Sensitivity Analysis of Personal Rapid Transit Parameters in Urban Setting: Case Study: Beirut Central District

Personal rapid transit (PRT) is a novel system that is recognized for its personal commute potential for people who seek private transport across an urban area. It provides the efficiency experienced by other public transport modes like buses and rail system, while offering the more preferred experience of an automobile. This research paper concentrates on analyzing the effects different system variables (ie, berths, speed, headway, and mode share) have on the PRT efficiency within an urban area. The system efficiency is determined based on several key performance indicators, such as the average waiting time, percentage of people who have to wait for a vehicle, how long they have to wait on average for the vehicles and the empty to full distance ratio. These indicators are obtained from the simulations results. The urban setting was chosen to be Beirut Central District (BCD), due to its crucial economic well-being for the country of Lebanon and to its current need of an efficient public transport system. PRT alignments was designed with stations locations determined based on, existing right-of-way, the land-use and the density of the area. For most of the parameters, the speed had potent effect on the results, while the mode share altered the values majorly, which was expected. However, with regards to the other variables, no correlation was witnessed.