.  For decades PRT’s have been the province of far-sighted urban planners and science fiction.  Now they’re becoming a reality as prototype systems are installed at Heathrow Airport in London and in Masdar City, Abu Dhabi.

While I’m open-minded about all of it I can’t imagine how the systems would work in a city as dense as New York, which would require a spaghetti-like mess of tracks everywhere to accommodate the numbers of people who use mass transit.  And I can’t imagine how the systems would work for longer rides, where being trapped inside a small space with other people you may or may not know would be its own form of torture.  Unlike a ski-lift, or a car, there’s no sense of personal freedom.  And the engineers have got to design tracks and pods that people will want to step into, that don’t look like rolling toasters.