The FLYWAY Stations

Non-smoking sign Non-smoking area!
If we see you smoking, we will assume that you are on fire and take appropriate action!
(Sign to be posted at all FlyWay stations)

FlyWay is SwedeTrack System´s own solution to the urban public transportation problem

Anfang e have written about the FLYWAY® station berths on another page, and put forward some general views of how the FLYWAY® kind of stations could be designed, on the page titled "Design of Stops and Berthings". On this page we will deal with some further features regarding the stations as such. We have here gathered some aspects of their design that is not properly covered elsewhere on this site.
On this page we will look at:
General
The Safety Aspect
How to handle extremely narrow streets
Example of a station´s dimensions
Queue-handling

e have written about the FLYWAY® station berths on another page, and put forward some general views of how the FLYWAY® kind of stations could be designed, on the page titled "Design of Stops and Berthings". On this page we will deal with some further features regarding the stations as such. We have here gathered some aspects of their design that is not properly covered elsewhere on this site.		On this page we will look at: General The Safety Aspect How to handle extremely narrow streets Example of a station´s dimensions Queue-handling

1. General

he FLYWAY implementation of the suspended automatic concept is as flexible as can be provided, with due regard for safety. The cubicles described below and on another page are not mandatory, but they are the best insurance against damage to life and property.	Figure 1:1	The FLYWAY cars can move vertically (by way of elevators), they can swivell in connection with berthing and they can tip in the direction of travel, to more easy handle acceleration, deceleration and sloping beams. All these features are not mandatoryfor an installation to function. But the FLYWAY system is designed for easy upgrading later on, with more sofisticated vehicles and more advanced technique.

2. The Safety Aspect

Figure 2:1

afety at stop sites can be a tricky business with vehicles that do not have human drivers. Although the computer controlled safety systems go a long way to reduce personal hazards, additional measures should be taken.

A lowering FlyWay cabin detects objects on the landing spot

Figure 2:2

The main problem with automatically controlled cars that are supposed to "land" in the open street, like the FLYWAY system, is that the car could conceivably land upon a sleeping dog or some other object lying in the street. The obvious solution to this is to have sensors under the floor of the cabins that are contact-sensitive. As soon as something presses on the bottom of the cabin or carriage, the car stops, checks with its stored information that this is indeed the level where the ground should be.

The beamcar´s computer has information about how far down the ground is, for each individual stop site in the network. If the contact sensor underneath the car registers ground contact higher up than expected (as shown in figure 2:2), the car would stop, then alight again. Attendants at the control center would be automatically alerted, and exterior, remote-controlled on-board cameras on the beamcar cabin could enable them to check on the situation. They would also be able to manually direct the car to another nearby spot to land.

This system provides for some degree of safety, but it is not good enough! There is a too high potential for unnecessary delays and need for human intervention.

One system, with the idea taken from the subways of Singapore, is to use platforms that are shielded off from the beamcar by plexiglass cubicles as shown in figure 2:1. The cubicle has doors that only slide open when a car is in position on the inside, the same ide as the "Platform Screen Doors" (PSD)-concept. This cubicle would have only enough space to harbor the biggest vehicles that will use it. Approximate measurements (in meters) for the cubicle intended for a 4-seat car is shown in the birds-eye view of figure 2:3.

Measurements of the smallest FlyWay berthing cubicle

Figure 2:3

How this plexiglass cubicle could look in a street served by cars that don´t use lifts is shown in figure 2:4 below. This long booth covers the whole stop area and also has to include the lower part of the sloping beams (so that the descending cars won´t hit the walls of the booth).

Street-traffic replaced by beamcars and their station-booths

Figure 2:10

Sideview of lowered beam at station
Figure 2:4

Handling vehicles of different sizes

or safety reasons, it should not be possible for persons to squeeze in between the cubicle doors and the vehicle doors. For this reason, stops that are used by vehicles of varying sizes would need cubicles for each width of those vehicles.

The length of the cubicles would be such as to accomodate the longest vehicles for each width, while the width would be suited to the vehicles, as illustrated in the birds-eye view of figure 2:5 below.

