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Light Rail Transit , Shared Infrastructural Issues

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Transportation Technologies for Sustainability

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Interest in light rail transit (LRT), as a viable urban transportation system , has been growing worldwide and new LRT systems are appearing in urban areas of many countries. One advantage of LRT is its ability to use existing railroad infrastructure to reduce construction cost and environmental impact. The majority of LRT systems in the USA share right-of-way, or utilize the same tracks but temporally separated from the freight railroads, while commingled or simultaneous operation has been common practice for many countries in Asia and Europe. With the success of LRT applications in recent decades, service providers are looking for more space and infrastructure for expansion. Interest in applying overseas commingled experience in the USA has been growing.

Current Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) policy, dominated by safety concerns, does not allow commingling of LRT and freight rail operations within the same time period. The general practice is that...

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Abbreviations

Commingled operation:

Transit trains and freight trains are separated by headway intervals measured in minutes in an operating schedule.

Light rail transit:

Also called streetcar, tramway, or trolley, is a system with passenger rail cars operating singly or in short, usually two-car, trains on fixed rails in right-of-way that is not separated from other traffic for much of the way.

Shared corridor:

Transit and freight operators share a transportation corridor, but tracks are separated by at least 25 ft and no more than 200 ft.

Shared right-of-way:

The transit vehicles run on separate tracks, but track centers are less than 25 ft, that is, separation between the centerline of the freight track and the centerline of the passenger track is less than 25 ft.

Shared track:

Heavy or LRT vehicles operate on the same tracks used by freight trains.

Temporal separation:

Both transit and freight trains utilize the same track but are separated by time windows.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, New Jersey Institute of Technology, University Heights, 07102, Newark, NJ, USA

    Dr. Rongfang Rachel Liu PhD, AICP, PE

Authors
  1. Dr. Rongfang Rachel Liu PhD, AICP, PE
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Rongfang Rachel Liu PhD, AICP, PE .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA

    Mehrdad Ehsani

  2. Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Fei-Yue Wang

  3. Center for Urban Transportation Research, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA

    Gary L. Brosch

Acronyms

ACS

Automatic Cab Signaling

ADA

American with Disabilities Act

APTA

American Public Transportation Association

ATC

Automatic Train Control

ATS

Automatic Train Stop

CBTC

Communication Based Train Control

CFR

Code of Federal Regulation

CN

Canadian National

CTC

Centralized Traffic Control System

DMU

Diesel Multiple Unit

FHWA

Federal Highway Administration

FRA

Federal Railroad Administration

FTA

Federal Transit Administration

GAO

Government Accountability Office or General Accounting Office, prior to 2004

ICE

Intercity Express Train

ITS

Intelligent Transportation System

JNR

Japanese National Railways

JR

Japanese Railways

LRT

Light Rail Transit

LRV

Light Rail Vehicle

MBTA

Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority

MTA

Maryland Transit Administration

MTDB

Metropolitan Transportation Development Board

NCTD

North County Transit District

NJ TRANSIT

New Jersey Transit

PTC

Positive Train Control System

PZB

Indusi “Punktförmige Zugbeeinflussung” System

ROW

Right-of-Way

RSIA

Railroad Safety Improvement Act

SDTI

San Diego Trolley Inc.

STB

Surface Transportation Board

SWG

Shared-Use Working Group

TCRP

Transit Cooperative Research Program

TPWS

Train Protection and Warning System

TRB

Transportation Research Board

UTA

Utah Transit Authority

VTA

Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority

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Liu, R.R. (2013). Light Rail Transit , Shared Infrastructural Issues . In: Ehsani, M., Wang, FY., Brosch, G.L. (eds) Transportation Technologies for Sustainability. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5844-9_295

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