PRT - Hermes

Short description of PRT / Hermes
Hermes is a concept for a public transit system.
It belongs to a family of systems called PRT (Personal Rapid Transit).
Hermes has a network of small elevated guideways , comparable in size with roller coaster trains , that run through the city.
Guideways are located among main arterial roads , spaced at 400-800 meters.
Small 2 seated vehicles ride these guideways. They function like horizontal elevators , completely automatic: Passengers type in their destination and the vehicle goes there with no further user intervention. Thanks to computer control , the trip is non-stop , with steady speed of about 60-65 km/hour. Automation allows a single guideway of Hermes to service more than 10.000 vehicles per hour.
The Hermes vehicle is small , with a big door allowing easy access to a big seat capable of seating 2 persons.

Hermes uses modern computer technology to offer to our daily commute the advantages of automation that other aspects of our life ,such as communications , indusrty and the office , enjoy for many years.

Therefore Hermes promises:
  • safety
  • speed and ease of use
  • low operating costs
  • high capacity
  • minimal environmental impact

All these together in a combination simply unbeatable by any existing means of transportation.

For the moment Hermes exists only in computer. The author however , as a computer engineer , has studied its most innovative and important aspect of it: The general system function , the algorithms it uses and its requirements in electronics. The result of this work is the Hermes Network Simulator , a program that describes very closely the behavior and the performance of a real system. This simulator is available for download at the Simulation section.