Folding step

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Extended folding step on an ICE 3

Light rail car B with folded out folding steps

Detailed view of the folding steps of a Frankfurt PTB car

A folding step is a technical aid to adapt rail vehicles to different platform heights. In contrast to fixed steps, platform platforms with a height that corresponds to the vehicle floor allow stepless and therefore comfortable entry (with regard to the entry width, however, not necessarily barrier-free , more on this below). Alternatively, folding steps can be used to reduce the horizontal distance between the vehicle and the platform edge.

Folding steps are found in particular on light rail vehicles and are used on some rail vehicles including all series of the Intercity Express .

Construction methods

The retracted folding step is usually flush with the vehicle floor or the outer skin. When stopped, the step is folded down or out, creating a step 20 to 40 centimeters high. More elaborate constructions fold the step in the middle, whereby a second, fixed step is released after folding. This makes it possible either to overcome a greater difference in height or to reduce the necessary step height and thus create a more comfortable entry.

Folding steps can be combined with sliding steps underneath that extend outwards to form a small staircase . As a result, for example, the tram B is able to serve both stops with platforms up to 90 centimeters high and stops without a platform.

Problem and consequences

Folding steps are regularly not barrier-free . This does not only apply to the stations with step-by-step operation, because central poles are regularly built in to help overcome the steps, which hinder or even make impossible access with wheelchairs or strollers . Depending on the height difference to be overcome, use is difficult even for passengers with average mobility, because the steps are often 30 cm and more high.

Ways out:

• Where the expansion of the light rail network has come a long way, stops in the street are equipped with elevated platforms (example: Hannover light rail ).
• In some cases, tunnel stations are converted to low platforms. After completing this measure, low-floor vehicles can be used. (For examples, see article U-Tram .)
• A combination of the aforementioned concepts with the separation of the network into a high-floor and a low-floor network. In Cologne, for example, no elevated platforms were built in the tunnel for mixed operation with tram vehicles. The already planned conversion was only carried out on some of the routes. These will now be standardized on high platforms, while the other routes will remain equipped with low platforms. There will no longer be any transitions between these two networks in scheduled services in future.

Wherever light rail networks are being built (e.g. Strasbourg ), pure low-floor operation is used. However, when most of the networks were first established in the 1960s and 1970s, this technology was not yet available, so the only option for level entry was a high platform.