Figure 2:5

Protecting the berth from snow The roof in figure 2:1 gives good protection from rain. If the sidewalls are high enough, it would also give reasonably good protection from snow. But a roofless berth with low walls, as in figure 2:6 gives no protection from any weather. We are not talking about the waiting passengers here; providing waiting rooms from them should not be anything but (maybe) a space problem. But having snow collect within the berth cubicle could be a problem in some climates. It does not work well to have the beamcar land on top of two feet of snow! This problem could basically be solved in 2 ways: Providing heating in the ground to melt the snow as it falls Providing an automatically removable roof over the cubicle. This latter option is readily solved by mounting a roof above the cubicle which is hinged at the sides, as is illustrated in figure 2:7 at right. This roof opens automatically when a beamcar stops above it, and closes again when the beamcar takes off. Figure 21 shows a sideview and shortend view with the roof raised. These roofs would be manually closed when it snows, otherwise they would normally be in the open position, even when it rains.	Figure 2:6 Figure 2:7

Protecting the berth from snow

The roof in figure 2:1 gives good protection from rain. If the sidewalls are high enough, it would also give reasonably good protection from snow. But a roofless berth with low walls, as in figure 2:6 gives no protection from any weather. We are not talking about the waiting passengers here; providing waiting rooms from them should not be anything but (maybe) a space problem. But having snow collect within the berth cubicle could be a problem in some climates. It does not work well to have the beamcar land on top of two feet of snow!

This problem could basically be solved in 2 ways:

Providing heating in the ground to melt the snow as it falls
Providing an automatically removable roof over the cubicle.

This latter option is readily solved by mounting a roof above the cubicle which is hinged at the sides, as is illustrated in figure 2:7 at right. This roof opens automatically when a beamcar stops above it, and closes again when the beamcar takes off. Figure 21 shows a sideview and shortend view with the roof raised. These roofs would be manually closed when it snows, otherwise they would normally be in the open position, even when it rains.

Figure 2:6

Figure 2:7

Handling the safety at the doors
Anfang egular underground trains occasionally squeeze their passengers in the doors. The present generation of train cars in the Stockholm underground have hard rubber lists that get a firm grip on squeezed objects, and so far at least one person has been dragged to his death when his coat got caught between closing doors. With the older type of cars, which regrettably are being phased out, this sort of accidents could never have happened, because;

they had soft rubber lists, where squeezed objects could be torn loose
the doors could be opened two centimeters during travel.
The doors are of course equipped to handle squeezed objects automatically. The principle of the most common protective design is illustrated in figure 2:8 at right. The closing edges of the doors have a rubber coating that prevents damage to the squeezed object (or person). Inside this rubber coating are two electrical contact lists, A and B, that are normally separated by an air gap. But B is elastic, and a squeezed object will thus bring it into contact with A, whereupon the train is electronically prevented from starting.
In the cubicle design for driverless beamcarried traffic described here, we have a double set of doors that operate in conjunction, as is illustrated in figure 2:9 at right. Both sets of doors have to be properly closed before the beamcar can take of, so if both the beamcar doors and the cubicle doors are equipped with this kind of contact lists, we get double safety against a malfunction in these contact lists.
Squeezed object between closing doors
Figure 2:8
Synchronizing doors of cubicle and beamcar cabin
Figure 2:9

Handling the safety at the doors egular underground trains occasionally squeeze their passengers in the doors. The present generation of train cars in the Stockholm underground have hard rubber lists that get a firm grip on squeezed objects, and so far at least one person has been dragged to his death when his coat got caught between closing doors. With the older type of cars, which regrettably are being phased out, this sort of accidents could never have happened, because; they had soft rubber lists, where squeezed objects could be torn loose the doors could be opened two centimeters during travel. The doors are of course equipped to handle squeezed objects automatically. The principle of the most common protective design is illustrated in figure 2:8 at right. The closing edges of the doors have a rubber coating that prevents damage to the squeezed object (or person). Inside this rubber coating are two electrical contact lists, A and B, that are normally separated by an air gap. But B is elastic, and a squeezed object will thus bring it into contact with A, whereupon the train is electronically prevented from starting. In the cubicle design for driverless beamcarried traffic described here, we have a double set of doors that operate in conjunction, as is illustrated in figure 2:9 at right. Both sets of doors have to be properly closed before the beamcar can take of, so if both the beamcar doors and the cubicle doors are equipped with this kind of contact lists, we get double safety against a malfunction in these contact lists.	Figure 2:8 Figure 2:9

