14 February, 2009

Pod cars over Abu Dhabi?

Can anyone verify this?

"A Jetsons-style transit system is set to roll out around Masdar City - electric, elevated podcars that can carry a few passengers at a time around the city, between several customizable destinations."
"Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) is a system that has been used at the University of West Virginia in Morgantown for over 30 years (it was invented by a professor there), and now a super-duper version of it is being planned for Abu Dhabi. It runs on an elevated grid, on wheels rather than on a monorail, and each podcar operates independently, taking passengers directly to their destination, bypassing other stops."

Source, and here.

(It would be kinda cool if it were for real.)
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16 comments:

  1. Anonymous14 February, 2009 22:42

    Yeah, pod cars are definitely being looked at, but the elevated design is just one of many. The National reported on this recently.

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  2. Anonymous14 February, 2009 22:55

    can they take u anywhere?
    and how high do the move

    Pls tell me a few inches just above Salik and you've got urself a customer

    ReplyDelete
  3. Gaia14 February, 2009 23:17

    Yes, it's true! I saw a version at the World Future Energy Summit... very futuristic design but the maximum speed it can attain is only around 40 km/hr.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Mr_Grant14 February, 2009 23:19

    It's real. Newslinks here:

    http://tinyurl.com/5zqvhh

    A similar system called ULTra (atsltd.co.uk) at Heathrow Airport will open to the public later this year and another, Vectus (http://vectus.se/eng_index.html), is under development in Sweden

    ReplyDelete
  5. grapeshisha15 February, 2009 00:53

    I think it is true, but more of a Masdar initiative - and I originally got the story from treehugger.

    http://blog.grapeshisha.com/2009/02/podcars-masdar-abu-dhabi.html

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  6. Lirun15 February, 2009 03:19

    sounds amazing.. i wish we got it here in israel.. especially if it can be run in a green way..

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  7. Em15 February, 2009 07:54

    yea i attended a seminar where the masdar representative talked about having them. but i believe it is only within the masdar city, not anywhere else.

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  8. hemlock15 February, 2009 08:57

    thanks guys.

    even if only within masdar city, it's still very Jetsons - and very, very cool :)

    ReplyDelete
  9. hut15 February, 2009 15:21

    Pah. Dubai had those for years...
    Dubai PRT

    ReplyDelete
  10. hemlock15 February, 2009 15:38

    wiseguy.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Anonymous15 February, 2009 16:23

    This is rich. ultra clean city in one of the worlds largest oil producers.

    Genius PR bit going on.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Veiled Muslimah15 February, 2009 20:31

    If anything else, the cars look exceptionally...cute. :P

    ReplyDelete
  13. Anonymous15 February, 2009 21:04

    The pod cars look like space shuttles. Or Porsche Cayennes. It's the same really.

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  14. Emoxaph15 February, 2009 23:41

    haha...they think they can pull it off in this condition!! nyc...gud luck to em!

    ReplyDelete
  15. Neil Roberts16 February, 2009 21:25

    They will be in Masdar only, as to help achieve their "zero carbon" status there will be no cars allowed.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Five Ocean Computers21 February, 2009 00:08

    looking lovely !

    Emirates Strong Force

    ReplyDelete

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