Ford ACT

The widespread introduction of the automobile in the late 1950s into the 1960s led to new problems in the city cores in terms of moving people to and from work. This was not so much a problem in cities with extensive mass transit systems, like New York City or London, but the expense of developing a useful metro system was one that could only be undertaken by the largest and richest cities. Studies in Canada placed the cost of a conventional metro system at between $75 and $80 million per mile in 1980,[1] about $250 million in 2013, and required high passenger utilization to pay for its construction.

President Kennedy started the process of creating a federally funded project to study the problem and develop solutions.[2] A particularly influential work at the time was Donn Fichter's Individualized Automatic Transit and the City. Most mass transit systems, even today, utilize set routes and stops, generally requiring the rider to change vehicles to reach their destination. Fichter suggested that the only way you could coax drivers to use mass transit would be if it offered the same point-to-point flexibility as the car. Several studies followed, notably by RAND and the Aerospace Corporation, exploring a wide variety of people mover systems.

A series of bills passed through the 1960s and 1970s created the Urban Mass Transportation Administration (UMTA), with funding to develop new systems to match the needs outlined by the earlier reports. Several companies were invited to enter Phase I proposals, which were presented in mock-up form at Dulles Airport for the Transpo 72 trade show.[3] The primary entries were LTV's Airtrans, Rohr, Inc.'s ROMAG and Ford's ACT. These systems shared a number of features; they were completely automated in operation, used computer-guidance to allow short headways (inter-car spacing) as small as 10 seconds, and featured on-demand point-to-point routing. They differed primarily in the technology used to support and guide the train; some used rubber wheels, some were hovercraft, and some were maglev systems.

Development of ACT started as an unofficial project in a Ford engineer's basement. John Logan became interested in the people mover concept and invited fellow engineers Richard Skruch and Denny Colovas to join him in designing what would become ACT. They presented their ideas to management, and in the fall of 1970 they agreed to provide funds to develop a prototype car and a short guideway to test it.[4] A mock-up, somewhat different in design from the actual prototypes, was demonstrated at the Transpo '72 show.

A 4000 foot test guideway was built near Allen Park, MI for testing and development of the Transpo '72 demonstration vehicles. Later, a test facility with a complete loop, a bypass area, test grade, maintenance spur and maintenance building, was erected near Ypsilanti, MI. For a time in late 1974, this facility was home to the Transpo '72 vehicles, and the vehicles that would ultimately be installed at Connecticut's Bradley International Airport and Dearborn's Fairlane Town Center. The Fairlane system was worked into a real estate development across the road from Ford's test tracks in Dearborn, MI. One end of the new track connected with one station attached to the exterior of the new Hyatt Regency hotel and the other inside the Fairlane Town Center shopping mall, where the vehicles were stored outside their hours of operation and serviced.[4] A single by-pass for switching was located between the two. The track and two cars completed basic testing in 1976, and were turned over for passenger use between the two buildings. Although the ACT system was later removed, the Fairlane mall's layout retains several vestigial signs of its former presence, notably the bisection of its central interior court.[5]

During the project's lifetime there were numerous expressions of interest in the ACT system. It was one of three Phase II contenders for the GO-Urban project in Toronto, but Ford withdrew after the plans evolved into a higher-speed system for inter-urban movements, not the slower short-haul routes ACT was intended for.[6] A deal was signed for a system at Bradley Field in Hartford, CT,[7] but fell through due to budget cuts after basic installation and state acceptance tests were completed.[8] A 2.1 mile long loop was considered for El Paso, TX to connect the city with Juarez across the Rio Grande,[9] but also fell to budget cuts. Grand Rapids was the target of a UMTA proposal, but ended along with the UMTA funding.

By the early 1980s interest in people mover systems in urban areas was waning, especially after UMTA lost most of its funding after a somewhat negative GAO report, Better Justification Needed for Automated People Mover Demonstration Projects.[3] Ford put ACT on "indefinite hold" and the project essentially disappeared.[10]