3. How to handle extremely narrow streets

Figure 3:1 he FLYWAY stops are normally put on siding beams, as shown above (figure 3:1). Narrow streets in old downtown areas might not have space for that, however. The "smartest" solution to that would probably be to put these sidings and their berths in nearby parallel streets, as shown in figure 3:2. The streets along those blocks where the stops are placed would have to be off-limits for ordinary vehicle traffic (indicated by yellow), in order to permit the the beamcars to land at will. This arrangement would automatically provide beamspace for buffer cars, and beam segments along crossing streets leading to these streets could be used for queueing vehicles, if there is a shortage of berths for landing.	Figure 3:2

Figure 3:1

he FLYWAY stops are normally put on siding beams, as shown above (figure 3:1). Narrow streets in old downtown areas might not have space for that, however. The "smartest" solution to that would probably be to put these sidings and their berths in nearby parallel streets, as shown in figure 3:2. The streets along those blocks where the stops are placed would have to be off-limits for ordinary vehicle traffic (indicated by yellow), in order to permit the the beamcars to land at will.

This arrangement would automatically provide beamspace for buffer cars, and beam segments along crossing streets leading to these streets could be used for queueing vehicles, if there is a shortage of berths for landing.

Example of inner-city streetview seen from above

Figure 3:2

4. Example of a station´s dimensions

Figure 4:1, contributed by "PROS".

Figure 4:1 shows a station that is actually being planned. The measurements indicate how much space would be needed; as can be seen, this station would not fit into an ordinary street.

A manual ticket office has been provided for. The length of the acceleration and deceleration beams are designed for an acc/dec.-rate of 4 meters/sec.², which is quite comfortable for travelers that are sitting down in the cabin.

5. Queue-handling

How FlyWay´s beamcars could use a railway platform

Figure 5:1

s shown in figure 5:1 above, there are situations where berths have to be placed in a row along the same beam. A typical such situation is the one shown; a rail station platform. Clearly, these cars will be blocking each other during unloading and loading. Since this typically takes only 30 to 50 seconds, this waiting is no big deal. But if you consider the example shown in figure 5:2, you will appreciate the real problem. If the 8 berths in the example are successively filled, starting with berth number one, the cars in berts one and two would typically be empty again, by the time berths seven and eight get occupied. But the cars coming in at this point (depicted in red) will not be able to use these empty berths until all berths have been cleared.

The only sensible way to handle this is to let the beamcars occupy the berths in groups. In this case the groups would be up to 8 cars each. If one accepts that an occupied berth will be free again within one minute, this means that a traffic intensity of about 8 cars every minute would result in forming of groups of 8 vehicles. The group as a whole moves forward as soon as all berths are available. If the group is not complete, then cars coming in later would of course be allowed to dock at the available (and accessible) berths. Cars coming in later than that (when berth number 8 is still occupied) would have to wait until all berths are empty again.

Figure 5:2 Queue-handling at stations

At times when traffic intensity is lower, the cars would in principle tend to use berths 1, 2 and so forth, leaving berths 7 and 8 mostly unused, if they were to follow this scheme. But since node computers monitors traffic, they could easily direct the cars to other berths, and necessarily fill the berths from nuber one and backwards, in order to provide for an evenly distributed use of berths.

Regarding efficiency: When traffic flow is so heavy that all berths are occupied practically all the time, (in other words; there are constant small queues), then the berths will be pretty efficiently used. The waiting time for each group would be commensurate with the slowest vehicle in the foregoing group. As the number of berths increase, the waiting time because of this will increase very marginally. At low traffic intensity, however, queues would tend to form even while there are empty berths. So, the number of "inline" berths should not be too great. A limit should be set to about 10 berths in a row.

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On this page we will look at: