The importance of ergonomic factors in the design of PRT vehicle cabins

Abstract: Increasing environmental pollution from exhaust fumes, longer commuting times, difficulties in moving within cities, and rising accident rates in transport are just a few characteristics of modern life in urban agglomerations. The search for new, innovative transport solutions began as early as the 1960s. Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) is an intelligent transport system that combines the features of individual and mass urban transport, consisting of small vehicles (four-seaters) moving remotely on light infrastructure, most often an overhead rail. The article presents the importance of ergonomics and safety issues in the design of the Polish PRT vehicle structure and their impact on the technical and ergonomic quality of the cabin. The research is being conducted as part of the ECO-Mobility project, co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund under the Innovative Economy Operational Program.
1. INTRODUCTION
One of the features of our civilization is the concentration of people in cities, which are identified with modernity and technical progress, and thus with an easier life.
Unfortunately, in practice, it turns out that living in a city brings many daily inconveniences. These include haste, lack of time, and stress. These features are largely related to the limited ability to move efficiently around the city.
This results from the large number of street users – from public transport (trams, buses) to private transport (cars). Gigantic morning and afternoon “traffic jams”, collisions, and loss of time have caused an intensification of efforts to find new transport solutions whose nature and method of operation would relieve the existing “congestion” on the streets. The idea for solving the above problems is a concept for a means of transport that originated in the 1960s in the United States. The name PRT (Personal Rapid Transit) has not yet found its equivalent in the Polish language. It is an individual, collision-free, remotely controlled transport system designed for 4-6 people, fulfilling the “door to door” function, which consists of traveling from the starting station to the final destination without stopping at intermediate stations. (…)

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