Автоматизированные системы перемещения людей VAL и NeoVal

the people mover system

Véhicule Automatique Léger or VAL is a type of driverless (automated), rubber tyred, medium capacity rail transport system (people mover). The technology was developed at the Lille University of Science and Technology, was marketed by Matra, and first used in the early 1980s for the Lille Metro system, one of the world's first fully automated mass transit rail networks, preceded only by the Port Island Line in Kobe, Japan. The VAL technology is now marketed by Siemens, which acquired Matra in the late 1990s. A total of 11 lines in 8 systems based on the VAL technology are currently in operation worldwide. The current version of the VAL product is marketed as NeoVal (with a distinction between AirVal for airport environments and CityVal for more conventional transit environments). The name is a backronym, with the first project to use the technology nicknamed VAL after the routing of the line: Villeneuve d'Ascq à Lille .

The VAL system uses a fully automated elevated guideway, which may be metal or concrete depending on prevailing weather conditions. Primary suspension is by rubber tires, with pairs of horizontal tires to provide lateral guidance. Electrical power at 750 V DC is collected by shoes from the guidebars. The vehicles are lightweight 2 car sets (VAL 206 or VAL 208) with 124 total capacity, or twin sets (VAL 256) with 80 seated and 160 standing capacity. All axles on these vehicles are motored with electrical motors. The system detects the location of trains on the guideway by the use of ultrasonic sensors. VAL uses fixed block signalling. VAL can cope with unanticipated demand by inserting additional trains into the network as required by remote command from the control center. The control center computer system automatically speeds up or slows down trains in order to maintain a timetable. The VAL system can handle headways as small as 60 seconds, and the Lille VAL system rapidly proved itself with a 99.8% availability. In contrast to another early driverless metro system, the Vancouver SkyTrain, the VAL design uses platforms that are separated from the rollways by a glass partition, to prevent waiting passengers from straying or falling onto the rollways. Platform screen doors – produced by Swiss glass door manufacturer Kaba Gilgen AG – are embedded in these partitions and open in synchrony with the train doors when a train stops at the platform. The original platform edge doors were manufactured and installed by PLC Peters in Hayes, Middlesex and were used on the first line. In addition to the trains being driverless, the station platforms are unstaffed in normal operation. In the original Lille metro system, they are monitored by a large closed circuit television system with 330 cameras and 24 television monitors in a remote control room.

When VAL was introduced to Taipei, the term medium capacity rail transport system was coined by railway planners to differentiate VAL from heavy rail (metro). Since then, this term has begun to be applied on similar capacity transit systems–mainly in Asian cities–even when the systems are not based on VAL's technology. On Siemens' official website, VAL was during a certain time advertised as the "first fully automated light metro", in which the term "light metro" can be traced back to the Moscow Metro's Butovskaya Line. Siemens now rather uses the terms "medium capacity metro" or simply refers to VAL as a "people mover".