WORLD’S BEST DRIVERLESS METRO LINES 2017 MARKET STUDY ON DRIVERLESS METRO LINES AND BENCHMARK OF NETWORK PERFORMANCE Foreword In tomorrow’s megacities, citizens’ megacities which are coming into view selected route will take on increasing in emerging countries in Asia, Africa and importance (in France, journey length South America as well as the challenges grew by 63% between 1982 and 2008 presented by the peripheral urbanization according to INSEE, France’s National of highly dense big cities in developed Institute of Statistics and Economic European countries. Studies). This panorama on “smartization”, which At the same time, citizens’ habits regard- optimizes and streamlines urban mobil- ing transport change as a result of pres- ity highlights France as the flagship of sure, from environmental responsibility driverless metro system operations. The which is more present in their conscience momentum of its authorities and industry and, on the other hand, from congestion in the segment has propelled the country in city centers. The “transport mix” in big to the top of the pack in the global driv- cities has clearly shifted from the individ- erless metro market. ual car towards mass public transport. A transport system’s performance is based Faced with the challenge of transporting on strategic choices made over the long more passengers in a continuous and fluid term by the organizing transport authority way, and with the challenge of increasing and tactical and operating choices made line capacity that is already saturated, the by the operator. driverless metro system brings practical solutions: high headway (up to 60’’ for Through its vision, the organizing trans- Lille’s metro), high flexibility (adapting the port authority comes up with a transport service frequency to real time demand), solution that meets mobility demands high service level (24/7 service, e.g. modelled for several years (generally, the Copenhagen’s metro) and higher commer- organizing transport authority’s vision is cial speed (up to 44km/h in Vancouver). for a 10-30-year period). In reality, this choice which seems to have little impact In addition, driverless metro systems con- on metro line operations proves decisive siderably reduce operating costs (by up to for: 40%) mainly bringing with them human resources flexibility. This means public / Mobility quality perceived by the transport prices are significantly reduced user, closely linked to the density and accessible to more of the population. of the stations (varying between 0.54 station/km for Dubai and 2.17 www.wavestone.com By making the most of all these advan- stations/km for Lausanne), with tages, the driverless metro system will, the theoretical headway and Wavestone is a consulting firm, created from the merger of Solucom and Kurt Salmon’s European Business there- (excluding retails and consumer goods outside of France) Wavestone’s mission is to enlighten and guide their in the next five years, strategically meet fore the transport system’s capac- clients in the most critical decisions, drawing on functional, sectoral and technological expertise. the challenges of decongestion in the ity (varying between 1’ for the Lille *See glossary. 2 3 metro and 6’ for the Dubai metro), Transport service quality perceived by / The diverse nature of the socio-eco- Finally, in its analysis, Wavestone adopts at the commercial speed brought the customer is also thought to be linked nomic differences of the served areas, a weighting factor which reflects the about by the choice of rolling stock to settings that are endogenous to oper- between cities and even countries old-age of the infrastructure and rolling and accessibility, often standardized ations, which do not depend on the orga- / Citizens’ different perceptions faced stock. At similar operating performance, a by strict rules nizing transport authority. This perception with qualitative issues (safety, clean- network with major operating constraints due to its age, reveals an operator’s / A recovery in the operator’s opera- of quality is achieved through a passen- liness) based on their country ger measured by the potentially more advanced competency. tions which depend on the quality satisfaction level / The scope of the inquiry which varies A change to this factor would have an of the return good disposed of by operator itself, with the operator’s own according to author (operator, orga- impact on the global ranking: by reducing the organizing transport authority indicators undergoing self-monitoring nizing transport authority and third such this factor, the best metro lines in the and the ageing of the network and i.e. monitoring by the organizing author- party). The scope for an authority or ranking may see their rank lowered, but rolling stock. As a result, investment ity which seeks to measure the differ- third party is often larger than that the score will no longer precisely reflect for the operator and additional oper- ence between the thresholds set in the of an operator, which is sometimes their operational excellence. ating costs for maintenance are to be operations contract and users’ perceived impartial planned for performance. The study shows that the operator has a Wavestone chose to compare users’ satis- much more important role to play than the faction levels in two domains for which the As part of the development of its expertise in the trans- in the benchmark target as their context, ser- organizing transport authority in improv- operator’s margins are significant: peo- port sector, Wavestone’s Transport & Travel practice vice and operation are not comparable with ing the service delivered to the customer: ple’s cleanliness and safety. For the first has taken a deeper look at mass urban transport by “heavier” systems such as metros and are not the transport experience. It may compen- domain, lines including Lyon, Barcelona, drawing on the existing network of our international used in the same way. sate for choices made by the organizing Rennes and Taipei top the rankings with offices to enhance the knowledge base of our local and transport authority which are judged as positive opinions from users, reaching / The study analyses 25 of the 40 driverless metro international clients. lines existing worldwide in February 2017, for sub-optimal, ensuring a high rate of punc- 99.3% for Lyon, versus less than 70% affecting all transport modes which information is considered as available, tuality and frequency (varying between for Vancouver and Milan. For the second The trend of automation (including autonomous cars, autonomous buses and accessible and reliable, notably thanks to our 93% for Lausanne and 99.73% for Taipei) domain, the operator’s efforts are cru- hyperloops) quickly shifted the focus of the study to international offices, thus providing the items and a group of innovative connected ser- cial even if the socio-economic context driverless metro lines, a mature and rapidly expanding necessary for a comparative analysis. vices which transform urban mobility. of the area served by the metro line technology, the data for which is fully accessible, unlike has an important role. Regarding safety, This survey is notably based on: Likewise, the operator’s expertise is cru- those for disruptive systems, which are new and have Copenhagen, Dubai and Taipei come out / The collection of documents from different cial in guaranteeing efficient, reliable and little market presence. sources and supported by Wavestone’s inter- above all profitable operations, particu- with user satisfaction rates that exceed To carry out the study, Wavestone limited the scope to larly for ageing networks and rolling stock 90%. national offices. a representative and coherent sample: such as that found on the following metro / A series of interviews with major players in Nevertheless, the comparison of users’ systems: Lille (35 years’ old), Lyon (26), / Driverless metro lines* mainly transporting pas- urban transport and experts in the field. satisfaction between different networks Taipei (21) and Vancouver (31). Network sengers on back-and-forth journeys including remains a tricky task due: / Analysis work serving to compare driverless operations of this type may easily gen- commutes. metro lines in three respects: the performance erate uncontrollable maintenance costs / The difference in terms ofmethods / Collective driverless transport lines such as light of infrastructure and rolling stock; the reliability which have a direct impact on the orga- for measurement between the differ- rail transit (LRT)*, people movers* and auto- and quality of the service; and the innovation nizing transport authority and the user ent lines and the type of surveys or mated guided transit (AGT)* are not included demonstrated by the operators. through a higher transport price. inquiries conducted *See glossary. 4 5 AUTHORS CONTENTS before pursuing it in transport and multimodal Philippe Menesplier mobility consulting. Generalist of passengers and fret transport, expert Philippe Menesplier, Partner, in externalities and LCA Life Cycle Assessment, he has more than 20 years Juliano works regularly on strategic benchmarks of experience in strategy and studies in the service of major industry players: and management consult- operators, transport organization authorities and Introduction of the study ing. He managed numerous equipment manufacturers. studies and clients’ deliver- 09 ies for urban mobility market [email protected] actors: organization, industrial strategy,