Abstract

Tram manufacturers have different ways of approaching the design of low-floor trams with compact and reliable running gears, and therefore several tram architectures can still be found. A complete standardization of trams is nearly impossible, and technical innovations can be more easily introduced if compared to conventional railway vehicles, but the trend towards large-scale standardization based on vehicle “platforms” can be seen in recent years. However, the current “standard” tram architecture, which includes only non-pivoting bogies, is not able to solve some typical problems of tram operations, such as high wheel and rail wear and high-pitched tonal noise (squeal) in sharp curves, which are described in the present paper. This research analyses the tram market with the aim of describing the state of the art of currently available products and comparing their main technical parameters. The analysis is based on information available from the literatures (journals, web) where data about the vehicles can be found, while a new designation code (tram architecture designation, TAD for short) is specifically introduced for easier identification of the different tram architectures. Even if the complete low floor is still one of the main requested features, several solutions combining pivoting and non-pivoting bogies are commercially available, showing a tendency to give more relevance to running quality performance with respect to the recent past.

Highlights

  • In the nineteenth century, tramways quickly developed around the world and remained a backbone of city transport until the advent of the internal combustion engine and private mobility

  • Most the vehicles (72%) offered today have a 100% low floor, but it is worth highlighting that half of the considered vehicles in the cases are not related to multi-articulated trams, with the tram having at least one pivoting bogie and no suspended carbodies

  • The technical comparison of currently available trams described in the paper shows that, while different solutions exist, most of the tram designs still belong to the category of fully low-floor vehicles with multi-articulated architecture, in which small-length carbodies and a limited number of bogies are used

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Summary

Introduction

Tramways quickly developed around the world and remained a backbone of city transport until the advent of the internal combustion engine and private mobility. A number of manufacturers have started developing ‘‘platforms’’, i.e. trams usable in many cities and countries with a limited number of variations. The outcome of this trend is analysed in this paper on the basis of the information available in sector journals and on the web. The standards extensively refer to European ‘‘norm’’ (EN) standards, resulting in an increased tendency towards product standardization Standardization helps both local authorities in issuing more accurate tenders and vehicle manufacturers in developing families of similar vehicles (often called ‘‘platforms’’), reducing manufacturing costs

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