Masdar City imagines a future with driverless taxis

Date: 22/1/2010

Abu Dhabi's Masdar City will become the world's first sustainable city, with a little help from a pioneering driverless taxi system.

Around 50,000 people are expected to live in the district and, speaking to 7Days, a spokesperson for Masdar insisted there will be no gas-guzzlers on the roads.

Instead, the company will invest in a revolutionary Personal Rapid Transport System (PRT) which will ferry passengers around the city using battery-powered automated pods.

"Masdar will be a city where people can live and work without the need of a personal vehicle, in a multi-level, barrier-free environment," the spokesperson insisted.

Currently, only two PRT systems are in operation across the globe, and neither is a fully public transport network. The first is West Virginia University's Morgantown PRT, installed in the 1970s, and a new network at London's Heathrow Airport.

Masdar aims to create the first city-wide public PRT, with car ranks placed around the district at 50 metre intervals, offering an efficient and convenient taxi service to all inhabitants.