Detroit People Mover: Automatic Train Control Upgrade (ATCU) Project

Abstract

In the 1980’s the U.S. Federal Transit Administration (FTA) (then known as the Urban Mass Transit Administration, UMTA) initiated a program to demonstrate the ability of automated guideway transit (AGT) systems to serve as downtown circulators. Three cities were chosen for demonstration grants to build these “Downtown People Movers.” Only two of the systems were eventually built. They are both still operating in Detroit, Michigan and Miami, Florida. The Detroit People Mover (DPM) was built as a 2.9 mile (4.7 km) single-track loop connecting thirteen stations in the downtown core of Detroit. A fleet of twelve cars, which usually run in pairs to improve dependability, went into service in July 1987. The system was designed and built by the Urban Transportation Development Corporation (UTDC) using an integrated AGT system technology that the UTDC called automated light rapid transit (ALRT). Similar systems using the ALRT technology were also installed about the same time in Toronto (Scarborough) and Vancouver. All of these systems used the original 41-foot (12.5-meter) long vehicles, known as Mark I cars. The ALRT technology has since been transferred to Bombardier which now markets a longer Mark II vehicle, replacing the Mark I. Vancouver expanded its fleet with Mark IIs and now runs a mix of 2-car Mark II trains with 4-car Mark I trains and most recently a system with Mark II vehicles has gone into operation at Kennedy Airport in New York City, NY, USA. The automatic train control (ATC) system provided with this technology is the SelTrac© system and has been provided by a subcontractor to UTDC/Bombardier, Alcatel. SelTrac© utilizes a moving block control, which more recently has come to be known as a communications based train control (CBTC). The DPM is run by the Detroit Transportation Corporation (DTC), which functions 24/7. Revenue service is provided from 7 am to midnight on weekdays and for reduced hours on weekends, while most guideway related repairs and maintenance occur overnight. The DTC has kept the system operating daily since it opened, except for disruptions that were beyond the DTC’s control. One of these was a building implosion that went awry in October, 1998, destroying several sections of the guideway. But the system is now nearly 20 years old and the high-tech subsystems were beginning to age. Repairs were needed more often and spares for the dated technology were increasingly more difficult and expensive to find. In addition, over the years funding cuts from past city administrations had forced the DTC into a severe deferred maintenance program.