Will You Commute via 'Personal Rapid Transit?'

There used to be (still is?) a people mover somewhat like that for the parking deck Tampa International Airport. (Best airport ever! Still better than the copycat Orlando design.)

I'd take the proposed idea, though, and go one better. Instead of " Imagine stepping onto a cold, windy platform at 2 in the morning..." I imagine a sheltered, temperature-controlled platform with doors that automatically opened and closed when the car arrived and departed.

Best airport ever!

I'm not sure I would go that far, but considering all the diverse environments and sizes of airports, I certainly put TIA near the top. I am realistic enough to recognize and honest enough to admit that since I live in the Tampa area that I may be a bit biased.

Since I travel quite often, I have seen a lot of airports and am interested in the topic of airport design (how to handle volumes of passengers, baggage and planes effectively). A design that works well for an intermediately sized metropolitan area such as Tampa (20 million passengers/year) may not work so well when scaled up to handle the volumes of Atlanta (89 million) or Chicago (66 million).

Perhaps instead of trying make an airport capable of high volume, it would be better to just have another smaller airport across town.