Years ago, when Bengaluru was choking under the pressure of its own growth, BBMP was given the task to evaluate a futuristic solution—the Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) System. I was among those who actively raised the matter and pushed for PRT as the most cost-effective, scalable, and scientifically sound urban mobility solution, especially for a city like Bengaluru with its chaotic road geometry and narrow lanes.
Unlike metro projects that are exorbitantly priced, rigid in format, and take years (sometimes decades) to complete, PRT offers a lightweight, low-footprint, spider-web style solution that can be mounted on elevated aluminum-steel pylons, weaving effortlessly across congested inner lanes and junctions.
🚝 PRT: What Bengaluru Needed and Still Needs
- ✅ Fraction of Metro’s Cost
PRT infrastructure can be built at less than 1/5th the cost of metro lines, making it far more viable for a financially stretched civic ecosystem. - ✅ Flexible Network Design
A spider-web layout of routes, customized to population clusters, last-mile challenges, and urban density—not the fixed-line design of metro or monorail. - ✅ Eco-Friendly & Smart
Most modern PRT systems are AI-controlled, electric, and emission-free. No driver, no pollution, no waiting. - ✅ Built for Narrow Lanes
Bengaluru’s inner roads can never support BRTS or Metro Rail. But PRT? It can dance through them—elevated, silent, and elegant.
🛰️ The SkyTran Episode
Back then, I shared detailed documents and proposals on NASA-based SkyTran technology with the government. I was invited by the Principal Secretary to then CM Siddaramaiah. All papers were taken, discussions were held, but no follow-up ever happened.
Years later, SkyTran was taken over by Reliance, and the same concept has moved ahead in UAE and other innovation-forward geographies. India, and especially Bengaluru, missed the bus—not because the technology failed, but because our political interest and administrative will failed.
📣 Bengaluru Must Solve Its Own Problems
Today, ₹18,000 crore is being thrown at a tunnel project that will benefit private car owners at ₹600/day, backed by a flawed DPR by a previously banned consultant, while the public pays a ₹7,200 crore viability gap.
This is not infrastructure development. This is a failure of vision.
Meanwhile, PRT remains shelved, though it’s the most practical and democratic solution we can implement—with the least disruption, best ROI, and highest coverage.
✋ My Offer to Bengaluru
If any MP, MLA, CM, or Minister is serious about solving Bengaluru’s mobility crisis—not by political lip service, but real innovation—I am ready to support, advise, and even help launch a 1 km pilot project tomorrow.
I had asked for it back then, and I am saying it again—this city can be saved. But not with tunnel vision, literally or metaphorically.
If no one’s listening, then let Bengaluru keep scrolling LinkedIn posts in English and venting on traffic jams—because that’s all we’ll ever do if real solutions are ignored.
Rajnish #RDS
Mobility Futurist | CXO Scientist | MSME & Public Infra Consultant
Founder – RDS Scalar Revolution
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