Westinghouse Skybus

The Westinghouse Skybus, also called the Transit Expressway, was a driverless, rubber-tired electric transit car developed by the Westinghouse Electric Corporation in the 1960s with the Port Authority of Allegheny County for Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The cars ran on a dedicated elevated concrete guideway instead of streetcar rails and could operate alone or coupled into trains. A demonstration line of about 1.77 miles was built in South Park, where four cars, each about 30 feet 6 inches long and seating 28, carried fairgoers from 1965 to 1971 at speeds up to 50 miles per hour. A plan for an 11-mile Skybus line from the South Hills to downtown Pittsburgh was adopted in 1969 but ended amid political and legal controversy, light rail was recommended in 1976, and the track and cars were dismantled in 1980, although one vehicle is preserved. The technology was developed into Westinghouse's C-100 and later the Innovia APM people movers used at airports and in cities.