Heathrow Airport unveils new chauffeur-less pod car

Heathrow Airport is about to unveil its latest, innovative form of transport for its passengers. It’s not a plane, a jet or a high speed shuttle but, a pod car driven by a robot. Forget the bus or even a chauffeur driven limo, soon a fleet of battery powered vehicles will soon be seen ferrying business passengers around Terminal 5 of the world’s third busiest airport.

The robot chauffeured vehicle, named Ultra Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) system has been in development since 2005. The pilot scheme was ordered by BAA who run Heathrow, from a Bristol based company named Advanced Transport Systems. Now the revolutionary chauffeur-less vehicle is entering its final trail stages with the finished product scheduled to be released at Heathrow towards the end of the year.

Each pod car carries a maximum of 4 passengers and reaches speeds of up to 40 kilometres an hour. The ultra system will begin by carrying business passengers from the car park to Terminal 5. The vehicles have inbuilt computer systems which gauge demand for the shuttle system so its estimated that no one will have to wait longer than a minute for the next pod car to arrive. The current bus shuttle service comes around every 10 minutes so the new pod car will cut down on waiting time significantly.

As well as being a more effective system, its also, crucially, more energy efficient. It uses half the amount of energy in comparison to the bus shuttle which is currently in place. Come the end of 2009, transport at Heathrow will have a distinctly, futuristic feel.