[sustran] Re: info on monorails and post traffic calming

[Craig Townsend]

Brendan,

In North America, a Las Vegas monorail recently opened 
(http://www.lvmonorail.com/). As in Kuala Lumpur, it serves more as a local 
people mover serving a specialized business area. It was paid for by 
hotel/casino owners to serve Las Vegas' increasingly busy commercial strip. 
In the state of Washington, the city of Seattle which is a metro area of 
about 3.5 million and has relatively little rail in comparison to other 
large US cities (although there are some distance commuter rail services, a 
new 2.5 km streetcar line in another of the Seattle region's centres, a 2.5 
km elevated monorail downtown, and a downtown bus tunnel) is planning a 
monorail (http://www.elevated.org/) system which would extend the city's 
short, two station "theme park" monorail system which was built for a 
World's Fair in the 1960s. (They are also planning a more "serious" LRT 
system - for some more information, see 
http://www.lightrailnow.org/news/n_sea003.htm.)

It's my relatively uninformed impression that monorails are quite expensive 
given the carrying capacity and are being built for special purpose areas 
where private business interests are interested in financing them. Are 
there any good quality transit systems in the world where a monorail is 
acting as a trunk or a spine of a large system?

Perhaps Vuchic's new book will help. His Transit Systems Operations, 
Planning and Economics is due out this month. Hopefully this will prove to 
be the kind of reliable reference that his 1981 Urban Public 
Transportation: Systems and Technology, has been.

Regards,

Craig


At 12:05 AM 09/02/2005, you wrote:

>In reply to Walter Hook,
>
>There is a monorail in Kuala Lumpur, which I presume is the one you mean.
>This is basically an elevated down-town people-mover. It starts at the
>Central Station, goes east through the main shopping drag (Jalan Bukit
>Bintang) then heads north and veers north west to connect with STAR LRT at
>Titiwangsa station. This serves the 'Golden Triangle', although it doesn't
>actually serve the Petronas Towers/KLCC complex. Actually, it doesn't quite
>serve the Central Station either, since it stops across the road with about
>300m walk across a car park. Apparently there was an issue with the owner,
>so the monorail was not able to link across as originally planned/hoped for.
>
>I visited three facilities in late November for comparative purposes : the
>Brisbane Busway, the PUTRA LRT lines in KL, and the monorail in KL. I have
>requested the capacity and cost data, so your e-mail reminds me to chase
>that. I'll share it with you when/if I receive it. From previous information
>and discussions, I believe that the KL monorail has low actual capacity, and
>had a high capital cost.
>
> >From travelling on the three systems, and discussions with the facility
>owners, I would make the following observations :
>
>* PUTRA LRT has the highest carryings at the moment. However, Brisbane
>Busway is also moving quite a lot of people and has plenty of additional
>capacity. The monorail is way below either of them in terms of capacity or
>of actual carryings.
>* The capacity of PUTRA is very respectable, although it's well below the
>original forecasts (let's blame that on the promoters and their
>consultants). They are at peak capacity at the moment, but they could take
>more trains on the system if they can cut a deal with the car manufacturer.
>* Ride quality is smoothest on the Brisbane Busway (excellent), and next
>best is PUTRA (very good). The monorail is rough by comparison.
>Non-scientific comparison method is how easy it is to hold the video-cam
>still while filming the drive through the front window, and observation on
>the playback.
>* Operations on both Brisbane Busway and PUTRA are slick and professional,
>although the Busway can be more flexible about dwell times at stops at the
>outer end. This reflects the heavy throughput pressure both on PUTRA
>systemwide, and at Brisbane near the centre. The monorail does not have the
>same feel about it.
>
>Overall, both Brisbane Busway and PUTRA LRT have been designed as serious
>transportation elements, and this is apparent not only in the technical
>design, but also in the organisational capability. (I make a clear
>distinction for PUTRA between how it functions and the funding/buyout
>history). By contrast, the monorail is more like a theme park element (such
>as the one on Sentosa, Singapore).
>
>If anyone else has observations or hard data on monorail systems -  good or
>otherwise - I would be very interested. I'm currently working on transport
>policy in a Central Asia country where the two main cities have had some
>'hard sell' on monorails and are talking about building them as the core
>elements of the transit infrastructure, and quite independently of the rest
>of the transit system. If someone knows of cases where monorails can
>actually function as a high volume transit element, then I would be quite
>willing to visit it and change my views. In the meantime, they look to me
>like vehicles for mobilisation of funds rather than of people.
>
>With best wishes,
>
>
>Brendan Finn,
>ETTS Ltd, Ireland
>____________________________________________________________________________
>_______________________
>Tel : +353.87.2530286     e-mail : etts at indigo.ie
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: sustran-discuss-bounces+etts=indigo.ie at list.jca.apc.org
>[mailto:sustran-discuss-bounces+etts=indigo.ie at list.jca.apc.org]On Behalf Of
>Walter Hook
>Sent: 08 February 2005 20:46
>To: Asia and the Pacific sustainable transport
>Subject: [sustran] info on monorails and post traffic calming
>
>I am wondering if anyone knows any details about the new monorails built in
>Qiongqing in China and the one in Malaysia, particularly with regard to
>their capacity pphpd and their capital cost per kilometer and their
>profitability and the conditions of the BOT contracts.    The monorail folks
>seem to be selling the products hard in Asia these days.
>
>I am also wondering if anyone knows anything about how the recent work on
>"Post Traffic Calming" deals with parking, whether these completely
>undefined streetscapes have completely deregulated parking or whether the
>parking is still somehow regulated.
>
>finally, i am wondering if there are any good studies of the process by
>which pedestrian zones have been developed in different countries.
>
>best
>walter hook
>
>
>
>================================================================
>SUSTRAN-DISCUSS is a forum devoted to discussion of people-centred,
>equitable and sustainable transport with a focus on developing countries
>(the 'Global South'). Because of the history of the list, the main focus is
>on urban transport policy in Asia.
>
>
>
>
>================================================================
>SUSTRAN-DISCUSS is a forum devoted to discussion of people-centred, 
>equitable and sustainable transport with a focus on developing countries 
>(the 'Global South'). Because of the history of the list, the main focus 
>is on urban transport policy in Asia.
>
>
>
>
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