Empty Cab in the Desert: Masdar City Opened the World's First Public PRT in 2010
Did you know the world's first personal rapid transit system open to the general public started carrying passengers in Masdar City on November 28, 2010, months before Heathrow's airport pods welcomed the public?
Sam Okonkwo, Robotaxi · Sept. 24, 2026 · 3-4 min
ABU DHABI - Did you know the world's first personal rapid transit system open to the general public started carrying passengers in Masdar City on November 28, 2010, months before Heathrow's airport pods welcomed the public?
Masdar City, Abu Dhabi's planned low-carbon district, hired Dutch supplier 2getthere of Utrecht for a pilot podcar link between the North Car Park and the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology. The client was the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (ADFEC). According to the Advanced Transit Association, the pilot runs about 1.7 kilometers of guideway with about 10 lithium-ion (LiFePO4) battery vehicles and two passenger stations. Each pod seats about four people plus luggage. Magnets embedded in the road surface help the empty-cab fleet verify position on virtual routes. Maximum operating speed is about 25 kilometers per hour. The undercroft hop between stations takes less than two minutes.
Service runs seven days a week for about 18 hours a day (roughly 06:00 to midnight). ATRA notes a design capacity of up to about 300 passengers per hour per direction and early daily ridership of roughly 700 to 1,000 passengers. The system was certified by the Abu Dhabi Department of Transportation. ATRA reported about 99 percent system availability in the first six months. PRT Consulting, citing later operations run with 2getthere and Singapore's SMRT, says availability and vehicle reliability consistently exceeded 99.4 percent and 99.8 percent respectively, and that the network welcomed its one-millionth passenger on May 22, 2014.
Industry histories treat the Masdar opening as the first PRT, or podcar, system open to the general public. Heathrow's ULTra-based pods began public passenger service around April 18, 2011. That timing still matters on today's robotaxi wire. Long before Waymo or Zoox sold empty-cab street rides, a zero-carbon city in the desert was already summoning battery pods with nobody at a wheel.
The curiosity is not that airports later proved the idea. It is that a planned city did it first, in public, with a short guideway and a fleet that waited for you instead of the other way around.
Sources
Sam Okonkwo, Robotaxi. Sam Okonkwo is a senior correspondent covering robotaxis, fleet ops, and paid driverless service. Previously reported transport tech for trade titles; based in Austin.
