Adam Smith in his "Wealth of Nations" pointed out that passenger service any where had NEVER made money (and this was in the days BEFORE railroads). The same is true today. The railroads of old survived on the profits of Freight, passengers barely paid for the operations of the train they actually road on, never paid for the tracks or the overhead of the Railroad running the train.
Streetcars suffered the same fate, never making money unless they had extensive freight traffic. Most streetcars lines were built by real estate developers to open up their real estate development to prospective buyers. The profit was NOT in running the Streetcar line, but in selling the homes. When the Automobile became the "wave of the future" gasoline taxes were to pave the street, recent studies show that gasoline taxes do NOT pay for the construction and maintenance of roads, some other tax has to be used to subsidize such roads (Mostly in the form of Real estate taxes at the local level while most construction of suburban streets are tied in with the cost of each home in the development, just like the cost building of a Streetcar line, been carried by the people who purchased homes from the real estate developer had been around 1900).
The Airlines were subsidized directly by the Post Office (in the form of Air Mail) in the 1930s, and 1940s, and then by local government that provided tax free landing fields (with the Post office still subsidizing the airlines with "space available" mail i.e. passenger planes are topped off with Letters from the Post Office, and the airlines count on this additional money when it comes to how they are run).
My point is Adam Smith was right in 1775 when he wrote his book, and is right today, NO PASSENGER SERVICE HAS EVER MADE PROFIT. At times such organizations can claim a profit, but once you look into the accounting games most such providers of passenger service use, you quickly see it is a game, transferring profits from some other area to cover up the loss on providing passenger service.
Thus I can only laugh at your statement that Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) would be profitable the first time it is used, it would be the first time for ANY PASSENGER SERVICE. Passenger service is always subsidized by Fright, for fright is constant and steady, passengers come and go.
Furthermore how would PRT make a profit, if no one uses it? That is a big fear for most of the people who want to use mass transit want to get on and off as quickly as possible, the ride itself is minor. The smaller the car, the less people can get on each one and the less people can get on and off. Volume is want people who use Mass transit wants, not privacy. If they want privacy they would go in their automobile, most people are willing to give privacy up for frequency of getting on and off the transit system.
As I have said before, PRT is a solution looking for a problem to solve. PRT can NOT handle a high volume of users getting off and on at the same stop (Which is want people want when they take mass transit, even if it is a bus) nor can it be as flexible as an Automobile for it can not go on unimproved roads. PRT would work in an area of low population density where people getting off and on it are few and far between. The problem is no one will pay for such a massive system for such a level of service, the automobile does a better job of that then any of the proposed PRT systems.
Now the DMA Sky way system does address the problem of most PRT systems, but still suffers from the fact getting off and on the system in your own car is the biggest problem. Thus may increase the number of vehicles on an interstate system but getting the cars onto the system and off the system would still exists AND still does not address the problem of heavy density areas. The biggest problem, is most people will want to take the same exit and that will slow down the system as traffic backs up into the main lanes, thus defeating the whole concept. DMA Skyway system has the advantage of being able to use private cars, thus permitting people to use the system to get through high congestions areas, but the reason most areas have high congestions is these are choke points, to many people are getting on or off the interstate at the same time. Thus you have to address that rapid and frequent entering and exiting all at the same time. Given the added speed such a system would entail, it would quickly become unworkable. The better solution is to accept the need to travel in a large group with strangers, something people have done for thousands of years, while walking all over this planet, thus light rail is a more variable option then the various PRT systems and their variants like the DMA Skyway.
For a video on DMA Skyway:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYNMRnrgVQQP.S the Skyway system does hold the possibility of higher speeds but only for people wanting to go through a metro area. It would be like an expressway through the Metro area, but if you want to stop in the metro area that will slow the whole system down, except if such exiting and entering are restricted to a very limited number of points (Any backups would have to occur before entering or after leaving the Skyway to avoid making such an exit a major bottleneck, careful design would be needed, for example moving the car to a huge parking lot to take a Light Rail Vehicle (Which shows you the problem, a better solution would be a massive Light Rail system so that most people do not take the interstate, leaving the interstate to people going through not to the metro area).
Just pointing out, the Skyway system had the same problem as most other PRT systems, it is a non solution in high population density areas, and the automobile is the better option elsewhere.
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