The man behind West Virginia University’s people-mover has reason to be riding high.
The WVU Board of Governors in June adopted a resolution renaming the Personal Rapid Transit’s engineering station as the Samy Elias Engineering PRT Station. Elias, a former industrial engineering professor and assistant to the president at WVU , oversaw the development of the PRT in the 1970s.
I am extremely honored,said Elias, now associate dean for research at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s College of Engineering and Technology.The PRT is probably the most challenging and enjoyable work of my life. It still remains the most technically advanced system of its kind in the world.
Originally from Egypt, Elias joined the engineering faculty at WVU in 1965. He was one of many engineers and traffic experts around the country exploring new transit systems in the 1960s to alleviate smog-ridden traffic congestion plaguing urban America.
He and his colleagues at the WVU College of Engineering proposed a guideway system of cars powered by electricity and controlled by computers as their transportation model. They also proposed the University citywith its three academic campuses, bumper-to-bumper traffic and hilly terrainas the demonstration site.
The projectand the siteobtained approval from the federal government in July 1969, and grant money totaling $123.6 million began filtering in shortly thereafter to pay for studies and eventual construction.
The first phase of the PRT was dedicated Oct. 24, 1972; Tricia Nixon, daughter of then-President Richard Nixon, was on board one of the five test cars for the first demonstration ride. Phase Iwhich consisted of 45 vehicles running from Walnut Street to the Evansdale campusbegan carrying passengers in October 1975. Phase IIwhich extended the system to the Robert C. Byrd Health Sciences Center and added 28 more carsbegan running in July 1979.
Boeing was the contractor on the project.
Elias said he had a crack team of engineers and technicians involved in the PRT ’s design and operation. They included Wafik Iskander, a WVU graduate student and now chairman of the Department of Industrial and Management Systems Engineering; Jack Byrd Jr. and Ralph Plummer, industrial and management systems engineering professors who were then new faculty members; Bob Fowler and Don Gochenour, two deceased faculty members; Richard Ward, a former research engineer and faculty member; Bob Bates, former PRT director; and Bob Hendershot, Bates’successor and assistant director of public safety and transportation services.
A community advisory committee was also instrumental in convincing the state’s congressional delegation to fund the project, Elias added. Committee members included Burkey
Lilly, then economic development officer with Hope Gas Co.; Terry Jones, a former lawmaker and community activist; Joseph Kun and J.P. Ball, Monongalia County commissioners at the time; and Joel Hannah, a retired local banker.
Without presenting this as a community project, I don’t think we’d have gotten the funding,said Elias, who left WVU in 1982.
Elias’former industrial engineering colleagues proposed naming the engineering station after him.
Dr. Elias and the PRT are so linked that you can’t speak of one without thinking of the other,Iskander said.Those of us who were privileged to work on the project felt the most appropriate honor for Dr. Elias would be to formally attach his name to the PRT station closest to where he worked.
To date, the PRT has transported more than 61 million passengers without accident or injury. Its 71 cars carry 15,000 passengers a day over 8.7 miles of guideway, with stations at Beechurst Avenue, Walnut Street, Evansdale (engineering and Towers) and Health Sciences.
The cost to ride the PRT is $63 for a four-month pass or 50 cents a ride. The cost is included in tuition and fees for students, who swipe their IDs to board the cars. Faculty and staff ride for free as part of their benefits package.
The PRT has attracted its share of recognition over the years.
In 1972, the National Society of Professional Engineers named the system one of the nation’s top 10 engineering achievements of the year, and the PRT guideway across Monongahela Boulevard was cited as one of the 18 most beautiful new steel bridges to be built. In 1998, the PRT beat out Disney World’s famed monorail as The New Electric Railway Journal’s pick for best overall people-mover.
Elias, meanwhile, won the first Henry Gantt Medallion Award from the Institute of Industrial Engineers in July 2001 for his innovative design of the PRT .
The Morgantown people-mover also continues to serve as a mass transit prototype. It has attracted the attention of transportation professionals from across the United States and more than 35 foreign countries. Recently a delegation from Kansas visited Morgantown to study the PRT as a possible model for a people-mover Kansas State University is considering for its Manhattan campus.
The PRT has undergone some renovations over the years. In 1998, the system underwent a $5.2 million computer upgrade and other improvements, most noticeably a paint job transforming the system’s passenger cars from a bland white to Mountaineer blue and gold. This summer workers are replacing piping that heats the PRT rails during cold weather.
A formal ceremony dedicating the station in Elias’name will be held in the near future.