Because vehicles are extremely light, the structure of the guideway itself can be lean and light-weight while still far exceeding strength criteria. Inexpensive standard utility poles like the ones (street lights and traffic signals use) at 30 foot intervals support the guideway. The major benefit of light-weight construction is that the cost of the system is much smaller, allowing more track to be built for a given budget. Another benefit of light-weight construction is that the guideway is small and unobtrusive enough that it can fit alongside existing streets or sidewalks. One of the goals of SkyTran is to minimize land usage and interference with pedestrians and other surface traffic. SkyTran does not need the large swaths of land that rail systems need and no one would ever need to give up their home for SkyTran to be built. Also, the track's visual impact will be trivial compared with elevated roadways or train tracks. The guideway will be able to house power and communications lines, hiding these cables inside.

Building SkyTran will be more like installing street or traffic lights than like building a massive freeway or train section. The guideway has fewer fabrication steps than an inner city road and each mile can be erected in 7 days or less. The guideway contains simple wire that interacts with magnets in the moving vehicles to levitate them. This passive maglev cushion gives vehicles a very smooth and efficient ride. Maglev technology does not have parts that touch, increasing the reliability of the system. Increasing reliability further, electromagnetic switches, used for vehicles turning or exiting the guideway, need none of the maintenance that mechanical switches would need. The guideway also has electronics for sensing and propelling the vehicles. The only major moving part in the system is the vehicle. The system's regenerative braking system recaptures the energy of vehicles braking at their destination - increasing efficiency.

Vehicles enter and exit the main guideway via freeway style on-ramp and off-ramp tracks. Once on the guideway, vehicles travel at a constant speed non-stop to their destination. A vehicle never slows down unless it needs to make a 90 degree turn or is exiting the guideway at its final destination. A line of vehicles wait at stations for people to use them, rather than the other way around. SkyTran guideways require no intersections, because they can simply be built over or under other SkyTran tracks, elevated highways or rail lines or other existing structures, just as freeway overpasses let us ride over or under other roads. This concept, called "grade separation," is why freeways have a much lower accident rate than ordinary roads, and why cars on freeways never have to stop.

Not only do vehicles on SkyTran never need to stop, either, but their super-safe automatic brakes and allow vehicles to follow each other more closely than automobiles. Iinstead of the "two-second rule" for automobile drivers, SkyTran cars can safely follow just one second behind each other. This allows 60 Skytran cars per second = 3600 vehicles (and up to 7200 passengers) per hour. A single SkyTran line can carry as many vehicles per hour as three lanes of freeway. Freeways can carry between 1500 and 2500 cars per hour while SkyTran has a capacity of 7200 vehicles per hour. While a car does have more seats, the truth is that about 80% of the time only one person is in that car.

Since vehicles are suspended from below the guideway, the top of the track is covered. This protects the track that a vehicle glides over from dirt, rain, ice, and snow. Along with the reliability of maglev, this ensures that the need for maintenance is at a minimum. The covered track also traps a vehicle inside, making it impossible for vehicles to derail. Brakes inside the guideway are relatively unaffected by snow, rain and ice; so SkyTran cars travel in complete safety even in weather that at best greatly reduces the capacity of roads, and at worse makes travel very hazardous.