Grenoble tram

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tram
Grenoble tram
image
Basic information
Country France
city Grenoble
opening August 1987
operator Sémitag
Infrastructure
Route length 42.7 km
Gauge 1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Power system 750 V DC overhead line
Stops 74
business
Lines 5
Clock in the peak hours 3 min
vehicles 53 Alstom TFS 2
50 Citadis 402
statistics
Passengers 210 330 per day (2009)
Network plan
Line network since 2015

The Grenoble tramway ( fr. Tramway de Grenoble ) was with the reintroduction in 1987 of the world's first operation in which only trams in low-floor technology were used. Today, five lines operate in Grenoble on a 42.7 kilometer standard gauge network. Between 1894 and 1952 there was already a meter-gauge operation in the largest city in the French Alps with several routes, some of them leading far into the surrounding area.

Grenoble's first trams

Trams at Place Grenette , starting point for the overland route to Voreppe

From the 1890s, a tram network operated by several companies emerged in Grenoble, which included several interurban trams , mostly single-track routes on the side of the street. The meter-gauge network was gradually shut down between 1933 and 1952.

The most important company was the urban Société Grenobloise de Tramways Électriques (SGTE), which operated routes in the city as well as several suburban railways. The suburban routes included the 5 km long connection opened in 1897 to Eybens, south of Grenoble . Also in 1897 a 12.5 kilometer line to Varces was opened, from which a short branch line branched off to Claix in Pont-de-Claix . This route was lengthened twice by four kilometers each and reached Vif in 1907 and Les Saillants in 1923 . In 1900 the 14-kilometer route to Voreppe was put into operation, following the Isère valley downstream. In 1930 SGTE operated nine lines and had a route network of 88 kilometers in length. The fleet consisted of 58 railcars, two luggage railcars and 29 trailer cars. The SGTE lines were closed between 1938 and 1952.

Station of the VFD in Uriage-les-Bains
TGC train on the Pont de l'Île Verte bridge over the Isère

In 1894, the Société des voies ferrées du Dauphiné (VFD) opened a 35-kilometer route that led via Gières and Vizille to Le Bourg-d'Oisans , southeast of Grenoble . Starting in 1898, a 13-kilometer branch line was built from Gières, which ran in the Isère valley in a north-easterly direction to Froges . The VFD electrified its route network between 1902 and 1909 with the exception of the section between Vizille and Le Bourg-d'Oisans, which was always operated with steam locomotives until it was closed in 1946. By 1948, the other VFD routes were also converted to bus services. In 1930 the VFD fleet consisted of 18 railcars, 23 steam locomotives, three luggage railcars and 61 trailer cars.

The Chemins de fer Economiques du Nord (CEN) operated a 16-kilometer suburban railway to Veurey , northwest of Grenoble in the Isère valley , from 1895 . After electrification, this route was taken over by the municipal SGTE between 1902 and 1905.

The Tramway de Grenoble à Chapareillan (TGC) had the 43-kilometer route via Saint-Ismier to Chapareillan , which ran upstream from Grenoble in the Isère valley. Opened in sections between December 1899 and March 1900, the TGC had a double overhead line as a special feature. At the intermediate station in Montfort, there was a connection to the Funiculaire du Touvet funicular , which still exists today and connected to Saint-Hilaire , 690 m higher . In 1930 the TGC had a fleet of eleven railcars, two baggage cars and 25 sidecars. From March 1933, the section from Le Touvet to Chapareillan began to operate by bus, with the rest of the line following until December 1, 1947.

The Grenoble - Villard-de-Lans (GVL) tramway was owned by the Isère department and operated by the municipal SGTE. The GVL route with a total length of 39 kilometers led to Villard-de-Lans, west of Grenoble in the Vercors Mountains . The railway, which has the character of an "extraordinary panorama railway", was opened in sections between 1911 and July 1920. The section from Saint-Nizier to Villard-de-Lans was closed in 1938, the rest of the line on April 1, 1949.

The way to reintroduce the tram

After the shutdown of the last tram in 1952, all local public transport in Grenoble was handled by buses. Since July 1947 trolleybuses have operated on two lines .

In 1973 the département and 24 municipalities in the greater Grenoble area founded the Syndicat Mixte des Transports en Commun (SMTC), a special-purpose association in whose hands the planning authority for local public transport lies. On January 1, 1975, the SGTE transport company, which no longer covers costs, was replaced by the newly founded Société d'Économie Mixte des Transports de l'Agglomération Grenobloise (SÉMITAG), a mixed-economy company within the Transdev Group. In the years that followed, SÉMITAG purchased new buses, set up new lines and increased traffic on the existing lines. A new depot was built in Eybens , replacing the old depot from 1897. In 1977 the first four kilometer long bus lanes were opened. The trolleybus operation was expanded from two to six lines, at the same time 50 new trolleybuses replaced vehicles from the 1950s. Between 1973 and 1982 the number of passengers rose from 16.9 to 38.9 million, meaning that 16 percent of all journeys in the metropolitan area were made by public transport.

