MINUTES OF ASCE AUTOMATED PEOPLE MOVER STANDARDS COMMITTEE
ATLANTA, JUNE 3rd & 4th, 2009
Meeting held at the Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel, 210 Peachtree Street, Atlanta (first day), and Atlanta Airport Executive Conference Center (second day).
OPENING: Larry Smith opened the meeting at 2:00 PM Wednesday, June 3rd. A number of guests and interested parties were present because of the APM Conference that had taken place over the preceding two and one-half days, so Larry asked that everyone introduce themselves. Fifty-three people attended the first day, thirty-three the second day, as listed below. Names marked with a single asterisk attended the June 3rd session only. A double asterisk indicates attendance on June 4th only.
ATTENDEES:
Larry Smith, Chairman Tom McGean, Past Chair
Tedd Snyder, Vice-Chair Chuck Elms, Self employed
Paul Didrikson, Secretary Denise Burleson, Lea+Elliott
Mike Shumack, Configuration & Webmaster Redjean Clerc, Siemens TS
Jonathan Esslinger, ASCE T&DI Jim Fletcher, Parametrix
Steven Poerschmann, Atlanta Airport Michael Deiparine, Parametrix
Victor Howe, Washington Dulles Airport Diane Morse – FAA
Ortfried Friedreich, Axis Engineers David Taliaferro, DFW Int’l Airport
Peter DeLeonardis, Stanley Access Tech. John Kapala, IAC- Atlanta Airport
Mike Riseborough, GTAA Catherine Cronin, Newark Airport
Rudiger vom Hovel, TÜV Rheinland Kenny Williams, Jacksonville (JTA)
Thomas Rettig, TÜV Rheinland of N.A. Diego Parra, Houston Airport System
Richard Prell, Conductix – Wampfler Douglas Baird, Parsons
Kevin Jensen, Conductix – Wampfler Matt Barkley, Bombardier
Michael Ang, MHIA Murthy Bondada, Consultant
Darin Friedman, MHIA **Peter Muller, PRT Consulting
Martin Lowson, Advanced Transport Systems *Sam Lott, Kimley Horn & Assoc.
*Bob Dunning, Advanced Transit Assoc. *David Holdcroft, BAA Heathrow
*Dean Hurst, Jakes Associates *Adrian vanden Enden, GTAA
*Matt McDoe, T&DI President *Raed Dwairi, CPUC
*Bob Griebenow, Berger/ABAM *Ralf Wiesenberg, ACS
*Didier Dupre, Alstom Transport *Robbert Zohmann, 2GetThere
*Bill Showalter, Advanced Transit Services * Masaki Kuwabara, IHI Corp.
*Akira Morisada, Nippon Signal Co. * Stéphane Dubois, RATP
*Diego Cocco, Systematica *Anselme Cote, Chairman IEC TC9
*Jorgen Gustafsson, Vectus PRT *André Danne, RATP
* John Champ, Crystal Mover Services *Harley Moore, Lea+Elliott
LOGISTICS: Steve Poerschmann, meeting host, described the location of the meeting room for the second day of meetings (Atlanta Airport Executive Conference Center), as well as other logistics. John Champ of Crystal Mover Services, sponsor of the Wednesday evening dinner, described the logistics and location (Bentley’s Steak House at the Airport Marriott South).
First Meeting Session
Westin Peachtree Hotel, Wednesday, June 3rd:
PRT Taskforce: Bob Griebenow, Task Leader, introduced the PRT taskforce. He stated that PRT suppliers who have been involved in the process have listed areas of the Standard with which they have issues. The two primary areas of difficulty appear to be the ‘brick wall stop’ and movements within station areas. The intention for the June 3rd session is to have an open discussion in an attempt to reach consensus.
Sam Lott described his efforts over the past several months related to this issue. He had visited and/or interviewed by telephone or e-mail the following PRT/GRT suppliers / developers:
(a) Martin Lowson of ATS at Heathrow
(b) Jorgen Gustafsson of Vectus in Uppsala, Sweden,
(c) Mike Lester of Taxi 2000 (by telephone)
(d) Gene Nishinaga of CyberTran International (by telephone)
(e) Robbert Lohmann of 2GetThere (by e-mail).
The purpose of the interviews was to obtain the input of PRT/GRT suppliers / developers regarding the functionality requirements of the APM Standard, and in particular the matter of the brick-wall stop criteria for safe train separation along the guideway. Sam has collected their comments and discussed them within the taskforce, but is not at liberty to release them to the full committee because some of the information is proprietary.
