Transportation
Hyperloop: Transonic travel inside vacuum-like tube
Check out the section on "Lubrication theory based modeling of levitation sub-system for a typical Hyperloop pod using air bearings"
Class-wise best valued seats inside largest commercial aircrafts: Airbus A380 and Boeing 747
Check out the section on "Study of air quality and thermal control efficiency inside commercial aircrafts: Airbus 380 and Boeing 747"
Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) System
Contributors: Mr. A. S. Khilnani, Mr. S. Shaikh, Mr. A. Sinha
Project Guide: Dr. P. Shrivastava
Courtesy: ULTra PRT
Most mass transit systems move people in groups over scheduled routes. This has inherent inefficiencies. In such systems, time is wasted by waiting for next arrival, indirect routes to destination, stopping for passengers with other destinations, and often confusing or inconsistent schedules. There is a need to eliminate these disadvantages through innovative public transportation systems. Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) Systems offer hope in terms of considerable benefits like congestion free travel networks, increased passenger comfort and more importantly, environmental sustainability with very less or no pollution.
This work focused on the modelling of a PRT system for the proposed Navi Mumbai International Airport (NMIA) connecting it to important places surrounding it. The capacity utilization (i.e. Demand/Capacity of a transport system) for the proposed Primary Loop as shown below (left) was about 40%. The study talked about the expansion of the network by addition of loops secondary to the proposed primary NMIA loop. These secondary or feeder loops cater to the adjacent precincts of NMIA like proposed Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in Ulwe and Nerul node of Navi Mumbai. These feeder loops were proposed to achieve the capacity utilization of the PRT System in the range of 50-60%. This result fulfilled one of the major requirements of technical feasibility. PRT simulation was done using ATS/CityMobil developed by ULTra PRT.
The study also mentioned the ecological considerations like environmental impact and emission reduction due to such a transport system. Economic issues of capital investment, fare system and analysis of Return on Investment (RoI) were also addressed.
Proposed PRT network
ATS/CityMobil simulation screenshot
Publication:
Khilnani A., Desai P., Shrisvastava P., 2012. Modeling of Personal Rapid Transit System for Indian Scenario, ISBN 9789382062332 at National Conference and Workshop on Recent Advances in Traffic Engineering, Sardar Vallabhbhai National Institute of Technology, Surat, India