The increased number of passengers led to signs of congestion, especially on the main routes of the bus network, so that at the end of the 1970s plans were made for the reintroduction of a tram. As early as the spring of 1975, Grenoble was the only one of the cities addressed to have agreed to build a tram when the State Secretary in the French Ministry of Transport, Marcel Cavaillé , asked several cities in writing to submit concepts for the reintroduction of a tram. In 1981 there was a specific project draft in Grenoble. In 1983 the city administration carried out a referendum in which the tram project was approved by 53.1 percent with a voter turnout of 36.8 percent. Preparatory construction work began in 1983, and the actual construction work began in March 1985.

Standard-gauge tram from 1987

TFS 2 railcars on line B
Citadis train at the common stop of lines A and C, Chavant
Terminus of line C in the municipality of Seyssins
Line C stretch along Grand Boulevard

After test drives since January 1987, the first Grenoble tram line gradually went into operation from August 1987. Grenoble was the second French city after Nantes to resume tram operations in the 1980s. Today the Grenoble tram is considered to be a trailblazer for the further development of the tram transport system. Grenoble was the first company in the world to rely entirely on low-floor trams under pressure from associations for the disabled , thereby creating barrier-free access to this mode of transport. The urban development approach, not only wanting to solve traffic problems with the reintroduction of the tram, but also to make a contribution to urban renewal, in particular to revitalizing the inner city, served as a model for other French cities. Such concepts were taken up and further developed in other French cities, particularly with the tram that opened in Strasbourg in 1995 .

Lines

After continuous expansion, five tram lines have been running on a route network totaling 35 kilometers since 2014:

  • Line A went into operation in August 1987 between Gares and the Grand'Place terminus south of the city center. The line crosses the old town of Grenoble in streets that are only seven meters wide; In one street, an 80-meter-long arcade was built for pedestrians, inserted into the existing buildings . In the city center, the existing pedestrian zone was expanded, in some cases marble slabs were used to pave the track area. At the end of the line, Grand'Place, next to a large shopping center, a large, covered transfer facility for bus traffic was built. In the area of ​​Grenoble's main train station, the route runs in a loop in order to position the tram stop as close as possible to the station building. In September 1987 and January 1988, Line A was extended from Gares to the municipality of Fontaine , west of Grenoble . The Drac is crossed on its own bridge, previously reserved for car traffic. A new pedestrian zone was created in Fontaine. In the south, line A was extended between March 1996 and December 1997 in the suburb of Échirolles . The nearly four-kilometer-long stretch, which is mostly laid out as grass track , connects the Alpexpo congress center and opens up suburban areas with free-standing apartment blocks.
  • Line B opened in November 1990. The inner city route of line A is used between Gares and Hubert Dubedout. A newly built, four-kilometer route leaves the city center in a north-easterly direction, crosses the Isère twice, connects to a clinic and then passes through the campus of the University of Grenoble . At the three-track La Tronche Grand Sablon station, a transfer facility for bus traffic from the north-eastern suburbs was built. At the western end of Line B, a 1.2-kilometer stretch to the new Cité Internationale terminus went into operation in November 1999 and May 2001 in two sections, which opened up an office district under construction at the rear of the main train station. In April 2006, the university campus was extended by 1.6 kilometers to the new terminus, Plaine des Sports. At the intermediate station Gières Gare Universités you can change to the trains of the SNCF state railway towards Chambéry . In September 2014, a 1.6 km extension to the Polygone Scientifique was completed, which, with the two new stops CEA - Cambridge and Grenoble Presqu'île, opens up the research facilities there.
  • Line C went into operation on May 20, 2006. From the terminus in the municipality of Seyssins , the route runs north, turns east in Seyssinet-Pariset , crosses the Drac and then runs through the southern city center of Grenoble along the street of the Grands Boulevards. This street train previously served as a connection between two motorways and was used by 60,000 vehicles per day. An existing elevated road was blown up in July 2004. The Chavant stop connects lines A and C; in the east, the 7.7 kilometer long new line connects to the existing line B behind the Hector Berlioz station; the C trains continue to the university.
  • On October 6, 2007, Line D, also referred to as Line C 'in the planning phase, went into operation. A 2.6-kilometer stretch was rebuilt, which connects new development areas in the south of the municipality of Saint-Martin-d'Hères . Trains on line D continue from the Neyrpic-Belledonne station on line C and end in Les Taillées-Universités.
  • As the fifth tram line, the first section of Line E went into operation on June 28, 2014. It starts in the south of Grenoble, crosses the city center in a northerly direction and then leads to the communes of Saint-Martin-le-Vinoux on the right of the Isère . The route initially ended there; an extension to Saint-Égrève and Fontanil-Cornillon went into operation on July 13, 2015. The route is 11.5 kilometers long and has 18 stops. For the route, a section of the A48 motorway has been stepped down to the N481 national road.

