Accelerating Moving Walkway: A review of the characteristics and potential application Indraswari Kusumaningtyas * , Gabriel Lodewijks Section of Transport Engineering and Logistics, Faculty of Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Mekelweg 2, 2628 CD Delft, Zuid Holland, The Netherlands Received 15 August 2006; accepted 1 January 2008 Abstract Moving walkways have been used for people transport for more than a century. One of the latest innovations in this field is the Accelerating Moving Walkway (AMW), which provides higher transport speed. However, the application of moving walkways is still limited to short-distance travel up to 300 m. This paper summarizes and analyses the findings of a literature review on (accelerating) moving walkways, which aims to compare the characteristics of AMWs with other public transport systems, namely buses, light rails, Automated People Movers (APMs), and Personal Rapid Transits (PRTs). Based on the comparative evaluation, we conclude that AMWs can be competitive to the other transport modes. Hence, we propose the potential application of AMWs for the transport of people, i.e. pedestrians, over longer distances. Subsequently, issues related to the concept of long-distance AMWs are briefly introduced as topics for further research. Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Accelerating Moving Walkway; Public transport system; Comparative evaluation; Characteristic; Pedestrian; Long distance 1. Introduction Moving walkways are a mode of people transport that fall into the category of continuous people movers, as they continuously provide transport capacity during operation. There is no waiting time for passengers who wish to use them. Moving walkways can be found in sporting arenas, shopping centres, exhibition audito- riums, and, most significantly, major transportation facilities such as airports and train/metro stations. Other people transport systems may also exist in these public areas. Nevertheless, moving walkways have found their own niche within the transport market (Young, 1995). The conventional moving walkways have a constant transport speed of approximately half of the maximum pedestrian walking speed. Their speed-range of 0.5–0.83 m/s is considered low, sometimes resulting in a low level-of-service and passengers’ impatience. Hence, many passengers choose to walk on the moving walkway, or simply bypass it and walk on the adjacent floor instead. Nowadays growth in the scale of public facilities 0965-8564/$ - see front matter Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.tra.2008.01.003 * Corresponding author. Tel.: +31 15 2789417; fax: +31 15 2781397. E-mail addresses: i.kusumaningtyas@tudelft.nl (I. Kusumaningtyas), g.lodewijks@tudelft.nl (G. Lodewijks). Available online at www.sciencedirect.com Transportation Research Part A 42 (2008) 591–609 www.elsevier.com/locate/tra