The Command & Control Taskforce (Chaired by Redjean Clerc, with members: Charlie Martin, Jim Hoelscher, Jorge Nahke, and Ray Warner) was formed in February 2008 to study these issues. Redjean addressed the meeting stating that the taskforce has learned a considerable amount about how the proposed PRT systems operate, and has considered how these systems could be accommodated within the Standard, particularly with respect to Section 5.1.1 ”Presence Detection” and Section 5.1.2 “Separation Assurance”. He suggested that it might be necessary to add a section to the standard addressing off-line stations. If such a section was added, it would apply to all technologies, not just PRT. He stated that the Atlanta meeting is an opportunity to discuss and learn more. (See also Attachment One, provided by Redjean).
Presentation by Martin Lowson of Advanced Transport Systems: Martin Lowson showed a presentation outlining the history of ATS and their project at Heathrow. He stated that the U.K. Regulator does not require the use of the APM Standard, but rather a hazard analysis approved by Her Majesty’s Railway Inspectorate (HMRI) and approval of a safety case, following which a “letter of no objection” is issued, which allows carrying passengers. The process has changed in recent years: until 2006 this was entirely under the control of HMRI, but new regulations introduced in 2006 reduced HMRI to an advisory role.
The Heathrow system is now subject to the “Railway and other Guided Transport Systems” regulations, or ROGS. The ULTra PRT system produced by ATS falls into a class operating at speeds of less than 25 mph. ROGS requires suppliers to:
(a) establish a written safety verification scheme; and
(b) appoint a “competent person” who must undertake the safety verification.
ULTra have appointed as their “competent person” a safety verification team including Chris Elliott, Steve Firth, John May, and Paul Fairbairn.
In response to a question from Tom McGean, Martin Lowson stated that the present design assumptions for ULTra do include the brick-wall stop, but that in the future they may ask that this requirement be relaxed. Martin was not able to say whether the ROGS regulations presently include such a requirement, but mentioned that the ROGS tend to retain historical principles.
Martin stated that safety cases prepared in the U.K. are required to include calculations of the probability of “Fatalities and Weighted Injuries”, where one fatality is taken as being equal to ten serious injuries or 200 minor injuries.
Presentation by Jorgen Gustafsson of Vectus PRT: Jorgen Gustafsson stated that the approval process in Sweden is somewhat similar to that described by Martin Lowson for the U.K. He described the documents that Vectus has produced, including a safety case, risk analyses, sensitivity analyses, and value-for-money analyses. He stated that the safety analysis comprises about 1500 pages. One of the assumptions made by Vectus is that when vehicles are in station platform areas people will want to stand up, and therefore that it is not permissible to allow vehicles to bump together.
Vectus have conditional approval to operate their test track, and they are now in a monitoring phase. Jorgen stated that he believes the Vectus system is compliant with the APM Standard. He had suggested using the APM Standard to Swedish authorities, but he said that they were more comfortable with European standards.
Presentation by Robbert Lohmann of 2GetThere: The history of the 2GetThere PRT system goes back to a 1995 pilot project at Schiphol airport. The system uses magnets in the running surface for guidance, and has an obstacle detection system. Mr. Lohmann stated that in the development of the 2GetThere PRT system, all relevant international standards were reviewed, but it was concluded that no standard existed that was applicable to their technology. He stated that the Masdar project, which will use a 2GetThere PRT system, will have an independent safety assessor, using a process similar to that described by the Vectus and ULTra suppliers.
Summary by Bob Griebenow: Bob stated that the conversation that had been started over the past sixteen months between the PRT community and the APM Standards Committee should continue. He volunteered to continue to lead the effort of the PRT taskforce, and assign tasks.
MOTION: Tom McGean moved, seconded by Chuck Elms, that the PRT Command & Control Taskforce chaired by Redjean Clerc is tasked to generate specific wording for off-line station operation at reduced speed. The motion passed.
Presentation on the IEC 62267 AUGT Systems Safety Standard: André Danne and Anselme Cote presented a summary of the work that has been done over the past seven years to produce the IEC 62267 Automated Urban Guided Transport system standard. André expressed his gratitude for the work done by Sam Lott, who provided valuable input to the AUGT taskforce, including some from members of the APM Standards Committee. Sam commented that the AUGT standard has a different scope than the APM standard, in that the AUGT standard covers only safety-related items caused by the absence of a driver, whereas the APM Standard defines minimum requirements for a complete APM system.
Tom McGean commented about the reasons that the APM Standard is written the way it is:
(a) The APM Standard covers a complete APM system. It was conceived as a minimum standard that would allow organizations such as hospitals, universities, or airports who do not have transit system design specialists on staff to specify an APM system with confidence that the resulting system would work properly and be safe. The development of the APM Standard started in a time when ambitious promoters were making unrealistic promises about system capabilities, hence the need for definition of standard requirements.
