Demonstrations

The company has had three public demonstrations of its systems. The first was of a high speed system, the subject of much of the video footage, in Australian Airlines terminal in Brisbane. This demonstration ran for 6 weeks and carried more than 20,000 passengers safely and with high passenger approval. We did however encounter some mechanical deficiencies with this initial system that caused us to terminate the trial and return the system to Melbourne for changes to the belt tensioning system.

The mechanical problems were solved and the model was then re-configured as a middle speed model - for which there was the prospect of large early sales - and installed in the Degraves Street subway at Flinders Street station in central Melbourne. The initial agreement - with the Melbourne City Council - was for a six months demonstration, and this was extended three times until October 1994 when the system was removed, at the Council's request, to allow up grading of the subway, and to reinstate access to display cabinets blocked by the walkway. This system, which can also be seen in the latter part of the video, ran for 11 hours per day for two years without any reported incident, and with high public acceptance.

The third demonstration was for a six-month period in 1998 at Qantas' Melbourne terminal. Our agreement with Qantas was for a strictly limited demonstration period, and the system was removed as planned at the end of the contracted period, as it caused some spatial problems for Qantas in this existing terminal corridor. A passenger survey showed that 80% of users preferred it to single speed systems, and twice as many potential riders used the system as used a single speed system in the same airport.

A single speed Loderway was installed in 1993 as a commercial ramped system entry to the basement level of the Melbourne Sports Depot in Melbourne's CBD, and ran successfully for seven years until the store was sold (this system can be seen near the end of the video). In 1993 the Loderway won the prestigious BHP Steel Award, and was "Highly Commended" in the Qantas-Rolls Royce Award for Engineering Excellence. On the basis of these demonstrations and awards LTS was able to negotiate licenses with several manufacturers of international repute.