(thing) by Cyt Mon May 08 2000 at 15:16:43
The Rapid Urban Flexible project started by the Danish engineer Palle R Jensen throughout the 1990'ies. The whole point about this system of transportation is to solve the constantly rising traffic problems of all metropoles in the world. The approach taken is to have a standardized vehicle that can act as a car or a trainwagon. This combines flexibility with speed.
    Facts about the system as it is intended to look like
  • The system is a dual-mode one where the vehicles are small electric cars (RUFs) or larger Automatic People Mover units (MAXI-RUFs).
  • The vehicles can go directly from road to a triangular monorail at 30 km/h.
  • The RUF is "riding" on top of the triangular monorail. The RUF has an A-shaped slot along the underside of the vehicle. It is equipped with both normal road wheels and special simple rail wheels.
  • The RUFs can be closely coupled on the monorail.
  • The RUFs take current from the rail or from small batteries when it is driving by itself on the roads.
  • The batteries can be charged during rail driving.
  • The range on normal roads is more than 50 km.
  • The speed on normal roads is up to 80 km/h.
  • The speed on the rail can reach 200 km/h (typically 100 km/h).
  • Rail switching takes places without moving rail. The dual-mode principle is used for automatic guidance of a RUF from one rail - via road - to another rail or to the ordinary road network.
  • Normal braking on the rail is regenerative (motor=generator).
  • Emergency braking is very effective using a special direct rail brake.
  • The dual-mode RUF has room for 2-4 passengers.
  • The MAXI-RUF has room for 10 passengers.
  • The RUFs can be privately owned or public.
  • A personal smart card is used for fare collection.
  • The name RUF originates from a Danish expression where "get along in a RUF" means "go fast".
So far, small test rails exist a couple of places in Denmark, but due to lack of funds they're only about 30 ms each.
Los Angeles have considered multiple times to invest in the RUF, but so far they haven't dared. However, a report has been made about this Los Angeles scenario. The most important conclusions of this were:
  • No congestion
  • Contribution to an improvement of the air quality
  • Relaxed rail travel
  • Door-to-door transportation
  • A public transport system with 3 seconds between arrivals of MAXI-RUFs
  • Non-stop between major stations during rush hour
  • Possibility of own seating arrangement
  • Easy ascending/descending
  • "Dial-a-RUF" facility
  • Waiting time at street level approx. 1 minute
  • 24-hour service on the rail system
  • Construction of a RUF-system will cost approx. $9.55 billion.
  • Maintenance of rail network and stations = $0.5 billion/year
  • Renewal of rail network and stations = $0.5 billion/year
  • Operating profit will be $2.23 billion/year. To this should be added savings for L.A. in the magnitude of $2.9 billion/year.
I like it!