Automated Guideway Transit system is widely used in airports, amusement centers, and short-distance travels in central business districts. You can find AGT at Air Train, JFK, Schwebebahn, Germany, Disneyland, Fl, and Newark Airport. The technology includes steel wheels, rubber tires, air cushions, and magnetic levitation. Automated Guideway Vehicles are guided transit passenger vehicles operating under a fully automated system with no crew on transit units.
There are two types of AGT - Group Rapid Transit (GRT) and Personal Rapid Transit (PRT). Group Rapid Transit consists of moving blocks of riders with common origins and destinations. Large vehicles can be used. Off-line stations would be desirable. All presently existing AGT systems are GRT. Complex APMs deploy fleets of small vehicles over a network of guideways with off-line stations in a dynamic configuration that supplies non-stop service to passengers. These taxi-like systems are referred to as Personal Rapid Transit.
In Personal Rapid Transit, small vehicles are used (2-6 people) to transport individual parties directly from origin to destination, which eliminates intermediate stops. An optimum system would consist of a network of lines. PRT has been demonstrated, but no operational system has yet been constructed.
The AGT top speed is up to 55 mph; weight is 9.5-13.76 tons; gauge is 2 feet to 2.62 inches; and station spacing is short.
The VAL (Vehicule Automatique Leger) system in Lille, France is acknowledged to be the first AGT installed to serve an existing urban area. Lille's VAL, opened in 1983, is often cited as the world's first mass transit AGT, but the title is disputed by Kobe's Port Liner, which opened two years earlier in 1981.
A Rapid Urban Flexible (RUF) test track was opened at Ballerup, near Copenhagen, in 2000. The track is very short (25 meters) and has one test vehicle. Tests have shown that practical personal vehicles can be developed with dual mode qualities.
Sometimes the term "people mover" is applied to considerably more complex automated systems. The world's first airport people mover was installed in 1971 at Tampa International Airport in the United States.
Driverless metros have become common in Europe and parts of Asia. The economics of automated trains tend to reduce the scale tied to "mass" transit, so that small-scale installations are feasible. The cities like Brescia, Rennes, Lausanne, etc. that are normally considered to be too small to build a metro are now doing so. In the U.S. AGT s have become common at large airports and progressive hospitals.