Pod Cars of the Past and Future: The Morgantown PRT

The Morgantown Personal Rapid Transit system threads its way through West Virginia University, taking thousands of people a day around the campus, non-stop. It's a system that was meant to be the future: so why isn't it?

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[JoshuaZangari]

WVU Alumni and Morgantown resident here. The most commonly accepted excuse for missing a class or being late to a test? The PRT Broke Down. It's wonderful, but it's far from perfect. There were more than a few times over the course of my college years that I spent more than an hour roasting in a car while the rescue jeep waited for the tracks to be cleared so it could come out and push us. Saw a crash once, and another that caught on fire. The refreshment they are talking about has been going on for literally over 10 years. No Joke, My freshman engineering course in 04 took us on a tour of the maintenance facility.

Basically. don't be fooled. It's cool, but it still has issues. Definitely a better alternative than buses on our Narrow ass main throughways.

[erictaylor]

How the hell do you always find such cool, obscure topics for these videos?

[QwertyuiopThePie]

I love the look of that control room. Something about 70s-style physical switches and lights.

[spicus]

When I played Fallout 76 I thought the pods in Morgantown where the result of the alternate timeline. I had no clue these things where real!

[wanderingrandomer]

How have I never heard of this? It's the efficiency of public transport without the pressure of having to acknowledge other people!

[wvusmc]

"We have run forty years without any major incidents."

Except for that one time when a giant boulder fell from a hill side, crossed a four lane and then hit a PRT car.

[melanghouly]

“The PRT never shuts down.”
Unless it gets hit by a BOULDER

[xyleas]

Hey, current WVU student, I thought this was really interesting and well done. I wanted to mention that I am a big fan, and just happened to be looking around about the PRT, because about a week ago, a boulder fell and hit one of the PRTs. Wild.

[suelukeson]

I started at WVU in the Fall of 1975 - the last semester for the buses. The next semester they started the PRT. It was much better than waiting 20+ minutes per bus, plus they had enclosed stations to wait in. As for the number of people it moved, they said it was moving 20, 000 students per day, up and down all the hills in Morgantown (not a place where you can walk or bike between campuses which are 5-6 miles apart) at something like a 98% efficiency. Not bad for a prototype! And it wasn't just Senator Byrd's influence, but that WVU had one of the best Engineering schools in the nation and diverse enough climate to test the system.

How can someone visit Morgantown and NOT see the PRT? When they designed it, they did not know what type of cars they would be using, so they build the trails to carry full sized train cars.

[eladalfassa]

PRT is more efficient for the individual passenger, but less efficient for the most. It works well for university campuses and airport parking lots, but simply won't be efficient enough for a whole city, where the transit demands and requirements are much different.

In a university campus, you want to get a student from building A to building B. In a city, you need to get a huge mass of people from their homes to work every morning, and back the other way every evening - and PRT simply can't scale for this: Can you imagine every single person on the Piccadilly line of the London Underground (on rush hour) using one of these? you'd need hundred of thousands of pods, many of which going to a similar destination... and for that, a train is much more efficient.

That's why PRT isn't everywhere. That's why PRT isn't "the future of transit". It's a specific solution for a specific problem.

Anyway, I liked the video! interesting as always.

[jrucker]

Hey, my dad was part of that project! He helped write the operating system for the computer(s) that controlled everything when he worked at Boeing in the early 70s.

[JimCorrigan]

He's been waiting his entire life to make that Little Engine reference...

...but in fairness haven't we all? Haven't we?

[Graeme]

Thank you for taking the time to talk about the WVU PRT. While I am way past being a student I have watched the PRT with admiration. Anyone who has ever heard of WVU knows about the PRT. For my money it is still genius. IMPORTANTLY, IT KEEPS 4000 PEOPLE AN HOUR OF THE ROADS. That is the amazing story. Green before green was green.

[Riverbend]

0:51 That line aged well...

For those of you who don't understand, there have been a vehicle crash and a landslide since this video was made, and both have caused the PRT to stop operating temporarily. Also, they closed it this semester and have a PRT replacement bus system due to COVID-19.

[KentuckyRanger]

Being an avid player of Fallout 76, I wondered what the real light rail system in Morgantown looked like, and found you video.
It's mind boggling, the research Bethesda did in the making of Fallout 76.
While the pods look different in the game, they're still pods, that roam all over town, from the college, to the airport.
Speaking of the airport, Bethesda did make it very small for some reason, but like I said, the attention to detail is amazing.

[inkno]

I love how the used ballistic missile electronic controls, "POD ready to go, Launch!"

[Sir_Leelord]

This channel has the best like to dislike ratio ever

[AlphaCore_]

*"Because every journey is non-stop"*
And YouTube Player decided that it's a good time to have a buffer problem.

[liamolucko]

♪Transport pods♪
♪Take me home♪
♪To the place♪
♪I belong♪
♪West Virginia University♪
♪Mountain Mama♪
♪Transport pods♪
♪Take me home♪

[Taco]

I was a student at WVU from '98-'03. During orientation in the fall of '98 they bragged about how the campus never shuts down due to snow because the PRT never shuts down. It happened in the Spring semester of '99 and in the Spring semester of '03. It was so cold and we had so much snow that the electric coils that are under the track couldn't keep the concrete clear of snow. It was 1 day in 99 and 2 days in 03.