business

In the 2008/2009 annual timetable, line A ran every three to four minutes during rush hour and every five minutes during the day. On line B, trips are offered every three minutes during rush hour and every four minutes during the day. Line C has a cycle time of four to six minutes during rush hour and eight minutes during the day. In the evening these three lines run every 12 minutes, later every 20 minutes. Line D runs less frequently, every seven minutes during rush hour and every ten minutes during the day. On Sundays, the cycle times are much shorter, as is usual with French public transport companies, and vary between eleven minutes (line A, in the afternoon) and 30 minutes (line D). Lines A to C run from around 5 a.m. to around 1 a.m., line D between 6 a.m. and 9 p.m.

Compared to other French tram operators, travel speeds are rather low at 17 km / h for lines A and B and 18 km / h for line C. The pedestrian zone in the city center, where the travel speed is 14 km / h, has an impact on the low speed of lines A and B. Travel times have been reduced compared to the previous bus service: With the commissioning of line A, travel times between the city center and Grand'Place were reduced from 25 to 15 minutes and between Fontaine and the city center from 22 to eleven minutes. The distances between the stops are 450 meters (line A), 410 meters (line B) and 530 meters (line C). At traffic signals the streetcar generally has priority .

For the reopening of the tram in 1987, the existing Eybens depot was converted for tram cars. Trolleybuses remained at home in Eybens, while a new depot was built in Sassenage for diesel buses . In Eybens, there was initially a car hall with 12 tracks for 29 trains, a washing facility and the central workshop with four tracks. With the further expansion of the network, additional storage options were created. The Eybens depot is connected to the Grand'Place stop on Line A via a 750-meter-long operating route. A second depot was built after the extension of Line B in April 2006 at the new Plaine des Sports terminus.

vehicles

Interior view of a Citadis tram

20 TFS 2 railcars were procured for Line A, which opened in 1987. The TFS 2 was created as a low-floor further development of the Tramway français standard (TFS) of the French group Alstom , which has been used in the Nantes tram since 1985 and whose use was initially also planned in Grenoble. With a total length of 29.4 meters, the 2.3 meter wide TFS 2 offers 58 seats and 120 standing places. In the middle of the railcar is a 17.85 meter long compartment with a floor height of 34 centimeters above the top of the rails. Retractable step flaps on the doors also enable passengers in wheelchairs to use the tram. The railcar developed for Grenoble is considered to be the first tram that was heavily influenced by a designer. The TFS 2 proved itself in operation, the disadvantage was its higher weight due to the low-floor construction, which led to higher energy consumption and greater stress on the superstructure. By 1997 Grenoble had purchased 53 TFS 2 trains in four series.

In 2003, SMTC also ordered 35 Citadis 402 railcars from Alstom , which were delivered from 2005. The Citadis cars have 76 seats and 198 standing places and are 43.7 meters long and 2.4 meters wide. In November 2007, the SMTC announced the order for 12 more Citadis trains. With their higher capacity, the railcars should provide relief on line A. This also required adjustments to the route, such as the extension of platforms.

Balance sheet

Up to 2001, 367 million euros had been invested in the construction of the route network. The routes inaugurated in 2006 and 2007 incurred additional costs of 360 million euros. The purchase price for the 53 TFS 2 multiple units was 101 million euros; the 35 Citadis trains cost 90 million euros. The routes opened between 1987 and 1997 cost between 23.8 and 31.7 million euros per kilometer, a high value compared to the tramway opened in Nantes in 1985, which is explained by the great importance of the design.

Versement transport , a transport tax levied by all employers with more than nine employees, is an important financing instrument . Grenoble uses the maximum allowable rate of 1.75% based on the wage bill. Initially, the French state paid up to 50% of the investment costs; in the meantime, state subsidies have largely ceased to exist.

In 1996, 22.8 million passengers used the tram; In 2001 there were 28.5 million, in 2005 33.8 million and in 2010 40.9 million. For all local public transport, including bus operations, the number of passengers rose from 17 million in 1970 to 34 million in 1990 to 70 million in 2005. The reasons for the increase are the continuous network expansion and a general upward trend in local public transport.

