CH651790A5 - Installation for almost continuously conveying travellers over several hundreds of metres by means of trains of vehicles operating as shuttles - Google Patents

Description

The present invention relates to an installation for the transportation of passengers, comprising at least one train of vehicles, commuting between two terminal stations a few hundred meters apart, each of which is equipped with at least one quay for serving the oar, of a length at least equal to that of the oar.

The parking of a train in a station must obviously be sufficient to allow this service, that is to say for disembarking and boarding passengers, if the passenger service is provided in both directions of traffic, to their disembarkation or their embarkation only, if it is only insured in one direction.

Many cable cars and railways, in particular rack-and-pinion, use such a system, the major drawback of which is that the trains are only immediately accessible to passengers at certain times and under certain circumstances, that is to say when they are stopped at a station and their loading in travelers is not complete.

Outside these hours and in such circumstances, any traveler who arrives at the entrance to a station must wait for the arrival of a train, and possibly its evacuation, before being able to access it. If it arrives when a train leaves the station, the duration of this wait is substantially equal to the interval between two successive departures from the same station, and it will be almost double if the number of passengers is equal to that that can transport the train arrived before him at the station.

These waste of time, generally very badly accepted, are at the origin of the opinion, false but commonly accepted, that one cannot expect from a system of shuttles circulating between two points not far apart a service of sufficient quality, c that is to say at least equal to that of the service which a conveyor belt or any other system with continuous or pseudo-continuous movement can provide.

The object of the present invention is an installation with a shuttle system, capable in particular of very advantageously replacing in all respects the conveyor belts (moving walkways) currently used, in particular in certain corridors of the metropolitan of Paris, but offering many other possibilities, this arrangement being such that travelers always progress in the same direction, from entry to exit from the system, first by walking on the departure platform, then transported, seated, supported or standing, at multiple speed of their normal walking speed, and finally by walking on the arrival platform to the exit, the only times of interruption of their progress being those, very brief, necessary for their embarkation and disembarkation, without excessive haste and safely.

To this end, the installation according to the invention for transporting travelers is characterized as described in claim 1.

With such an installation, the progression of the column of travelers on the quays is not slowed down before embarkation, and the travelers are, at the time of embarkation, distributed on the quay as evenly as possible, over as long a length as possible, which facilitates and accelerates their boarding.

In the most frequent case where the system comprises two oars, to ensure absolute synchronism of their movements, it is possible to have recourse to cable traction, each of the oars being able to be made integral with the same cable by means of a clamp fixed.

To facilitate the embarkation and disembarkation of travelers, this system can also be arranged so that the accesses to each train on at least one of its lateral faces and the places offered in this train are distributed as regularly as possible over the whole length of the train, and that the total width of the accesses provided on a lateral face of a train is as large as possible and preferably substantially equal to its length.

The platforms assigned either exclusively to embarkation or exclusively to disembarkation in the case of passenger transport in one direction, are also allocated in the case of transport in both directions, to avoid mixing of the two streams of travelers going in opposite directions. An exception is made to this rule if the configuration of the premises in a station makes it impossible to build more than one platform.

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The duration of parking of the trains is strictly limited to that necessary for the ascent or descent of passengers without excessive haste and in complete safety.

According to a preferred embodiment of the invention, the trains are divided into separate locations, possibly physically separated, as similar to each other as possible, each of which can contain only one traveler, preferably facing the direction of travel. ; it is of course possible to provide, at regular intervals or not, larger locations, to allow the loading of trolleys, large suitcases or any other impedimenta.

All travelers can climb or descend simultaneously, the ascent and descent being done by a simple step from the side.

If the pitches can only accommodate one traveler, the oars are very narrow, their width hardly exceeding that of the shoulders of a robust man.

Three arrangements can be envisaged:

- each location is accessible by one and the other side face of the train; we can in this case provide either that each traveler uses one access for the ascent and the other for the descent, or that all travelers traveling in one direction use an access, while all travelers traveling in the other direction use l 'other access;

- each location has only one access, all the accesses being grouped on the same lateral face of the train;

- each location having, as before, only one access, this access is sometimes on a side face, sometimes on the other.

In some cases, the separate locations in which the trains are divided are much wider and can each contain at least two passengers; these always have access on one side for the ascent and another on the other side for the descent.

To facilitate the placement of passengers on the boarding platform, it can be divided longitudinally into as many separate transverse bands as there are separate locations offered in the trains, whether these locations are each for one or for several passengers, so that, during the parking of the train, each transverse strip corresponds to a separate space for the train offered to passengers. The number of passengers on each transverse strip at the time of boarding must obviously not exceed the number of passengers that can accommodate each location on the train.

