[sustran] Re: Article in Guardian Newspaper

[Alan Patrick Howes]

OK Debi, I take it you are talking about Skybus as at
http://www.konkanrailway.com/website/ehtm/sky_bus.htm

Interesting - but it appears that this is not even yet at prototype stage - more of a "pipe dream". And Wuppertal, Germany, has had a suspended "monorail" for about 100 years!

>From the description of Skybus on the website, I see no immediate reason why it should be substantially cheaper than an elevated VAL system. (Véhicule Automatique Legère - French - see http://www.railway-technology.com/projects/lille_val/ which gives another explanation for the acronym.)

The Skybus webpage quotes US$10m per km as a cost - but does not really quantify this figure, and until a prototype has been built and shown to work any cost estimate must be treated with a lot of caution.

Having said that, if India could "home-grow" its own light rail technology and make it work, then good luck!


-- 
Alan P Howes, Special Transport Advisor, 
     Dubai Municipality Public Transport Department
aphowes at dm.gov.ae
http://www.dubaipublictransport.ae/
Tel:    +971 4 286 1616 ext 214
Mobile: +971 50 5989661


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Debi Goenka [mailto:debi at beag.net]
> Sent: Sat, 29 March, 2003 05:50
> To: sustran-discuss at jca.ax.apc.org
> Cc: gh7 at york.ac.uk; Matoff, Tom; vuchic; Francis Vanek; 
> Ritjavakhtar at aol.com; oeyvind.espe at ps.ge.com
> Subject: [sustran] Re: Article in Guardian Newspaper
> 
> 
> Hi folks
> 
> I tend to agree with Eric.
> 
> There are also now options such as the Skybus metro, which do 
> not involve
> any displacement at all, and which, whilst not as cheap as 
> bus lanes on
> existing roads, are much cheaper than metros.
> 
> (Incidentally, how does one fix a cost/value for bus lanes on existing
> roads?)
> 
> Cheers
> 
> Debi