“You have to come for a test run of the Autotrén,” wrote Luis Enrique Lazcano, Quality and Safety Manager for ModuTram México, the manufacturer of an unusual and imaginative solution to the mass transit problem.
The Autotrén Test Circuit is located inside the CINVESTAV Research Center nestled on the edge of the Primavera Forest, only two kilometers south of Guadalajara’s Omnilife Stadium.
From a distance, it looked like we were approaching a sort of backyard roller coaster. “Is this for real or is it a toy?” asked my wife Susy. We soon found ourselves among a crowd of volunteers who showed up to help the Autotrén engineers work the bugs out of the system. We exchanged our IDs for plastic cards and moved toward the entrance to a simulated Autotrén platform.
The first step was putting my card into a machine and choosing my destination. I decided I wanted to go to “Escuela.”
Next I went through a turnstile, brushing my card over a sensor which let the computer know exactly where I was and what station I was heading for.
A minute after I reached the platform, two bug-shaped pod cars slid to a stop, one of them clearly marked Escuela. Inside were six seats, only one of them occupied. In a real situation, I could now relax, knowing that this car was going to take me all the way to my destination, skipping dozens of other possible stops along the way. Unlike conventional train tracks which must physically move at each connection point to route a train in the right direction, the Autotrén tracks are fixed and it is the computer that decides which way you are going to go.
The concept seems to me ingenious. If the pod car doesn’t have to make any intermediate stops, it can quickly accelerate to its top speed of 30 kilometers per hour and get me to where I’m going in no time. That speed may not seem like much, but note that the average speed of an automobile moving through Guadalajara is between 15 and 25 kilometers per hour.
“Autotrén is our solution to traffic jams and parking problems,” Luis Enrique later told me. “Our rail support structure is slim and lightweight and takes up practically no room! It can be erected above the street or sidewalk and doesn’t require a lane all for itself like the Macrobus (Guadalajara’s BRT system). Also, it doesn’t need a driver and the cars only run when they are needed, fully adjusting to usage peaks and lows. Best of all, you are always guaranteed a seat. No more hanging on to a strap for dear life.”
My “trip” around the testing grounds went off without a hitch, pretty much like riding a roller coaster without the thrills and chills. It seemed to me a great improvement over the other mass transit systems, but I wondered whether it would work out there “in the real world.”
To my surprise, I learned that this technology has a history and similar systems are up and running in various places right now, like London’s Heathrow Airport and the futuristic city of Masdar in the United Arab Emirates. Most interesting of all is the PRT system created by Boeing back in 1975 at Morgantown, West Virginia. There, West Virginia University has three campuses which extend over hilly land cut by deep ravines. Eight-seat pod cars were used to carry students and teachers to destinations around the campuses and downtown. For 30 years the original system operated continuously with 98.5 percent reliability. Eventually the outmoded computers running things were replaced by modern ones, and, though it’s hard to believe, the Morgantown pod cars are still operating today.
“Although our pod cars are small,” says Lazcano, “we can mobilize many of them, one after another, at peak hours when we have to move large numbers of people. Whenever you step onto a platform, the system knows you are there and will pick you up within five minutes. If something goes wrong, an emergency brake stops the pod car and then, using its own battery power, it brings you to the nearest station. We fully expect to be installing Guadalajara’s first Autotrén system within one year.”