The seats in the train can be numbered, the numbers of these places being written on the departure platform, to the right of these places, when a train is stopped.

To regularize the progress, on the embarkation platform, of the column of travelers, one can use a signaling which materializes the speed of progression of the column.

This signaling will be used in particular in the event of low traffic, to limit the speed of the passenger column to a speed significantly lower than the normal speed of an isolated pedestrian, and to be able to reduce the length of the train accordingly.

This system ensures faster and less tiring passenger routing than that provided by conventional moving walkways.

These allow movement of the traveler at a speed of 2.5 km / h, if he is standing still on the sidewalk, and at a speed of 7 km / h, if he is walking at normal speed. The average speed of movement between entering and leaving the sidewalk is therefore around 5 km / h. Similarly, travelers make on average during this trip only about a third of the steps they should have taken in the absence of the sidewalk.

With the arrangement of the routing system according to the present invention, the displacement of the traveler between the entry and the exit of the system will be carried out at approximately the same speed for all,

this speed can vary from 7 km / h for the shortest trips to more than 12 km / h for the longest. In the first case, the number of steps that travelers will have to take will be only a quarter of that of the steps they would have had to take in the absence of mechanization. In the second case, it will be less than a fifth.

We therefore obtain a higher speed of passenger transport and a reduction in walking time.

In addition, this routing system offers the advantage of being a much lower installation and maintenance cost than that of moving walks, of much greater robustness, of greatly improved reliability, of allow to cross much greater distances between two terminal stations, not to impose a rectilinear layout, but to allow curves, even of small radius, as well as variations of profile in length, to be passable at level and to be able be installed both in a covered space and outdoors.

Finally, the power of this system is modular, that is to say it can vary depending on the amount of traffic, while the power of the conventional moving walkway is always equal to around 100 passengers per minute.

In the case of the preferred embodiment, the nominal power of the system can reach 150 passengers per minute per direction of travel.

If the separate locations in the trains can contain more than one passenger, the nominal power of the system is much greater.

The accompanying drawing shows by way of example an embodiment of the invention in the case where the system comprises two trainsets of vehicles.

Fig. 1 is a schematic view.

Fig. 2 is a front view of a vehicle train.

Figs. 3 and 4 are side views of a vehicle of this train.

The two trainsets Rj and R2 are towed and their movements synchronized by cables; they travel by shuttle on a single track, except in the crossing zone halfway between S stations! and S2.

It will be assumed that the separate locations, possibly separate, of each train can accommodate only one traveler each.

In this case, a line of travelers whose head has just arrived at the entrance A1 of the boarding platform And of the station Sl5 when the start signal of the train Rl5 sounds, progresses regularly on this platform and arrives at its end Bj just when the other train R2, which left station S2 while the head of the line was in An, has just stopped at station Si; the capacity of this train is greater than the number of passengers in the queue, distributed on boarding platform E ^ between its entrance A! and its end when the density of this queue is maximum.

Under these conditions, all the passengers in this line, distributed on the platform Ej between At and B1; can simultaneously board the R2 train as soon as it stops, while the passengers occupying it descend from the other side, on the landing platform Dx.

The latter form a file whose head, which is at A1; can leave the station immediately, through corridor Q, and whose tail, which is in Bls can progress on the landing platform Dj and arrive at the Aj exit of station S! just before the Rj train stops at the station; it therefore does not bother travelers who descend from it.

The continuity of passenger routing is manifested by the fact that the passenger column is found at the exit of the system in the same "consistency" as it had at the entry, since the last traveler leaving the R2 train crossed the exit just before the first passenger of the next train Rj.

The sections of passenger queues using this system therefore progress in the same direction, in an almost continuous manner, the only time interrupting this progression being that necessary for the ascent of some and the simultaneous descent of others, time which, without qu 'they hurry and safely, can be of the order of a few seconds, less than or at most equal to 5 s.

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The passenger pick-up and drop-off at the other S2 station is done in the same way.

The use of the system described above would not be modified in the case where some of the locations of the train, preferably uniformly distributed and whose position relative to the platform, when the train is stopped, can be indicated on the platform, were of larger dimensions to allow a traveler to go up with a child, with luggage or other impedimenta.

