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PRT 50th Anniversary radio spot - October 30, 2025
Transcript
Shauna Johnson: This is West Virginia University. First built as an experimental project, dubbed the ride of the future, with a potential 10-year lifespan, the iconic Personal Rapid Transit system. The PRT is marking 50 years. Transportation Director Jeremy Evans says throughout its history, the PRT has logged more than 100 million passenger trips for students, faculty, staff and visitors.
Jeremy Evans: That's truly a testament to the maintenance staff and the people that work here. People take great pride in how well the PRT runs in serving the students, it's very important to everyone here.
Shauna Johnson: Initially funded by the US Department of Transportation, with design and construction from Boeing, the PRT holds a place in history as the country's first large-scale automated guideway transit system.
Jeremy Evans: For us, it's just always been here, so we just kind of take it for granted. But trying to explain it to someone else, we're really a people mover, so we get students, people, from point A to point B.
Shauna Johnson: The PRT system includes 67 rubber-tired, electrically-powered vehicles. Cars travel at speeds of up to 33 miles per hour on more than eight miles of dedicated guideway between five stations, Walnut, Beechurst, Engineering, Towers and Health Sciences.
Jeremy Evans: There is no other system like this. Our on-demand is really what sets us apart, so you can get on any PRT vehicle, pick the destination that you want to go to, and we'll take you direct there and bypass all the other stations. Other transit agencies, other airports, you can get on similar systems, but you have to stop at every station. So we're much more efficient, the only ones that do it this way.
Shauna Johnson: After an upgrade to the computer-based control system in 2018, the next phase of the PRT's ongoing evolution will focus on the cars themselves.
Jeremy Evans: They are 50 years old, and it's time to start thinking about what that future PRT is, and that's exciting, because there's a lot of different technology now that didn't exist 50 years ago. If you think about possibilities, maybe going to a battery-powered vehicle, that could someday allow us to take the PRT vehicle off the PRT guideway, out into a dedicated lane somewhere, that we could get us other places across campus, other places in town, I think that's a really exciting opportunity.
Shauna Johnson: So let's go. Follow our stories at wvutoday.wvu.edu.
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