LTV's (Vought) Airtrans was an automated people mover system that operated at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport between 1974 and 2005.

In Japan, the system was licensed by a consortium formed between Niigata Engineering and Sumitomo Corporation for similar deployments there.

Through the 1960s there was a growing movement in urban planning circles that the solution was the personal rapid transit (PRT) system, small automated vehicles that were much less expensive to develop.

In 1970 LTV joined these efforts, when the Vice President of Engineering formed a study team to investigate ground transportation systems.

Varo Corp. had recently purchased the Monocab concept from its private developer and were pitching the system to DFW.

LTV decided to submit their original design for the May 1971 deadline, developing their guideway to match existing highway specifications and construction techniques as a way to lower costs.

Since they had no time to develop prototype hardware, they instead backed up their proposal with an extensive computer simulation of full operations.

Westinghouse and Dashaveyor (Bendix) also entered designs, but LTV's simulation proved decisive and they were announced as the winner on 2 August 1971.

When DFW opened in January 1974, Airtrans, which had been heralded as "people mover of the future,' quickly fell short of expectations.

Inter-terminal baggage was handled by 89 LD3 containers, which were loaded on a series of semi-automated conveyor belt systems at each terminal.

In operation, snow and ice proved to be a serious problem, but a detailed study on ways to keep the system clear demonstrated it would be less expensive to provide truck services during those rare periods.

[11][12] Additionally, maintaining the vehicles proved more difficult than expected, but DFW's transportation department kept updating the system, one piece at a time.

The system was originally installed in an era of very different security concerns, and operated on both sides of the modern secure/insecure line.

Vought used one of the production cargo vehicles as an instrumented testbed, running it on the existing DFW guideways at increased speeds, and used the information collected to determine what changes would need to be made to provide this performance in an operational setting.

Several changes were needed; the power collection arms that pressed against the wires on the track side had to be modified to a design originally considered for the DFW system, the steering had to be upgraded in order to switch quickly enough, and to improve energy use, the new vehicles also featured regenerative braking.

A non-mechanical steering system reading a ferrous stripe in the center of the guideway was also tried, but abandoned as not necessary for speeds up to 30 mph.

Long sections of untouched guideways still exist next to the airport's main roads, stations can still be found in the employee parking lot, and Terminals B and C still have guideways running underneath them, though access to the stations has been restricted, and some portions have been converted to use as a baggage handling system.

The chassis was based on a large electrically powered bus, built of steel and running on foam-filled tires with air-bag suspensions.

Across from the door a raised area provided room for hand luggage while hiding the manual controls.

The bi-directional motor could be switched and the car repositioned on the guideway to provide a right-opening or left-opening door.

[17] The vehicles were originally painted brown on the exterior with orange and yellow interiors, matching the color scheme of the airport.

The varying topography of the airport resulted in both aerial and ground level guideways winding their way over and under public roadways.

At these terminal areas the guideway branched out to serve various stations, bypass tracks and vehicle storage sidings.

Power was rectified and fed into a DC motor, which was attached to a conventional differential and then to the wheels at one end.

While initially planned for "origin and destination" traffic, the system was modified to move connecting passengers (although never very effectively due to its uni-directional operation).

These passenger stations contained an enclosed waiting area, destination signage, two sets of bi-parting automatic doors (with room for a third) and elevators to upper level ticketing/baggage claim.

These stations were more primitive, containing an outdoor waiting area with a fence and no automatic doors preventing access to the electrified guideway.

The vehicle was under manual control to bypass a malfunctioning section of guideway in the South Remote Parking Lot.

A teenager was killed after jumping on top of a vehicle from a restricted retaining wall and falling to the guideway, where he was run over by a two-car train.

During the same week, a man from Fort Worth was electrocuted when touching a high voltage conductor on the guideway.