Switch (traffic engineering)
Soft in the traffic engineering constructions in modes with trace binding to transport or transported materials the transition from a track enabling to another without interruption of movement.
The two carriages of a single-track funicular have flanges on the wheels of the outer rail, one carriage on the right, the other on the left. With the help of this passive Abt switch , each car is guided to "its" outer rail and drives a different route at the passing point, the two cars drive past each other.
There are two types of turnouts:
- "Active turnouts", where the lane change is accomplished by the turnout,
- "Passive points" where there are no moving parts in the lane and the lane change is initiated by the vehicles (example: Abt switch ).
Switches are mainly used:
- as railway switches ,
- as tram turnouts
- as air switches in trolleybuses and tram operators with pantographs ,
- in the case of funicular railways as an Abt switch or as a passive switch in the pinched loop system (in which the funicular vehicle is coupled to different pull cables)
- for monorails , roller coasters , overhead railways as internal means of conveyance and station rails of cable cars as a switch point, in which by moving (also called "sliding point" ) or rotating (then also called "turnstile switch" ) a standing or hanging platform creates a rigid, straight track against a rigid one curved track is exchanged.
- in material handling technology as
- Rotary switches in roller conveyors and pneumatic tube systems
- Swap points on rolling lines in steel production .
Turntables and transfer platforms , in contrast, are constructions that allow the transition from one track to another only with a break in travel.
It is disputed whether lane changes in driverless transport vehicles due to changes in the current-carrying induction loops count as points.