On Jan 29, 8:22*am, Paul Weaver wrote:
I understand the pods can be fairly easilly mounted on pillars --
lighter than the DLR, although presumably less capacity than a DLR at
full rate (say 1.3 people per car, one car per 5 seconds, 1000 people
per hour).

That's equivelent to a DLR at ~60 people per carriage, 2 carriage per
train, 8tph, more frequent than many branches.

The size of *a station to disgorge one car per 15 seconds (assume 3
stations either side of a central coridor) would be fairly high, but
it works on ski lifts.

However people on ski lifts are not normally encumbered with
suitcases, baby buggies and hurricane proof rucksacks. The ultra
system will work at Heathrow as it is intended to operate from
relatively low density car parks to a high density terminal. Like a
taxi rank at the terminal there will be multiple discharges taking
place in parallel rather than in series. At Brent Cross LUL and at
Cricklewood passengers for the shopping centre will arrive in groups
off the trains - undoubtedly encumbered with baby buggies even if they
have left their rucksacks at home. Batch handling because of the
larger population units and limited number of dispersion points make
an airport people carrier solution a better choice for Brent Cross.
Heresy though it might be on this group the use of rubber tyres could
allow for steeper gradients and possibly in terms of routing an
elevated section above the alignment of the North Circular Road
cutting through the back of Cricklewood TMD to a bay at the new
Cricklewood.