Positive drive assembly for automatic, rail-based transportation system

Abstract

An automatic, rail-based passenger and cargo transportation system which is particularly well suited for use as a moderate speed people mover is disclosed. The system includes a rail structure on which passive carrier cars are movably supported from opposite sides of the rail. In one aspect a plurality of drive wheels are rotatably mounted to the rail assembly and span across the width of the rail structure so as to drive the carrier cars along the rail in opposite directions on opposite sides of the rail. In another aspect of the invention, the carrier cars are cantilever supported from the sides of the rail so as to cause gravity biasing of the cars inwardly such that a shoe is forced into driving engagement with alternating toothed and smooth drive wheels mounted in the rail framework and sufficiently spaced so that only one toothed drive wheel interengages with the shoe assembly at any time. The people mover system further includes power transmission means which couples a plurality of the drive wheels and drive motors together for operation as a unit to provide ease of control of the multi-carrier unit system and redundancy against motor failures. Alternative drive wheel configurations and locations are disclosed, as are alternate power transmission assemblies and methods for driving passive or unpowered carrier cars along the rail structure.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.