PRT - A High-Quality, Cost-Efficient and Sustainable Public Transport System for Kungens Kurva

The European Commission has launched a research project called EDICT-European Demonstration of Innovative City Transport within the "Cities of Tomorrow" programme. A test of a PRT system has been carried out in Cardiff, Wales. Three other cities have participated: Eindhoven and later on Almelo in the Netherlands, Ciampinio in Italy and Huddinge in Sweden. In the test site at Huddinge a PRT network was evaluated at Kungens Kurva Shopping Area southwest of Stockholm. The research programme had a time frame from January 2002 to November 2004. In the test site at Huddinge the following research programme was outlined: (1) A performance comparison between 4 PRT systems: Taxi 2000, ULTra, Austrans and FlyBy, (2) a local Travel Survey about Travel Pattern and Behaviour, (3) the Design of a PRT network, (4) a Travel Demand Analysis with regional forecasts and local PRT simulations, (5) development of enhanced Control Strategies, (6) an Assessment Framework with a Cost-Benefit Analysis Evaluation, and (7) user Attitudes and Acceptability studies. This paper describes these topics of the research project. The Kungens Kurva area has some 42,000 visitors per day, of which 95 % arrive by private cars and 5 % by bus. The world's first—and largest—IKEA furniture store is located here. The Kungens Kurva Area is today congested in peak periods and a substantial part of the shopping mall area is covered by surface parking lots. The area is forecasted to increase its land use and activities as one of the foremost external shopping malls in the Stockholm region. Up to 2011 it is foreseen a doubled level of shopping activities, with much more car traffic as a result. The City of Huddinge has ambitions to preserve its community as a sustainable society. Therefore there will be a need for an innovative city transport system to serve these new mobility needs. This paper summarizes the results from the Swedish test-site: "Kungens Kurva", SW of Stockholm, Sweden. This research project was co-funded by the European Commission (50 %) and the Swedish VINNOVA Research Fund (50 %). Swedish partners were: Transek Consultants, LogistikCentrum and Municipality of Huddinge.