People mover
The term is generally used only to describe systems serving relatively small areas such as airports, downtown districts or theme parks.
Some complex APMs deploy fleets of small vehicles over a track network with off-line stations, and supply near non-stop service to passengers.
This railway consisted of 88 unmanned carriages, on a continuous double track along the northern and eastern sides of the exhibition, with reversing loops at either end.
The carriages ran on two parallel concrete beams and were guided by pulleys running on the inner side of these concrete beams,[10][11] and were propelled by gripping a revolving screw thread running between the tracks in a pit; by adjusting the pitch of this thread at different points, the carriages could be sped up, or slowed down to a walking pace at stations, to allow passengers to join and leave.
[12] In late 1949, Mike Kendall, chief engineer and Chairman of the Board of Stephens-Adamson Manufacturing Company, an Illinois-based manufacturer of conveyor belts and systems,[13] asked Al Neilson, an engineer in the Industrial Products Division of Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co., if Goodyear had ever considered working on People Movers.
Four years of engineering design, development and testing led to a joint patent being issued for three types of people movers, named Speedwalk, Speedramp, and Carveyor.
At point B Passengers could disembark and by means of a series of flat slower belts (Speedwalks) go to other Carveyors to other destinations or out to the street.
Colonel Sydney H. Bingham, Chairman of the New York City Board of Transportation, had several meetings with a group of architects who were trying to revamp the whole New York City Subway system in the heart of town to connect Pennsylvania Station, Madison Square Garden, Times Square, Grand Central and several new office complexes together.
In November 1954 the New York City Transit Authority issued an order to Goodyear and Stephens-Adamson to build a complete Carveyor system between Times Square and Grand Central.
Worried about the growing congestion and pollution in downtown areas due to the spread of cars, many countries started studying mass transit systems that would lower capital costs to the point where any city could afford to deploy them.
However, elevating the track causes problems with noise, so traditional steel-wheel-on-rail solutions were rare as they squealed when rounding bends in the rails.
Cabinentaxi featured small cars with from four to eight seats that were called to pick up passengers on-demand and drove directly to their destination.
In the U.S., a 1966 federal bill provided funding that led to the development of APM systems under the Downtown People Mover Program.
Four systems were developed, Rohr's ROMAG, LTV's AirTrans, Ford's APT and Otis Elevator's hovercraft design.
One notable example was Pittsburgh's Skybus, which was proposed by the Port Authority of Allegheny County to replace its streetcar system, which, having large stretches of private right of way, was not suited for bus conversion.
The economics of automated trains tend to reduce the scale so tied to "mass" transit (the largest operating expense is the driver's salary, which is only affordable if very large numbers of passengers are paying fares), so that small-scale installations are feasible[citation needed].
On September 30, 2006, the Peachliner in Komaki, Aichi Prefecture, Japan, became that nation's first people mover to cease operations.
