Originally Posted by
Roody
Personally, I don't see much benefit to PRT instead of personal car ownership. I think the total size of the vehicle fleet would be the same, and total miles traveled would be the same or greater. There would also be a greater concentration of wealth in corporations, since companies would own the vehicles rather than individuals. I don't necessarily see that as a good thing.
Since they only have to have enough of the small streetcars to meet the city's peak demand, rather than each car-owning household's, the size of the vehicle fleet would be substantially smaller. Since each streetcar doesn't have to carry its own power source and doesn't have to be built to protect its occupants in case of a crash, they would be much lighter and, I assume, much cheaper to build and operate . I don't know whether corporations or cities would own the cars but owning cars doesn't increase an individual's or corporation's wealth since wealth must be exchanged to buy them. If it reduces the cost and increases the convenience of travel in the cities the individual will benefit financially and in other ways. That assumes that the city will see that whoever has the monopoly charges a fair price for the service.
AFAIK it's only theoretical that PRT will work at all, much less that it will work better than other possible solutions to promoting public transit.