Further expansion

Grenoble plans to further extend the existing routes:

  • Further plans envisage the extension of line A at both endpoints. This will give the communities of Pont de Claix and Sassenage a tram connection, as it already existed at the time of meter-gauge operation.
  • Line E is also to be extended to the municipality of Meylan , northeast of Grenoble . Line D is to be expanded into a tangential line south of the city center. An extension is planned from the current end point Etienne Grappe via Grand'Place and Seyssins to Fontaine.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Georges Muller: The renaissance of the tram in Grenoble. In: City traffic. No. 9, 1987, ISSN  0038-9013 , pp. 16-23, here p. 16.
  2. ^ Muller, Renaissance , p. 16.
  3. ↑ a b Muller, Renaissance , p. 16f.
  4. ↑ Dirk Budach, Jürgen Lehmann: The trolleybus operations in France. In: City traffic. No. 2, 2005, ISSN  0038-9013 , pp. 19-23, here p. 19.
  5. ↑ Groneck, Planning Concepts , p. 38.
  6. ^ Muller, Renaissance , p. 17.
  7. ↑ Groneck, Planungsleitbilder , p. 180.
  8. ↑ Groneck, Tramways , p. 42f.
  9. ↑ Groneck, Straßenbahnen , p. 40ff.
  10. ↑ Groneck, Straßenbahnen , p. 41f.
  11. ^ A b Robert Schrempf: Grenoble opens tram line C. In: Stadtverkehr. No. 7-8, 2006, ISSN  0038-9013 , p. 47.
  12. ↑ L'extension du tram B entame demain sa “marche à blanc” . ( ledauphine.com [accessed July 12, 2018]).
  13. ↑ Groneck, Tramways , p. 49.
  14. ↑ Schrempf, Grenoble opens tram line C , p. 47. Opening date at www.trams-in-france.net .
  15. ↑ Annual timetable 2008/2009 at www.semitag.com/
  16. ↑ Table in Groneck, Planungsleitbilder , p. 98.
  17. ↑ Groneck, Tramways , p. 46.
  18. ↑ Groneck, Tramways , p. 41.
  19. ^ Muller, Renaissance , p. 19; Groneck, Straßenbahnen , p. 45. Location: 45 ° 9 ′ 31.1 ″  N , 5 ° 44 ′ 27.9 ″  E
  20. ↑ Groneck, Straßenbahnen , p. 49. Location: 45 ° 11 ′ 21.8 ″  N , 5 ° 46 ′ 59.9 ″  E
  21. ↑ On TFS 2 see: Groneck, Straßenbahnen , p. 42ff; Muller, Renaissance , pp. 19ff.
  22. ↑ Harry Hondius: Development of the low and medium-floor trams and light rail vehicles. Episode 16, Part II. In: Stadtverkehr , No. 1, 2003, ISSN  0038-9013 , p. 12.
  23. ↑ Groneck, Tramways , p. 45.
  24. ^ Schrempf: Grenoble opens tram line C , p. 47; Brief message in Stadtverkehr , No. 3, 2003, ISSN  0038-9013 , p. 49.
  25. ↑ SMTC: http://www.smtc-grenoble.org/?q=node/62 Des Citadis sur la ligne A. (French, link no longer available, March 28, 2013)
  26. ↑ Cost information in Groneck, Straßenbahnen , p. 42; Schrempf, Grenoble opens tram line C , p. 47.
  27. ↑ Groneck, Planungsleitbilder , p. 92ff.
  28. ↑ Groneck, Planungsleitbilder , p. 19f. Bruno Schmidt: Grenoble is also getting a tram. In: City traffic. No. 9, 1985, ISSN  0038-9013 , pp. 334-335, here p. 335.
  29. ^ Passenger numbers at: Groneck, Planungsleitbilder , p. 111; Groneck, Straßenbahnen , p. 46; Schrempf: Grenoble opens tram line C , p. 47; Christoph Groneck: High quality public transport in France. In: Stadtverkehr 12/2012, pp. 46–49, here p. 48.
  30. ↑ Further planning at www.trams-in-france.net (English)

literature

  • Christoph Groneck: New trams in France. The return of an urban mode of transport . EK-Verlag, Freiburg 2003, ISBN 3-88255-844-X .
  • Christoph Groneck: French planning models for tram systems compared to Germany . Dissertation, Bergische Universität Wuppertal, Wuppertal 2007. ( Digitized , PDF file, 5.1 MB)

Web links

Commons : Grenoble tram  - Collection of images, videos and audio files