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An overview of Siemens rolling stock

Posted: 27 September 2006 | Dr. Gerhard Angermüller, Siemens AG, Transportation Systems, Head of Mass Transit division | No comments yet

Siemens Transportation Systems is a driving force behind new technologies to keep rail-based systems competitive. In this article the company presents its latest innovations across the tram, light rail, metro and driverless-systems sectors.

The world today is being shaped by the mega-trends of urbanisation and demographic change. The consequences are: increasing scarcity of natural resources; a regional shift in economic gravity; a growing need for environmental protection; increasing mobility; and growing demand for safety, security, healthcare and care for the elderly.

Siemens Transportation Systems is a driving force behind new technologies to keep rail-based systems competitive. In this article the company presents its latest innovations across the tram, light rail, metro and driverless-systems sectors. The world today is being shaped by the mega-trends of urbanisation and demographic change. The consequences are: increasing scarcity of natural resources; a regional shift in economic gravity; a growing need for environmental protection; increasing mobility; and growing demand for safety, security, healthcare and care for the elderly.

Siemens Transportation Systems is a driving force behind new technologies to keep rail-based systems competitive. In this article the company presents its latest innovations across the tram, light rail, metro and driverless-systems sectors.

The world today is being shaped by the mega-trends of urbanisation and demographic change. The consequences are: increasing scarcity of natural resources; a regional shift in economic gravity; a growing need for environmental protection; increasing mobility; and growing demand for safety, security, healthcare and care for the elderly.

Siemens addresses the consequences of the urbanisation and demographic change mega-trends. Focusing on public transportation, Siemens is one of the world’s leading solution providers of innovative and sustainable mobility systems for rail-based mass, regional, and main line traffic: from rail automation and traction power supply through rolling stock to turnkey solutions and forward-looking service concepts.

Siemens believes that:

  • Rail-based mobility enhances the quality of life in urban areas and megacities and promotes economic growth
  • A powerful main line system offers alternatives and supplements to air traffic
  • Intelligent rail solutions contribute to the environmental compatibility of the overall transportation system
  • Innovations provide the basis for cross-border passenger rail traffic
  • Regional rail freight traffic creates alternatives and supplements to truck transport.

In the field of urban public transportation, the extended Siemens portfolio offers trams, automated people movers, light rail and metro vehicles, serving the needs from small communities to large megacities. The possible applications are shown in Figure 1, where the different vehicles are presented according to their transport capacity and the distance between stops.

The following sections will give an insight into the four main product types of mass transit offered by Siemens. Each product will be described in general with the future trend, followed by technical descriptions of selected examples.

Tram

In the field of trams, Siemens has learned many lessons from the Combino and is now able to present its new tram platform Combino Plus. The first two successful projects (Metro Sul do Tejo Almada and Budapest) are nearly finished and already prove the advantages of the new platform.

Conceptually, the Combino Plus is no longer multi-articulated; each module has its own bogie. The basic principle of this concept is a standard car-body module of approximately 9m in length, fitted with a powered or non-powered bogie placed underneath the middle of a car. This arrangement ensures that the centre of gravity of such a car is almost identical with the centre of rotation of the bogie, thus offering an optimum of ride comfort and significant reduction of forces applied to the vehicle structure when entering and negotiating curves. Furthermore, with this bogie design, the lateral forces between bogie and track are greatly reduced, resulting in lower wear and tear of rails and wheels.

With the Combino Plus, Siemens is focussing on 100% low-floor technology. In the near future, the expansion of this generic platform will be finished and customers will be able to benefit from the huge Combino expertise acquired in the past.

The Combino Plus will be available with a wide range of technical parameters:

  • Number of modules: from 2 to 6
  • Width: from 2.30m to 2.65m
  • Voltage: from DC 600V to DC 750V
  • Also available with customer-specific equipment.

Alongside the Combino Plus, there is the ULF (Ultra Low-floor) which is the lowest floor light rail tram in the world. At the moment the ULF is running exclusively in Vienna, giving passengers the comfort and luxury of this highly innovative product.

Combino Plus: an example from Budapest

The 6-module Combino Plus Budapest has been designed for bi-directional operation and comprises of two identical end modules with powered bogies, two middle modules with non-powered bogies and two middle modules with powered bogies. With a length of almost 54m, it is currently the longest tram vehicle in the world.

