AGT Systems
During the 1960s the government had spent an increasing amount of development funding on automated guideway transit (AGT) systems as a solution to providing mass transit in smaller cities and suburbs of larger ones. At the same time, aerospace companies in the U.S. were suffering from a lack of projects as the Vietnam War wound down and the Project Apollo buildout was completed. Groups within the government and industry saw the AGT efforts as a perfect opportunity to diversify. By the time Transpo was being planned, the Urban Mass Transit Administration (UMTA), predecessor of the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), had invested $12 million in AGT research, and the companies added another $45 million.
In 1970 the UMTA felt it was time to move from experiments to prototype installations, and arranged funding for three major installations. One of these would emerge as the Vought Airtrans, another as the Morgantown PRT, and finally the third block of funds provided four companies $1.5 million each to bring their AGT developments to Transpo '72. Carlos Villarreal, administrator of the UMTA, stated that Transpo "marks UMTA's entry into the space age of mass transportation."
The four chosen systems were the Bendix Dashaveyor, the Ford ACT, TTI Hovair (a spin-off of General Motors) and the Rohr ROMAG, represented by its former rubber-wheeled prototype, the Monocab. Boeing and Vought also showed cars from their larger systems, Boeing's version of the Alden staRRcar being installed in Morgantown, and the Vought Airtrans being installed at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. Ford would later install a small ACT deployment at a shopping mall in Dearborn, and Dashaveyor would win a contest for the Toronto Zoo Domain Ride, but further sales were not forthcoming. Several European companies also presented models of their designs. The plans to use Transpo as a way to excite mayors into buying the AGT systems failed, a disappointment to both the UMTA and Congress.
Car companies at the show were sober in their assessments of the future of AGT systems. GM showed a movie about the future of transit in Detroit which clearly put the car in first place. Henry Ford II said that only a "limited portion" of the Highway Trust Fund should be used for public transportation, and then only for research into "new transportation concepts."
Read more about this topic: Transpo '72
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