This is Part 6 in a series expanding on the City Transit project, looking at the different modes of public transportation of the U.S. & Canada in more depth and detail.

The term "people mover" was first coined back in the 60s for a few different proprietary automated transit concepts, including the experimental Skybus system in Pittsburgh, and the eponymous Disney attraction. The initial definition for the term was born of these ideas: an automated system, generally lower capacity vehicles but high frequency operation, on a grade-separated guideway typically running on rubber tires.

Today, the term has become more generic, and can include everything from monorails to maglev. Automation is one of the most defining features of the mode, which if taken on its own would expand the category to include much more complex and high-capacity systems such as as the Vancouver Skytrain, also classified as light metro.

People movers were once envisioned as the future of transit, but never quite caught on. Several urban systems were born of the 1970s Downtown People Mover Program, a U.S. government initiative to to help cities plan systems for their urban cores. Three cities built people mover systems from this program, but they saw very limited success. Today, most people movers operate more successfully on a smaller scale in amusement parks, hospital campuses, and--most commonly--airports.

Below is a list of people mover systems in the United States. This list only includes people movers that act as public transportation in some sort. As such, only airport people mover systems that link to a larger mass transit network are included.