1300042 Designing and delivering ‘The Cube' mixed-used building in Birmingham, UK
by Stuart Brumpton, David Trujillo and Simon Walker (August 2014)
Contribution by Keith Rollinson
I consider the appearance of ‘The Cube', described by Brumpton et al. (2014), to be a step back to the kind of showy erections in the 1960s that are now widely condemned and being replaced. As described in the paper, complex structural solutions were necessary to achieve the building's appearance. Such solutions are likely to be high maintenance and are more suited to an isolated exhibition centre or sporting venue. A city centre building should have a long-term traditional appearance harmonising with earlier buildings of good quality to create or maintain historical dignity. 
The Cube, Birmingham: out of date and out of place?
Reference
1300043 Heathrow airport's personal rapid transit system proves to be a viable transport solution
by Tony Kerr, Martin Lowson and Austin Smith (May 2014)
Contribution by John Richardson
Regarding the Heathrow ‘pod' project, Kerr et al. (2014) say virtually nothing on capital and running costs and the policy on cost recovery from users, or indeed how fares are charged. The argument against personalised transit systems has been, to date, that they are too expensive for full cost recovery, unless perhaps broader economic costing is used in the calculations.
Authors' reply
The Heathrow pod cost recovery is through the Terminal 5 business car parking charge. Since the pod service began, car parking charges for this car park have been raised by over 20% and yet car park occupancy has increased by around 10%, reaching maximum capacity mid-week on a regular basis. This increase in revenue has taken place during the recent economic recession, the pod having been in operation since May 2011.
In addition to the increase in car park revenue, significant income has been gained through the sale of advertising on the vehicles and has recently been augmented through selling access to the system to clients of an adjacent hotel, the fare carrying a small premium on the Hotel Hoppa bus service.
More generally, the value obtained from the introduction of personal rapid transit should be considered in a holistic manner which looks beyond direct revenues. The on-demand, direct service characteristics of personal rapid transit can provide journey time savings to passengers, reducing perceived distances. There are several studies linking commercial and residential land values to heavy rail and light rail transit accessibility), with values typically 10–30% greater in areas with good access to stations (Hass-Klau and Crampton, 2004; Poulter, 2003; Steer Davies Gleave, 2011).
Areas with personal rapid transit systems would also be able significantly to reduce the area dedicated to parking and carriageways, with associated benefits in terms of density of development through tighter building spacing and quality of life through reduced traffic noise and pollution. A development featuring personal rapid transit would be able to locate car parking within multi-storey or surface car parks on lower-value areas of land rather than in more costly basement parking structures.
While the role of personal rapid transit is seen as a ‘last mile' connection rather than in direct competition to traditional public transport modes such as bus and light rail transit, there are areas and applications where the two could compete. It is worth noting when assessing such applications that in much of the developed world public transport is in receipt of considerable subsidies from national government. For example, the overall net level of UK government subsidy for bus services was estimated as £2·3 billion in 2011–2012, with these subsidies estimated to account for around 45% of all bus operators' revenues (Butcher, 2013).