The trains can be made up of small vehicles 1, like those shown in FIGS. 2 to 4, carried by two pairs of wheels 2 and 3 and divided by five pairs of uprights 4 to 8 in four locations of the same dimensions, with a fifth location, of slightly larger dimensions, straddling two successive vehicles; between each pair of uprights, such as 4 and 4a, a plate 9 can be provided which can be used as a backrest which, when a traveler, preferably in the direction of travel, presses on it, causes the pivoting up to the horizontal of two lateral arms 10 and 11 on each side of the space, arms which fold down automatically as soon as the passenger stops leaning, thus allowing this traveler to get off the train and freeing up access for the traveler who, on the opposite platform, wishes to go up.

This device 9, 10 and 11 for back-up and lateral limitation of the locations of the trains is mounted symmetrically with respect to each pair of uprights, such as 4 and 4a; it therefore allows its use, identically, by travelers occupying these locations in the direction of travel, whatever it is.

This system is intended for travelers walking at an optimal speed, which is generally normal walking speed; it is interesting for its proper functioning to facilitate the traveler to adopt this optimum speed.

We can for this purpose provide on the boarding platform a platform edge in translucent material covering a ramp of equidistant electric lamps, a decimeter for example, of which only those one meter from each other would be lit if-5 simultaneously , the others remaining extinguished, each group of lighted lamps separated by one meter going out just before the next group lights up, the apparent progression of these groups of lighted lamps simultaneously corresponding to the determined optimum running speed.

io This lighting can start to function at each departure of trains, go out at each arrival of trains, and remain extinguished until the next departure of trains, that is to say during all the time reserved for the rise of passengers distributed on the embarkation platform and at the simultaneous descent, on the disembarkation platform, of the passengers 15 transported by the train which has just stopped.

The operation of this lighting can obviously be automatic and controlled by that of the trains.

It is also possible to provide optical or phonic systems to indicate to travelers arriving or progressing on boarding platform 20 the time they have before arriving at the station of the train in which they will have to board.

It is moreover clearly understood that the embodiment of the invention which has been described above with reference to the appended drawing has been given purely by way of non-limiting indication and that numerous modifications can be made to take account of the particular problems posed, depending on the traffic to be expected, the distances to be covered, the spaces available, and which its great flexibility makes it possible to resolve by choosing the various parameters that this system comprises for the almost continuous 3 ° routing of travelers, over a few hundred meters, using trainsets of vehicles operating in shuttles.

2 sheets of drawings

Claims (9)

651790 1. Installation for the transport of passengers, comprising at least one train of vehicles, commuting between two terminal stations a few hundred meters apart, each of which is equipped with at least one quay for serving the train, d '' a length at least equal to that of the train, characterized by the combination of the following means: - passenger entrances and exits to stations are at the end of the platform, entries at the tail of departing trains and exits at the head of trains upon arrival, - the duration of the train journeys between two stations, that of their parking lots and, consequently, that of the intervals between two departures, or two successive arrivals in the same station, are always substantially the same, - the duration of parking of a train in a station is at least equal to the time necessary for the service of the train, during peak periods, - the entrances to the platforms are arranged to limit the number of passengers who can enter a platform in the time interval between successive departures to a figure no more than that of the number of places available in the train, and - the length of the departure platforms is equal to, or possibly slightly greater than, the distance that can normally be traveled on such a platform, in the time interval between two successive departures, the column of travelers that the entrances have allowed to enter platform during this same time interval. 2. Installation according to claim 1, characterized in that the accesses to each train, on at least one face, and the places offered in this train, are distributed regularly over the entire length of the train, and the total width of the accesses provided on a lateral face of a train is substantially equal to its length. 2 3. Installation according to one of claims 1 or 2, characterized in that the embarkation platform is divided longitudinally into as many separate transverse bands as there are locations offered in the trainsets, that these locations are each for one or for several travelers. 4. Installation according to one of claims 1 to 3, characterized in that the places offered in the train are numbered, and these same numbers are registered on the embarkation platform to the right of the places offered when the train is stopped. 5. Installation according to one of claims 1 to 4, characterized in that the trains have a number of locations of larger dimensions than the others. 6. Installation according to one of claims 1 to 5, characterized in that the trainsets are divided into separate locations, similar to each other, each of which can contain only one traveler standing in the direction of the market. 7. Installation according to one of claims 1 to 6, characterized in that the oars have a width hardly exceeding that of the shoulders of a man. 8. Installation according to one of claims 6 or 7, characterized in that, on two of the separate locations adjacent to a vehicle, one is only accessible to a traveler traveling in one direction and the other n 'is accessible only to a traveler traveling in the other direction. 9. Installation according to one of claims 1 to 8, characterized in that, to regularize the progression, on the embarkation platform, of the passenger column, a signaling materializes the speed of progression of the column.