Feature New Urban Transit Systems

Vancouver SkyTrain—A Proven Success Story

Greater is the third largest met- ropolitan community in Canada; 1.8 mil- lion people live in an area spread across the delta between the Pacific coast and the US border. The area has developed a unique land- sea-rail network known as the Vancouver Regional Transit System, covering 1800 km2. The backbone of this system is the 29-km SkyTrain Line, Vancouver’s Ad- vanced (ART) system link- ing , , , and Surrey (Fig. 1), operated by the Brit- ish Columbia Rapid Transit Company Ltd. (BCRT) for BC Transit.

The line, which blends the design prin- SkyTrain standing at platform (BCRT) ciples of Transit (LRT) systems and so-called ‘automated people movers’, in March 1990 across the Fraser River via return via the track, to eliminate electro- was developed by the Urban Transporta- a 616-m cable-stayed bridge dedicated to lytic corrosion in underground structures tion Development Corporation (UTDC) of rapid transit, the only example of its type and in the guideway itself. This dual , now the Transportation Systems in the world. The final extension of 4.3 power rail system also provides significant Division of Bombardier Inc. km into Surrey was opened in March protection against ground faults. 1994, and SkyTrain now carries about 40 In addition to the elevated section, the million boarding passengers a year. guideway runs through two tunnels: a 1.3- Staged Opening km tunnel in the downtown Vancouver section, and a 300-m tunnel in New Phase 1 of the SkyTrain project was inau- Segregated Elevated Guideway Westminster. A further 3.5 km is in-cut gurated into revenue service on 3 Janu- (below grade) or at grade. ary 1986 with a later extension opening A feature of the SkyTrain service is that it runs entirely on segregated right-of-way with no road vehicle or pedestrian cross- ART Vehicles ings. The elevated guideway section car- ries one track for each direction and is A fleet of 150 cars serve the 20 stations constructed of pre-stressed concrete trap- on the 29 km of guideway. They are con- ezoidal box beams supported on poured- figured as four- or six-car trains running in-place columns. Phase 1 utilized over at maximum speeds up to 90 km/h with 1000 of these beams, each weighing an an average service speed of 43.5 km/h be- average of 100 tonnes. The beams were tween the Waterfront and King George fabricated in Richmond, British Colum- termini. During peak hours, the service bia and carried in—six each night—to the averages 150 seconds, and is 5 construction site. minutes or better at other times. Standard track (45 kg/m) is fixed directly Each car is designed to accommodate 36 to the beams using resilient mounts. The seated and 45 standing passengers, al- guideway also carries the two power rails though they often carry in excess of 100 at 650 V dc and the Linear Induction Mo- passengers. The body is constructed of tor (LIM) rail. Two power rails (positive lightweight welded aluminium with a low and negative) were chosen instead of the fire load and weighs about 15 tonnes. This Fraser River 616-m cable-stayed bridge for SkyTrain (BCRT) conventional single system with relatively light weight reduces wear on the

44 Japan Railway & Transport Review 16 • June 1998 Copyright © 1998 EJRCF. All rights reserved. Figure 1 The Vancouver SkyTrain Route Table 1 SkyTrain System Performance Record

1987/88 1995/96 Change orld Guideway (Kilometers) 21.4 28.9 +35% Waterfront Burrard Stations 15 20 +33% Stadium Science W Burnaby Total vehicles 114 150 +32% Granville Peak vehicles 88 136 +55% Nanaimo 29th Ave. In-service car-hours 308,500 581,238 +88% Joyce Patterson In-service car-kilometers 12,884,900 23,412,318 +82% Vancouver Metrotown Royal Oak Boarding passengers 21,375,000 39,158,332 +83% estminster New Edmonds Operating cost $26,168,000 $35,830,501 +37% 22nd StreetNew WColumbia Westminster Scott Road Employees (Full-time equivalents) 307 325 +6% Gateway Passengers/Car-hour 69.3 67.0 -3% Surrey Central Average operating cost/Passenger $1.22 $0.92 -25% Richmond King George Surrey Average operating cost/Hour $84.82 $61.65 -27% Fraser River Car-hours/Employee 1,005 1,788 +78%

(BCRT) (BCRT) track and guideway and enables higher parts: the Vehicle On-Board Control performance with lower installed motive ATC & System (VOBC) located on the vehicle and com- and braking power. In the first 10 years posed a dual-processor computer that of operations, each car has logged more All train movements are controlled from continually monitors the position, speed than 1.5 million km. the Operations and Maintenance Centre and general status of the train, and the Propulsion uses two Linear Induction at Burnaby. Vehicle Control Centre (VCC) located in Motors—straight line versions of the con- The unmanned trains operate under an the Operations and Maintenance Centre ventional AC rotary electric motor. The automatic, computerized train-control that directs the train movement via the motors react with an aluminium-capped SELTRAC system supplied by SEL. This VOBCs. The VCC normally communi- steel rail on the guideway to provide mo- system was originally developed in Ger- cates with trains at least once every sec- tive power. SkyTrain was the first major many for both rapid-transit and trunk rail- ond and is capable of controlling up to application of LIM technology to mass way systems. SELTRAC is software based, 125 trains. If communications between a transit systems. There are no moving relying on continual communication be- VOBC and the VCC is lost or garbled for parts, substantially reducing maintenance tween all trains and trackside computers more than 3 seconds, the VOBC fail-safe and risk of mechanical failure. rather than the conventional track-circuit mechanism halts the train by applying the Service braking is provided by using the method in which trains are detected by emergency brakes. LIMs to perform regenerative braking. As their wheels shorting out track circuits. part of the final braking at low speeds, the The on-board train equipment detects the Established LIMs are powered to provide reverse crossovers in a trackside inductive loop Performance Record thrust. This electrical braking mode is cable using the phase shift, counts them, supplemented by spring-applied hydrau- and combines the count data with output In the 10 years since Vancouver , lically-released disc brakes for final stop- from axle-mounted tachogenerators to SkyTrain has made substantial gains in ping and parking. Four electro-magnetic provide reliable train position and speed productivity and delivery of service to the track brakes that slide along the running measurements. Vancouver public (Table 1), proving that rails assure a rapid stop in an emergency. The moving block principle is used to ART systems have a guaranteed future in A unique feature of the car trucks is the keep trains a safe distance apart. In this integrated urban mass-transit systems. adoption of steerable axles. The axles of system, the portion of track reserved for a The experience gained from the each truck steer independently with the train is adjusted in very small units of Vancouver SkyTrain is already bearing track curvature almost eliminating flange about 6 meters and is updated as fre- fruit in the form of new ART projects in contact with the rail, substantially reduc- quently as every second. Unlike the con- Ankara, Turkey, and , ing rail noise and truck maintenance, and ventional fixed-block system using track Malaysia. I extending wheel life to almost 1 million circuits, the minimum spacing between km. trains is speed dependent, with fast-mov- Acknowledgement ing trains given more stopping room than This article is based on information received slow trains, allowing maximum capacity by JRTR from the Rapid Tran- and safety throughout the system. sit Company Ltd. The ATC hardware is divided into two

Copyright © 1998 EJRCF. All rights reserved. Japan Railway & Transport Review 16 • June 1998 45