Applications and Benefits of Accelerating Walkway Systems

by George Haikalis, ASCE, ASCE,



Document Type: Proceeding Paper

Part of: Automated People Movers: Engineering and Management in Major Activity Centers

Abstract:

A number of studies have shown that many persons resist walking, and might be willing to pay as much as 25 to 50 cents per minute to avoid walking. A new form of urban transport - Accelerating Walkway Systems (AWS) - may be able to serve this travel market. An AWS device is basically a walk-on walk-off conveyor belt that has a higher speed section with a four to one speed gain. From a benefit-cost perspective AWS would be justified in passageways serving as few as 3,200 persons daily. These systems could increase the value of more remote building sites, augment new transit lines that could be built on less costly alignments, and substitute for buses for downtown distribution, reducing operating cost.

Subject Headings: Walkways | Systems engineering | Benefit cost ratios | Value engineering | Urban areas | Transportation management | Transportation engineering

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