The large window areas and the bright colours of the furnishings give the interior of the vehicle a bright, warm atmosphere. The large side windows are equipped with lockable hinged windows. The high, parsol-gray-tinted panes provide standing passengers also with a clear view to the outside.

The Combino Plus Budapest is equipped with electrically operated swing plug sliding doors, which offer passengers with a baby carriage or wheelchair sufficient space to board.

ULF: Ultra Low-Floor tram for Vienna

Vienna has one of the biggest public transport tram networks in the world (853 tramcars at the end of 2005), but at the same time it is one of the oldest. When the Vienna transport authority Wiener Linien decided to buy new tramcars, it was clear that they had to be extremely low-floor because of the existing system conditions and city building regulations. Siemens met this challenge by designing a completely new tramcar, the ULF. The entrance height is just less than 20cm above the top of the rail.

The tramcar is based on the design of the renowned Porsche Design Group, which has designed the complete exterior and interior of the car. Porsche’s team of industrial designers were involved in the development process for the ULF tramcar for Vienna right from the beginning. The aim was to develop a tramcar which would be more comfortable, quieter and utilise contemporary visual styling to increase the attractiveness of public transport in general. The ULF tramcar is one of the first urban transit systems in which visual styling and ergonomics have played an important role.

The running gear is designed as a portal structure leading around the passenger saloon over the articulation. Traction is provided by vertical, fully spring-suspended traction and brake units which are integrated and suspended laterally in the portal frame and which combine the air-cooled three-phase traction motor with brake disc and the flanged-on gear unit. This remarkable design allows flexibility in vehicle construction height.

Due to the excellent operation behaviour Wiener Linien ordered an improved series of the ULF. Up to now 302 tram sets have been delivered or are under manufacturing at Siemens Transportation factory in Vienna.

Light rail vehicles

In the sector of light rail vehicles, the North American market is a primary focus. Highest reliability of the products, excellent product features, attractive prices and a reference base with extremely satisfied customers results in a market leadership for Siemens in the US and Canada. The product range gives customers the choice of choosing conventional high-floor or 70% low-floor vehicle alternatives.

For example, features of the very popular S70, which is the result of a joint European and North American design effort, include:

  • Continuously low step height through a hydraulic floor levelling system to comply with wheelchair-accessibility based on ADA standards (Americans with Disabilities Act)
  • Highest passenger safety standards in terms of fire protection and crashworthiness, complying with the stringent US standards
  • Advanced air-conditioning for extreme climatic conditions
  • A maximum operating speed of 105km/h.

The S70 vehicle is a 70% low-floor three-section articulated vehicle, with a floor height of 381mm above the rail in the low-floor section (356mm at door thresholds) and 856mm in the high floor section. The standard vehicle is 28.5m long and 2.65m wide.

The S70 type vehicle incorporates the most advanced lightweight technology in design and manufacturing. The exterior of the steel frame structure of the vehicle is clad with Fibre Reinforced Plastic (FRP) using advanced structural bonding technology. The FRP is a structural product selected to give optimum strength-to-weight ratio, ease of assembly and maintainability.

Metros

Nowadays, metros have to meet a variety of standards, be service proven down to the smallest detail and be easy to maintain for trained and untrained personnel. Metros also have to be unique in design and provide the highest possible quality and safety levels. Furthermore, the price-to-benefit ratio has to be excellent.

In order to provide all of this in one product, Siemens will be offering the modular metro. This approach is not new in the metro sector, but will be optimised to the latest technology, trendsetting design and customer-friendly prices.

Among the many metro systems which Siemens has built over the years, two of the latest projects (the Oslo metro and Shanghai Pearl Line) have been chosen to give a first glimpse of what the future will bring. The ‘construction kit’ will provide pre-selected combinations for different climatic and infrastructural conditions as well as complete freedom of choice to satisfy the customer’s desires.

Oslo metro

Since the beginning of 2006, the Oslo metro has proved its toughness in revenue service. After extensive testing under extreme conditions in the climatic chamber, the metro is fully capable of operating in the tough weather conditions in Oslo.

The cars are from the same product range as the Vienna metro and the RUBIN Nuremberg metro but have been further developed in some fields.

