Duke University Medical Center Patient Rapid Transit or Personnel Rapid Transit (PRT) was an

automated 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 located at the

Duke University Medical Center Duke University Hospital is a 957-acute care bed academic tertiary care facility located in Durham, North Carolina. Established in 1930, it is the flagship teaching hospital for the Duke University Health System, a network of physicians and hos ...

in North Carolina, in the United States. The system was in operation from 1979 to 2009. The PRT was notable for having cars propelled by a

linear induction motor A linear induction motor (LIM) is an alternating current (AC), asynchronous linear motor that works by the same general principles as other induction motors but is typically designed to directly produce motion in a straight line. Characteristica ...

and suspended on a bed of compressed air similar to a hovercraft. Uniquely, the cars could move sideways, as well as backwards and forwards. The proclaimed "horizontal

elevator An elevator or lift is a cable-assisted, hydraulic cylinder-assisted, or roller-track assisted machine that vertically transports people or freight between floors, levels, or decks of a building, vessel, or other structure. They a ...

" system was designed by

Otis Elevator Company Otis Worldwide Corporation ( branded as the Otis Elevator Company, its former legal name) is an American company that develops, manufactures and markets elevators, escalators, moving walkways, and related equipment. Based in Farmington, Connec ...

during the 1970s, installed beginning in 1977 and opened on December 8, 1979. The PRT had three driverless

Otis Hovair Otis Hovair Transit Systems is a type of hovertrain used in low-speed people mover applications. Traditional people mover systems used wheeled vehicles propelled by electric motors or cable traction, the Hovair replaces the wheels with a hov ...

vehicles which had a hinged-window at each end for emergency exit. The concrete guideway was built as double track, connecting the three stations at Duke South, Duke North and Parking Garage II via a tunnel under Erwin Road.

Decommissioning

The 0.25-mile (<400 m) section between Duke South and Duke North was closed permanently on October 15, 2008 to allow for expansion of the hospital buildings. The remaining section connecting Duke Parking Garage II with Duke North Hospital was closed between late 2008 and early 2009. The doorway for the station at Parking Garage II was permanently boarded up and turned into a wall. The leftover tracks and infrastructure have since been largely removed to make way for new construction.

Technology

The Hovair technology has been installed around the world. Later variants have used the same air-cushion technology, but propelled the vehicles by wire cable, such as at the Getty Center in Los Angeles.

References

{{USpplmver Medical Center Patient Rapid Transit Transportation in Durham, North Carolina Hovair people movers Hospital people mover systems University people mover systems Former people mover systems in the United States Linear induction motors Railway lines opened in 1979 Railway lines closed in 2009