Since 1956, Interstate Highways sliced up American cities; so today only 1.2% of the land is walkable despite producing 20% of the US GDP. But there is an alternative.
When Morgantown’s Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) opened in 1972, the history of mobility should have changed. PRT was so important to President Nixon that he sent his daughter to open it. It has provided over 100 million trips, averaging 12,000 riders daily. Seamlessly connecting three areas of WVU’s campus and the city’s central business district, it is frequently used by students, employees, and visitors, significantly reducing street congestion. Unfortunately, bureaucracy and regulations have delayed deployment since.
If you drive a car—which, in America, is the only way to achieve mobility freedom—you have felt the pain of congestion not once, not twice, but every day. The frustration of sitting in traffic for hours, the disappointment when a journey meant to take 15 minutes consumes an hour, and the constant distraction of heated drivers engaging in hooting frenzies are all too familiar. It’s clear that technology innovates virtually every aspect of life, but not on roads.
What is worth exploring is how—knowing that even the President recognized the importance of alternative solutions more than 50 years ago—policymakers and infrastructure builders let it get to this point. “It all started when we decided to build a society around highways,” stresses Bill James, inventor and developer of JPods®. Pothole fixes are a daily occurrence, cities build new highways with taxpayers’ money, and everyone scrambles to alleviate the congestion burden. But all these efforts are nothing but a Band-Aid, and drivers, consequently, waste a week in traffic annually.
In 1998, Bill, a West Point graduate and infantry veteran, designed and developed JPods with a clear goal: to empower commuters to travel faster, safer, cleaner, and more adorably. Powered by solar, this transit network is truly personal. There is no need to travel with strangers. The pods seat up to six passengers, transporting them between cities and districts at an average speed of 35-45mph, with the ability to travel faster when the need is justified. Additionally, unlike mass transit, JPods networks travel non-stop from start to destination, offering a consistent, streamlined, on-demand service that allows passengers to get to their destination much quicker.
What fuels Bill’s mission—whose pursuit of mobility freedom is not an isolated case—is the sheer fact that each of us wants better and more personal travel options. In 2017, shared e-scooters had their debut, now present in thousands of cities across the world. Ride-hail services have seen a similar success trajectory, with their ingenious concept – revolving around time-saving and convenience – propelling companies’ values into billions. These positive responses are overwhelming, and hundreds of sharing transportation startups have been founded since with billions of dollars being invested.
However, scooters and ride-hail services solve the problem surrounding the ‘last mile’. “But what about the ‘middle mile’?” ponders Bill. As he emphasizes, the problem has three layers: last mile, middle mile, and long distance. While plains, trains, and boats will continue to comprise the long-distance category for years to come, the last mile is now much simpler due to rented scooters and/or taxis. But the Middle Mile is still lagging behind. However, PRT solutions like JPods, can replace highway travel between neighborhoods and walkable areas, providing a more efficient, affordable, and stress-free solution for passengers and cargo.
“What scooters and ride-hail apps did is apply data and technology. PRTs are doing exactly the same thing for the Middle Mile through the power of robotics,” adds Bill. “Congestion has given people headaches for far too long, and for absolutely no reason. The solution has been in plain sight in Morgantown for decades, and it’s still there. All that is left to do is for policymakers to allow innovators to automate urban networks.”
Since the solution has been known for decades, JPods’ concept is far from strange—think of robotics utilized in warehouses, the cleaning robots at your local department store, and even the automated vacuum cleaning your house. In contrast to self-driving cars on streets that have problems with pedestrians, bikes, and dogs, JPods are grade-separated, preempting the complexities of highways. Everything that drones are doing, JPods does at 1/10th of the energy utilized by cars. Operating suspended from guideways, JPods offer convenience, safety, and efficiency. The Morgantown PRT attests to that, with no reported in-service injuries since 1972. For comparison, US highways cause 2.6 million serious injuries per year.
“Highways are the wrong network for cities, making them unwalkable and unsafe for bikes,” concludes Bill. “As we have elevators in buildings, we need grade-separated horizontal elevators between neighborhoods. Stop burning energy moving two tons to move a person in congested traffic. Next time you get in an elevator and push the button you are riding in a vertical JPod, think about how easy it would be to travel across the city by pushing a button on your phone.”
