IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/tec/journl/ojs13766.html

Four Decades of the Detroit People Mover: A Review

Author

Listed:
  • Utpal Dutta

    (University of Detroit Mercy, Department of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering)

  • Gracie Rickman

    (University of Detroit Mercy, Department of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering)

  • Cornelius Henry

    (Detroit Transportation Corporation: Detroit People Mover , Department of Transportation)

Abstract

The Detroit People Mover (DPM) was envisioned as a regional transit system, originally planned to connect regions of Pontiac and Port Huron. The disagreements between local governments led to a scaled version of the original. Today, it is a 2.94-mile elevated automated transit system that has encircled downtown Detroit since 1987. Over four decades of existence and carrying over 40 million riders, the system has only experienced 1 fatal crash. The City of Detroit is figuring out ways to bring notice to the driverless system that has had free fares since 2024. Several external factors have contributed to the decline in ridership of DPM. Some of them are absence of feeder service, mechanical problems, destruction of pathway during the demolition of Old Hudson building and closing of stations due to GM headquarter expansion, track upgrade as well as COVID-19. The paper speaks about the effects of each individual station and how the developments popping up all over the city are a great sign for the ridership and overall benefits of the People Mover.

Suggested Citation

  • Utpal Dutta & Gracie Rickman & Cornelius Henry, 2026. "Four Decades of the Detroit People Mover: A Review," Technium Social Sciences Journal, Technium Science, vol. 86(1), pages 98-108, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:tec:journl:ojs:13766
    DOI: 10.47577/tssj.v86i1.13766
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://techniumscience.com/index.php/socialsciences/article/view/13766
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.47577/tssj.v86i1.13766?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:tec:journl:ojs:13766. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Tasente Tanase The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask Tasente Tanase to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.