34> Access for the Disabled

Bengt Gustafsson (www.beamways.com ) in his comments on my most recent post reminded me of a subject that has been long troubling me; Access for the disabled. I think I read somewhere that in one of Ed Anderson’s many attempts to get a project going, he was rebuffed when he tried to offer a special vehicle for the disabled and had to do a complete redesign after his idea of requiring wheelchair bound travelers to sit sideways was ruled out. Apparently every serious design is now bigger, heavier and more expensive than would ordinarily be the case. The track must also be heavier, meaning more support posts, and heavier vehicles take longer to stop, as well as consuming more power to operate. In other words, ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) compliancy for a uniform fleet will hugely and negatively affect the cost of the whole network. Getting appropriations for infrastructure is already a challenge that restricts the scope of such projects. ADA compliancy, if they are unwilling to budge on these issues, can only mean leaving more areas unserved. Don’t these people see what they’re doing? A fully implemented PRT network would open new worlds for anyone who cannot drive, especially the elderly and disabled. Waiting a minute longer for a special vehicle would be a very small price to pay.
Unfortunately the language of the ADA is in fundamental opposition to efficient PRT. PRT should take advantage of the fact that the average occupancy of a vehicle is only 1.2 persons, by optimizing for the common case and hence saving an enormous amount of energy and infrastructure costs. The ADA seeks to absolutely equalize the perceived experience for the disabled to the standard experience- but since the disabled require additional resources, this in turn forces us to expend additional, unnecessary resources on each and every rider. While an identical experience for the disabled is a nice ideal, the conservation of diminishing world resources and global warming are far more pressing.
So how about this; the vehicles come in two or more sizes. I know that seems like a lot of gratuitous headache and overhead, but I can think of no other option. Rather than have a special vehicle for the disabled (which has been deemed unacceptable) I would suggest segregating the fleet into two weight classes, with the lighter being only for a couple of passengers with luggage, for example, and passengers with any more than that would call for the heavier model. This would include anyone with need for such a vehicle, not just the disabled, such as families. The control software would dial the headway way up for the heavier vehicles to minimize the weight factor, which would not adversely affect system performance much because of the proportionally low ridership of the vehicles.
These heavier vehicles should naturally cost more, but the handicapped can always be given a discount, I bet that kind of discrimination gets little challenge.