It is interesting to know... News in Brief about World Metros

• New York’s subway celebrated its centenary^* in 2004. You can assess the New York subway in purely numerical terms – track-km (1377), daily trains operated (6700), employees (48,000), annual capital investment ($US 2billion). Unlike most other metros, NY metro has local and express tracks that form one seamless transport network.

^* сentenary – сторіччя

• Humburg Metro has put into operation the first two of new generation of environmentally-friendly Metro trains. These trains are claimed to be up to 92% recyclable¹. This has been achieved by using a practicable dismantling² concept, using environmentally-friendly materials and chemicals without increasing the weight of the trains, and by the reducing the number of the materials used.

¹ recyclable – повторно використаний

² dismantling – розбирання, демонтаж

• Nuremberg Metro is the first metro in the world which converted a manually-operated line to full automation in spring 2006. It has equipped two metro lines with a fleet of 30 two-car driverless trains. A number of firsts are claimed for this project:

- the first driverless metro to be built in Germany;

- the first operational metro line to be converted to driverless operation;

- the first combined operation of driverless and manned trains.

A key concept with driverless operation is the safety and security of passengers, and this is where most of the innovations are being made. The automatic train operation system will regulate train speed precisely, control acceleration and breaking, activate on-board passenger announcements, unlock doors at stations, and operate the trains so that energy is saved. A platform track intrusion detection system has been also developed. The system is connected to the ATC so that trains in the area will stop automatically if any object larger than 30cm in diameter enters the track area in stations.

• Meteor, the first fully-automated metro line in Paris, is equipped with driverless trainset^*. The commercial speed of 40km/h is highly attractive as compared to the 20-25km/h achieved on conventional lines. This gives a capacity of 40,000 passengers per hour in each direction, by far the highest capacity of any fully automated system of public transport in the world. From this perspective, an automated metro is perhaps ideally suited to serving routes like a sports stadium or concert arena. This automated line will increase passenger capacity on one of the busiest transport corridors through the heart of Paris.

^* a trainset – секція потяга

• Moscow metro, which claims to be the busiest metro in the world, is to install ticket vending machines (TVM) in all its 165 stations in response to complaints about long queues at ticket counters. The 270 km metro carries a daily average of 8.8 million passengers, or 3.2 billion a year. That is more than New York and Paris combined and nearly four times the figure for London. Even the notoriously overcrowded Tokyo subway has 15% less passengers annually. The Moscow Times listed the world’s busiest metros, in terms of passengers/year, as follows: Moscow 3.2 billion, Tokyo 2.7 billion, Seoul 1.6 billion, New York and Mexico City 1.3 billion, Paris 1.2 billion, Osaka 957 million, London 886 million, Hong Kong 798 million, and St Petersburg 784 million.

• The International Association of Public Transport (UITP) predicts that more and more cities worldwide will open its fully-automated driverless systems. They have been around for more than three decades but until recent years the applications have mainly been peoplemovers^* in airports, port areas, or connectors to residential areas. Now both heavy and light metros extensively use driverless systems (Heavy Metros: Paris Meteor, Nuremberg (U1/U2), Lyon Line D, etc. Light Metros: Copenhagen, London Docklands, Toronto (Scarborough), Vancouver SkyTrain.

^* a peoplemover – рейковий автобус

Exercise 45 Project. What interesting facts about underground systems of different countries do you know? Find them or present your own project with maps, photos etc.