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Written by Administrator
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Monday, 26 February 2007 |
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Dr. J. Edward (Ed) Anderson, PhD from M. I. T., began working on PRT while at the University of Minnesota. During the 1970s he chaired three international conferences on PRT, which gave him access to the work on PRT in 8 industrialized countries. He consulted with governments and private industry and in 1978 published the textbook Transit Systems Theory. In 1983 he founded Taxi 2000 Corporation to commercialize his PRT design, and in 1986 moved to Boston University where he recruited a team of engineers from industry and government that led to a $1.5 million PRT design study sponsored by the Chicago Regional Transportation Authority, the work on which authenticated his designs.
In the 1990s his PRT system won 3 international competitions, as a result of which he became internationally recognized as the leading authority on PRT systems. In 2002 he designed a full-scale automatically controlled, linear-induction-motor-propelled PRT vehicle and the 18.3 m guideway on which it operated flawlessly for thousands of public rides. In 2005 he founded PRT International to apply his 35 years of experience in PRT research, development, and design to the deployment of world-class PRT systems. During the past 15 months he has developed a PRT network control system superior to his previous design and he has documented specifications required to build all of the components of a PRT system. The Minnesota High Tech Association lists over 700 high-tech companies in the Twin Cities area, indicating the depth of the local high-tech-talent pool from which PRT International has been able to draw. Out of this array of talent, PRT International has attracted a seasoned engineering manager, an expert on failure and reliability analysis, four experts in electrical engineering and computer science, and has on tap engineers and others ready to join in the exciting prospect of producing world-class PRT systems. |
