AeroTrain is a underground

people mover A people mover or automated people mover (APM) is a type of small scale automated guideway transit system. The term is generally used only to describe systems serving relatively small areas such as airports, downtown districts or theme parks. ...

system at

Washington Dulles International Airport Washington Dulles International Airport , typically referred to as Dulles International Airport, Dulles Airport, Washington Dulles, or simply Dulles ( ), is an international airport in the Eastern United States, located in Loudoun County and Fa ...

. It was scheduled to open in fall 2009, but was delayed until 2010 in order to complete reliability tests. It opened to Dulles employees on January 20, 2010, and to passengers January 26, 2010. The system mostly replaced the

mobile lounge A mobile lounge is a system for boarding and disembarking from aircraft using a bus-like vehicle. Purpose The mobile lounge was an innovative feature of the Washington Dulles terminal design by Eero Saarinen. Saarinen promoted the mobile lounge ...

s that transport passengers from the concourses to the Main Terminal. The system cost about $1.4 billion and also includes a new security screening mezzanine. The system utilizes 29

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is a Japanese multinational engineering, electrical equipment and electronics corporation headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. MHI is one of the core companies of the Mitsubishi Group and its automobile division is the predecessor of Mitsubishi Mo ...

Crystal Mover The Crystal Mover is a rubber-tired automated people mover (APM) system for airport and light rail applications manufactured by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in Mihara, Japan. The Crystal Mover, initially based on the Japanese APM standard, is us ...

vehicles as its rolling stock. The AeroTrain transports passengers between the Main Terminal building and Concourses A, B and C. From the Main Terminal Station, trains travel to Concourse A and Concourse C in one direction, and Concourse B in the other direction. The track map for AeroTrain is shaped like a

fishhook A fish hook or fishhook, formerly also called angle (from Old English ''angol'' and Proto-Germanic ''*angulaz''), is a hook used to catch fish either by piercing and embedding onto the inside of the fish mouth (angling) or, more rarely, by impal ...

, with the Main Terminal station at the bottom. The Aerotrain runs 4 three-car trains from 5:00 AM to around 3:00 PM from which seven three-car trains run from 3:00 PM until 11:00 PM. From midnight to 5 AM there are usually two three-car trains but sometimes only one three-car train. There are supposed to be no more than two minutes between trains, and trains transport passengers to the concourses in about two minutes, at 40–42 miles per hour (the mobile lounges travel about fifteen miles per hour). Since the existing Concourse C/D (built in 1985 and renovated in 2006 to extend its life for 8-10 more years) is a temporary concourse, the Concourse C station has been built at the site of the future permanent Concourse C/D, and is connected to the existing concourse by an underground walkway. There are also plans for future expansion of the system. The AeroTrain can be expanded to include stations for the future Concourse D, two stations for an additional midfield Concourse (Concourses E and F), and a South Terminal. Once fully built out, the trains will run in a two-way loop around the airport.

References

External links

Dulles International Airport Homepage
{{North American airport people movers Airport people mover systems in the United States Crystal Mover people movers Railway lines opened in 2010 Dulles International Airport 2010 establishments in Virginia