Wayne, the closest thing the airport here had, in my experience, to a people mover is (was?) a moving belt between two terminals–and I could walk faster than it.
I Have no idea what the new terminal will have between terminals; I have no plans to fly anywhere again.
You and me both Johnny, flying’s no damn fun anymore, for a variety of reasons, too many to go into here. I’m not planning on flying anywhere again unless it’s absolutely necessary.
It’s a shame, I used to love flying.
Wayne
Possibly better to answer the posted question with another question:
Wh should they?
Jet Rail was a connection to from the Terminal to the Planes for defunct Braniff Airlines-
The people mover at DFW Airport was paid for primarily by American Airlines. They choose rubber tired vehicles because the ride was smoother and it was quieter and generated far less vibration that a rail based system. It only circulates among the Airport Terminals because the airline paying for it does not see the need to extend it further as they are only interested in passengers making their connections and could care less about car parking or the rest of the overhead of the trip…which if they extended to those areas would increase the time it takes to circulate among all the terminals making it less likely that everyone would make their connection.
They replaced the trainsets, tracks and most of the stations entirely at DFW, the new one is faster and you really have to hold on while your standing when it accelerates. It is not super fast either but faster then the old one.
American Airlines paid for both systems and they are only concerned with people making their airline flight connections…the other stuff they could care less about and extending the people mover only makes the overall trip and circulation around the loop take longer, which will tick off passengers trying to make their cross-terminal connections more.
Dallas now has two light rail systems feeding into the Airport. DART takes passengers from Terminal A to Downtown Dallas and beyond. TexRail takes passengers from Terminal B to Downtown Fort Worth and beyond (operational by this December) in Stadler Self Propelled Rail Cars. DFW also has a shuttle bus to Trinity Rail Express station South of the Airport which will connect you with Amtrak at either Dallas Union Station or Fort Worth Intermodal Station (former Rock Island RR trackage), it is a cross train platform connection to Amtrak at both locations.
I was just at DFW a month ago. The new system is nice.
I remember the system at Atlanta some years ago, Man, that was FAST. Pepole would yell. no idea if still like that.
Rich
Is the DFW people mover convenient for getting DART passengers to Terminal B, and Tex-Rail passengers to Terminal A, or is their some other arrangement?
I fly into DFW a couple of times a year from south Texas.
DART’s Orange Line serves Termina A. Getting from or to any of the terminals from Terminal A on the People Mover is a snap. Tex-Rail, which will begin service in late 2018, will serve Terminal B.
From 1972-1980 a number of citys had put people movers in there plans and the UMTA had money to match to build these projects The GAO office in 1980 then did a invetigation of using people movers as opposed to other modes in downtown areas and concluded that people movers had no avantage over other modes. But remember this was the Reagan Era and Reagan was cutting everything that was not a MX Missile. see-
The Urban Mass Transportation Administration (UMTA), which provides financial and technical aid to develop and improve urban mass transportation, believes that downtown people movers could help solve the problems of increasing transit deficits, traffic congestion, and associated air pollution. In April 1976, UMTA announced its program to demonstrate the benefits of people mover systems in urban downtown areas. The objectives of this program are to test the operating cost savings automated guideway transit systems might deliver and to assess their economic impacts on central cities. In 1976, four cities were selected as demonstration cities. UMTA estimated that $220 million in Federal funds would be required to implement people mover systems in the four cities. UMTA also stated that three other cities would be permitted to develop people movers if they could do so with existing grant commitments. In 1977, Congress told UMTA to consider four more cities; UMTA also added another city to the list. A review of the program was undertaken, because the announced $220 million commitment for four new demonstration projects was to be funded from the UMTA discretionary capital grant resources, and because of the probability that the commitment would increase as project cost estimates and the number of projects increased. The review efforts were concentrated on the UMTA rationale for the program, the need for multiple projects, program goals, and proposed project evaluations.
One of the interesting facets of the people mover at DFW, was the idea that it would move cargo from a freight terminal on the airport perimeter to the gate, baggage from the check-in areas to the gate and underline luggage between terminals.
The labor savings had this been able to work would have been large.
Some years ago I read all the studies the federal USDOT did in the system. One of which was to take a car and build a small test track in Alaska to see how well the system would work in winter snow/ice conditions(it didn’t). I have to wonder if Newark’s Airtrain ran into these problems.
Morgantown’s PRT has also had problems with winter weather(I think), as Morgantown didn’t have any snow removal equipment for there system.
Do not know anything about the new DFW people mover . However the original had several bad experiences. One time a car tried to dump us in a baggage area. That system used a destination locator system to route cars properly but had some obvious problems. Later on they were seemly resolved but that system never satisfied any of the tenants.
The Newark system was completely different in its fixed center point guideway. At the ends of a run and also at switching points the guideways had a monstrous 20 - 40 ton mechanism. The switches rotated 180 degrees on end point axels operated by hydraulic pistons. Water , snow, dirt all caused many failures of the various switches. Sometimes using the other side of the monorail statoion would solve the problem by using 2 different switches.
Snow and ice did often shut it down to poor braking. The trains were made up of several 6 - 8 passenger cars that were articulated between cars with no passage possible between cars. The trains and stations were designed to allow for additional cars to be inserted into trains but as far as we know that was never done. A breakdown between stations would often cause a long time to remove passengers from the aerial structure.
It’s been that way since I was forced to ride it in the early 1980’s. IMO the designers got many clues from D/FW locals who never, never admit that they get serious winter weather (e.g. ice and snow). Local substitute shuttle van services must be making a fortune. If it ran totally underground it would work OK, maybe.
Funny that the Newark Airport Monorail is going to be abandoned after so much money went into it.
The Airtrain at EWR is always a interesting ride. My guess is that it will be around for a bit longer than they say. It is great to connect to the NEC and NJT. They would have faired better using the Disneyland design 