The combination of proven technology and innovations result in the following advantages:

  • Highest availability and reliability through the use of high-quality components and proven technology
  • Full motorisation, all axles are driven
  • Low life-cycle costs by using standard proven design components
  • It meets highest climatic requirements
  • Modern and functional vehicle design (by Porsche)
  • Constructed from environmentally-friendly materials
  • Provides an energy saving of 44% related to older metros
  • Spacious interior.

Shanghai metro

The metro market in China is a ‘quasi-standardised’ product market. Therefore, Siemens has tailored its metro designs to meet the special requirements of the high capacity demands in conjunction with highest reliability and attractive design. Further, cars which will be built by Siemens will improve the already proven capability to deliver the very highest quality and which will meet the customers’ expectations of a brand name like Siemens.

With its 22km of track and 17 stations, the Shanghai Pearl Line Phase 2 is an underground extension of the current 11.8km elevated Shanghai Pearl Line Phase 1 which is already in operation.

The car body design is a full aluminium construction. Traction equipment consists of one IGBT compact inverter for every motorised car. Train control is via a MVB bus system with a multifunctional driver’s display. Two powerful roof-mounted compact air conditioners are installed in every car. The reliable SF 2100 bogies are selected for these heavy metro vehicles. The special features include:

  • Adequate air-conditioning cooling capacity
  • High availability and reduction of service intervals through reliable control and drive systems
  • Easy maintenance through use of simple software modules
  • Extended overhaul intervals due to high-quality design and use of proven components
  • Optimised, jerk-free, comfortable drive with regenerative braking capabilities, optimised for Shanghai’s route profile and environmental conditions
  • Design by Porsche.

Driverless systems: automated guided transport

For passengers, operators and the authorities, fully automated urban transport systems offer remarkable qualities. The regularity, flexibility and frequency of trains are major advantages, in addition to their availability, comfort and low cost of operation.

Siemens Transportation Systems created and developed Val (which stands for Véhicule Automatique Léger: Automated Light-rail Vehicle), the world’s first fully-automated driverless subway system. Val is constantly being modernised and enhanced, to offer improved comfort and safety.

Val was inaugurated in Lille in 1983, and also operates in Taipei, Toulouse, Rennes and Turin. Because it is so flexible in operational terms, it is also ideal for airport services. It is already operating at Paris-Orly, Chicago-O’Hare and soon will be at Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle.

Safe, reliable, silent and comfortable, Val operates at a high commercial speed (more than 30km/h) with peaks of 80km/h to reduce passengers’ waiting time at stations to less than one minute. Val is able to transport up to 30,000 passengers per hour and per direction.

With more than 750 vehicles and around 120km of lines in operation or under construction, Val has become today’s international reference for fully-automated subway systems.

Since Val is a light subway transportation system with relatively small outer dimensions (Version Val 208), costs for civil works, especially for tunnelling, are far lower than for a traditional subway. Nevertheless, the overall transportation capacity of a Val system can be compared with normal metro systems, since the automation system allows extremely short headways of less than one minute.

Due to the uniqueness of Val, we have developed a new Val platform, the ‘Neo Val’ product line, which is supported by the ‘Agence de l’Innovation Industrielle’ of France.

The aim of the project is to develop a new generation of automated people movers, combining innovative technologies from the automotive industry, advance traffic automation and making a difference in the management of energy.

The innovations introduced by Neo Val include the following:

  • The use of a single central guiding rail encased by a pair of rubber-banded steel rollers
  • The use of components from the automotive industry (tires, brakes, suspension)
  • The passenger compartment has no structural function, all mechanical constraints are fulfilled by the rolling platform: this concept provides the vehicle with high stability, and gives maximum flexibility for body-shell personalisation (in terms of width, aesthetic etc)
  • The capability to adapt the train length by coupling several units in order to meet demand, thanks to advanced CBTC (Communication Based Train Control) functions
  • The integration of on-board information systems (video, voice, passenger information, internet access)
  • As a future option, a technical breakthrough in the storage of electrical energy on-board and in the wayside, which results in energy savings and enables the system to get rid of traction rails or catenaries between stations.

Summary

Equipped with the latest, high-tech mechanical components, electrical equipment and micro-processor controls, these technologically advanced, world-leading vehicles are the result of intensive research and scrupulous development. Proven design and extensive testing (at the Siemens test centre in Wegberg-Wildenrath, Germany), ensures that maintainability and reliability are integral parts of our philosophy.

Siemens offers standard products as well as tailor-made construction for all possible applications, worldwide.

angermuller figure 1

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