1657449 - Ten Ways to Improve Light Rail

TEN WAYS TO IMPROVE LIGHT RAIL

Mostly proven in public service

ABSTRACT

Light rail is a superior form of urban mass transit with many U.S. cities having deployments and additional deployments under consideration for federal funding. Rail is a public transit staple, yet little consideration is being given to altering this proven form, despite part of the proof being that it is expensive to build and operate. Ten different, but potentially additive, ways of improving light rail are investigated and their impacts on key factors including number of stations, passenger miles traveled, capacity, surface space and energy used, wait, and travel times are considered, assuming a billion-dollar project in an average density of 5,000 people per square mile. Changes considered include becoming driverless, altering station configurations, and altering vehicle/train sizes. These changes plus three more have been proven in public service for a decade or more but have mostly been ignored. Each change has different impacts on each key factor – mostly positive but some negative. The cumulative effect of the six proven factors is positive and adding the factors that are mostly only partially proven is even more positive. pointing towards a significant improvement in urban mass transit. Bus rapid transit attributes are compared. The historic and projected progress along the path towards implementing all ten factors and realizing the next generation of light rail is addressed.

Peter J. Muller, P,E., M.ASCE