Thursday, 5 December 2024

YYC Link: Calgary Airport Internal Transit

 Very quick post on the airside inter-terminal transit system at Calgary International Airport.  It's a tracked system, with marked stops offering real time information and level boarding, but operated by typical airport/station style electric buggies.  Being manually driven without guidance the track takes up quite a lot of space compared to a guided system.  The nearest comparison I can think of is the Subway that runs inside the subterranean corridors of Houston George Bush Intercontinental Airport, which by virtue of being a tracked system uses less space for much more capacity than the Calgary system. Despite Calgary's system, there are also travelators/moving walkways available too, which in most airports would be an either/or (e.g. subterranean transfer trains at Heathrow Terminal 5 or Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson). YYC Link apparently has 20 electric vehicles in use each seating ten passengers.  Ridership seemed to be virtually zero.