The Morgantown Personal Rapid Transit system threads its way through West Virginia University, taking thousands of people a day around the campus, non-stop. It's a system that was meant to be the future: so why isn't it? Thanks to all the WVU Transportation and Parking team for helping with this video! You can find more about the project here: http://transportation.wvu.edu/prt And the technical manual for the system is here, as a PDF: http://assets.slate.wvu.edu/resources/1610/1406301617.pdf On camera, thanks to MATT GRAY: http://youtube.com/unnamedculprit - http://twitter.com/unnamedculprit - http://mattg.co.uk And thanks to DAN W: http://twitter.com/iamdanw And edited by Michelle Martin: http://twitter.com/mrsmmartin ! I'm at http://tomscott.com on Twitter at http://twitter.com/tomscott on Facebook at http://facebook.com/tomscott and on Instagram and Snapchat as @tomscottgo

Comments

1. Best video and story on the WVU PRT I have ever seen. Thank you for getting to Wild, Wonderful West Virginia for the story.
2. I think this is fantastic. a great system and a great video. Thanks!
3. This with California City, a zip line and human powered giant theme park will help bloom the west! Anyone want to move? State your occupation of choice if you do!
4. Is it weird I think it would be a fun job to hop around the trains, cleaning them when they're unoccupied?
5. I started at WVU in the Fall of 1975 - the last semester for the buses. The next semester they started the PRT. It was much better than waiting 20+ minutes per bus, plus they had enclosed stations to wait in. As for the number of people it moved, they said it was moving 20,000 students per day, up and down all the hills in Morgantown (not a place where you can walk or bike between campuses which are 5-6 miles apart) at something like a 98% efficiency. Not bad for a prototype! And it wasn't just Senator Byrd's influence, but that WVU had one of the best Engineering schools in the nation and diverse enough climate to test the system.
   
   How can someone visit Morgantown and NOT see the PRT? When they designed it, they did not know what type of cars they would be using, so they build the trails to carry full sized train cars.
6. LMAO the prt never shuts down??? hahahhaah its shut down multiple times a day... just check @wvudot on twitter
7. Just like the people mover at Disneyland thought that would also be the future of moving people too.
8. Amazing...I knew nothing of this neat little line.
9. I live in Morgantown, and our PRT is really hard to miss unless you're just passing through town on the highway, or if you're on the wrong side of the river.
   But, because it was built a long time ago, it was programmed using Fortran. That's the same language used for the IBM machine used by NASA, if anyone has watched Hidden Figures.
   But, it is a real letdown that nobody really knows about what's in our town. Even if it is SO COOL. Morgantown is in the Appalachian region, so there aren't steep mountains, but rolling, stacking hills.
   I've grown up in Morgantown my whole life and it is so amazingly cool; I don't want to live anywhere else.
10. Robert Byrd the kkk grandmaster, should have mentioned this
11. I live in West Virginia and i hope to go to WVU in the future
12. So are pod cars like elevators for the road?
13. Well im a WWU student and i assure you these son of a bitches are not that reliable they're down a lot
14. I used to ride the PRT everyday as a freshman. Glad to see others think it's cool!
15. hey Tom, did you think about visiting Wuppertal Schwebebahn? it's similar, there are a few videos on YouTube
16. This is a great video! I actually live in Morgantown and attend WVU! Very fun to watch your take on the Morgantown PRT.
17. Tom. !!!!
18. It's embarrassing that Northern California doesn't have this. We can barely get a train to work.
19. This. near me. ASAP. Thanks.