(b) The APM Standard attempts to capture the state of the art, and is therefore somewhat prescriptive. The intention in developing the APM Standard was to obtain input from the most experienced people in the APM industry as to best practices. This is somewhat in contrast with the AUGT standard, which describes a process, but doesn’t provide guidance.
Closing of the first meeting session: Sam Lott expressed the appreciation of the Committee that the visitors (representatives of ATS, Vectus, 2GetThere and RATP), had changed their plans to stay for the Wednesday afternoon session with the APM Standards Committee. Larry Smith closed the session.
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Second Session APM Standards Committee Meeting
Atlanta Airport Executive Conference Center Thursday, June 4th:
Opening Second Session: Larry Smith reconvened the second session of the meeting at 8:30 AM and expressed the committee’s appreciation to our meeting host Steve Poerschmann, Atlanta Airport, for providing the meeting room, refreshments, lunch, AV’s, and coordinating the CONRAC tour and presentation provided by Darin Friedmann and Mike Ang, MHIA, John Kapala, IAC, and the Wednesday evening dinner provided by John Champ, Crystal Mover Service, at Bentley’s Steak House Restaurant. The committee operates without a budget and relies on hosts and sponsors to facilitate our meetings.
Approval of minutes from Tampa MEETING: A motion was made by Tom McGean to accept the minutes, seconded by Mike Shumack. The motion carried. Mike Riseborough of GTAA was thanked for volunteering to perform the task of Secretary at the Tampa meeting.
Report from the Atlanta APM Conference: Jon Esslinger stated that the total attendance at the APM Conference was 253, and that the technical sessions were well attended. Twenty-two of the available twenty-four exhibit spaces were sold. The steering committee had deliberately increased the focus on PRT and automated transit for this conference. The proceedings were made available to participants in a hard-copy book rather than a CD. This is due to economic considerations – hard copies are more economical for small quantities (when ASCE produces CDs, some development cost is involved because they provide search capability etc.). There were requests to make the presentations available in addition to the papers. This may be done, but the logistics will probably take a year. For future conferences ASCE will probably ask presenters to send the PowerPoint files in advance. The 2011 conference will probably be in Paris, with Siemens Transport Systems as a major sponsor. The 2013 conference will be back in North America, possibly Phoenix or Vancouver. There is some discussion about changing the name of the conference from APM to Automated Transit.
MEMBERSHIP REPORT: The committee membership is presently balanced, with:
(a) Producer 28 members 37.8%
(b) Consumer 29 members 39.2%
(c) General Interest 17 members 23.0%
Within the General Interest category, the sub-category of Regulatory members is required to be within the range of 5 to 15%. We are presently at 5.4%. Therefore we need more Regulatory members if we wish to add to any other category of membership.
Doppelmayr Cable Car has requested membership on the Committee, because apparently their two previous representatives (Frank Mauderer and Dieter Jussel) have left the company. This request could be accommodated while maintaining balance if Frank and Dieter would request to be moved to the general interest category.
INTERNATIONAL DATABASE: Rudiger vom Hovel stated that the database is presently missing some projects, including Brescia, Rome, Thessaloniki and Budapest. The situation is confusing in Europe regarding urban systems. There is no general rule regarding certification across Europe; it is ad hoc. The European Commission has a project underway (led by TÜV) to look into this issue, and to attempt to get to a uniform process. Rudiger estimates that this project will go on for three years.
Following discussion, Rudiger vom Hovel agreed to review the list, incorporate the information that was presented by RATP on June 3rd, and submit the list for review at the next meeting.
WEB SITE REPORT (APMSTANDARDS.ORG): Mike Shumack explained that there are two views available on the website: the public screens and the members-only screens, which are accessible using a password. Mike places information on the website that is approved by the Committee.
A “new look” version of the website has been developed with help from a member of Mike Riseborough’s staff. Mike Shumack showed the “new look” screens to the meeting to obtain approval to change the website to the new version. There was general agreement in the meeting that the new version was a significant improvement. Mike agreed to implement the change over the next couple of weeks. He will incorporate minor changes from comments made in the meeting.
NFPA UPDATE: Rod Falvey was not present in the meeting, but had sent a message to the Chair indicating that there was no significant change in status.
International Airport APM Association: Mike Shumack indicated that Victor Howe is the new president of the association. There has been some discussion within the association of opening up membership to non-airport users. This will involve a name change, possibly to “APM Users Group”.