Rail taxi

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Basic representation of the rail taxi system

The rail taxi was introduced in 1993 as a term that was intended to describe small vehicles on rails that can be operated cost-effectively thanks to demand-controlled autonomous driving, even with very small numbers of passengers, due to their low energy consumption.

background

From the 1950s onwards, rail buses were considered to be the “saviors of the secondary lines” that could make them profitable for decades. Many copies successfully stayed in service longer than originally planned. The last of the first series (VT95) were retired in the summer of 1980. The further developments (from VT98) were much heavier and also had higher engine outputs.

Even at the time of the Deutsche Bundesbahn (until 1993) it was already foreseeable that many branch lines would soon no longer be profitable. After the railway privatization in 1994, regionalization followed in 1996. It was to be feared that only a few branch lines could be operated profitably with the trains and multiple units that were customary up until then.

idea

The rail taxi was therefore presented for the first time in a lecture at the IFF 93 research show in Essen on November 17, 1993, primarily for the purpose of stimulating traffic on single-track and winding branch lines .

The use of communication and computer technology, which was developing rapidly at the time, made the following system conceivable for better utilization of the tracks in the region:

  • Several small vehicle units (with up to about 10 people) should be used along a limited route (e.g. secondary route threatened with closure);
  • the vehicle's on-board computers are linked to a large computer system by redundant radio links;
  • the vehicles are requested by the customer via mobile communications like call taxis / buses, the computer system decides which vehicle goes to which station;
  • the system acts automatically and unmanned.

Many sensors provide collision security and prevent vandalism, as the logged-in users are known to the system. Thanks to a new type of radar system that can handle curves, even more distant, dangerous non-system obstacles (e.g. trucks on level crossings) can be detected in good time.

Due to the demand-driven, autonomous operation, cost-effective operation is possible, which only needs to be monitored from a control center (e.g. bus operators in this region).

Spread of the term rail taxi in public

From 1993 this idea was presented at several trade fairs. After the Hanover Fair in 1995, the rail taxi became better known, also through an article in the ProBahn newspaper. In the early 1990s, a small vehicle for secondary lines was also presented in Halver , which was initially called the Bahnmobil . Later, the principle of the rail taxi obstacle detection radar around the curve was verified experimentally on the Schleifkottenbahn . The rail taxi was presented one last time at the # railtec2007 in Dortmund .

After 1995, the term rail taxi was used by various sides as a suitable technical term for other systems, e.g. B. RailCab , so that the protection intended by the author as the word mark “EisenbahnTaxi”, among other things for the Schleifkottenbahn project , was no longer possible.

After nobody wanted to finance the development of the rail taxi so far, this idea seems to have fallen asleep.

For several years now, the “Zayataler Schienentaxi” has been operated in Lower Austria as part of the “Neue Landesbahn” association with volunteer employees on weekends in summer. 50-year-old motorized railcars of the type MBW100 with the series designation X626 serve as locomotives; the rail bus trailer 7081.23 has also been in use in the train set since 2019. The route goes from Asparn an der Zaya in one direction to the Mistelbach-Interspar terminus, and in the other direction to the Draisinenalm Grafensulz.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Rail taxi - branch line savers of the future ?; Bahn-Report 2/1994, pp. 4-6
  2. ↑ The rail taxi: Opportunities through modern technology; Pro Bahn Zeitung June / July 1995, pp. 22–26
  3. ↑ Liesenkötter: Obstruction Detection for people movers operating on Conventional Small Branch Railways , IEEE Conference on Intelligent Vehicles, October 1998, pp. 280–284 ( online ) (PDF)
  4. ↑ Fuchs, Liesenkötter: Implementation of a Low-Cost Digital Short Wave Radar System for People Movers; International Radar Symposium IRS 2005, Berlin ( online ) (PDF)
  5. ↑ Railtec.pdf - hs-augsburg.de
  6. ↑ The project "EisenbahnTaxi", local transport practice Jan / Febr. 2009, pp. 25-27