Heathrow Pods

Heathrow Pods

by Rajdeep Sandhu (04 Jan 2010)

Heathrow airport will be the first to try out new futuristic pods to taxi passengers to terminal 5, offering a non-stop journey without congestion or traffic lights.

The Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) system is promising to deliver on demand transport, moving passengers from the business car park to the checkout desk in an impressive 4 minutes. This should lead to a reduction in the amount of congestion in and around the airport.

The pods are designed to carry four people and require no driver. They can be called when needed and the maximum expected wait for one is estimated at 12 seconds. The individual pods mean that sharing personal space with a complete stranger will no longer be necessary.

The system should be operating by late spring this year, and is set to cost around £25million. If proved as successful as the idea, then the pods could be seen in many other airports or facilities covering large distances such as Universities or Hospitals.

The futuristic design is not only on the outside. They are environmentally friendly too, using battery power with a top speed of 25mph to ensure they don't cause any harmful emissions.

Airport said: "It offers a completely new form of public transport - one that will deliver a fast, efficient service to passengers and bring considerable environmental benefits, saving more than half of the fuel used by existing forms of public or private transport."

Heathrow is the UK's largest airport and with the chaos that surrounded the opening of Terminal 5 in March 2008, all eyes will be watching out for the launch of this network that could soon be seen in every major Airport across the world.