Project
About
RailEvo is an innovative, autonomous, on-demand, non-stop rail transportation system, comprising small high-efficiency electric rail vehicles, a dedicated railway network and stations. For high speed 150-180 km/h intercity or 50-60 km/h MiniMetro networks.
Vehicle
A dual-mode, fully autonomous vehicle, capable of travelling fast and efficiently on rails and maneuvering in any direction on the station’s flat surfaces with additional mecanum-wheel. RailEvo is a fully autonomous system, sharing technologies already used for autonomous metro systems and AGVs ( Autonomous Guided Vehicles ) while travelling on rails and maneuver on the surface station respectively.
Versatile vehicle
- Elderly and disabled people can take their own time to embark and disembark the vehicle
- Groups of 4 or 6 can travel at the same time
- Travel alone with full privacy
- Cargo
Line Network
RailEvo provides an on-demand and non-stop service between stations on a rail
network. Some
stations can
be also used as nodes so that vehicles can autonomously change from one line to the other.
The RailEvo
system allows a high station density on the lines, literally one station after the other.
Conversely,
conventional train/metro systems do not allow having such a high number of stations close to
each other,
because stopping at any one of them would slow down the entire system. Therefore RailEvo can
offer an
unparalleled service level, literally spread along the entire line through its many
stations, which also
increases land value in the areas crossed by the line.
Station
Vehicles get into the station through the vertical rail switch. They deploy their mecanum wheels to move omnidirectionally to parking bays, where passengers can alight safely in their own time, away from the main traffic. Vehicle maneuvering speed in the station is about 5-6 km/h. The station max capacity is about 600 vehicles/h or more.
User Experience
On-demand service 24/7: Since RailEvo vehicles are fully autonomous and can move independently on the network and at the stations; the service is personalized and can be offered any time 24/7 from any station to any other station on the network. Users are free to move around the RailEvo network whenever they want. This is an enormous improvement on current rail systems’ user experience, such that many more citizens will use rail instead of their private cars.
Light and compact infrastructure
Light and compact infrastructure: the Railevo infrastructure is about 3,5m wide (similar to a cycling lane) and the maximum axle load of the RailEvo vehicles is about 25 time less than that of a conventional train.
The RailEvo System allows for many different construction possibilities, some of them with a very small footprint, so that it can be tailored to an already busy urban environment:
Vehicle Subsystems
Synergy of the subsystems
- The double-width configurable axles
- The High rail adherence system,
- The Mecanum Wheels.
Vertical Railway Switch
The railway switch system has no movable parts on the railway and allows the
vehicle to be
deviated
vertically from the main rail at any speed without previous deceleration and so without
disturbing the traffic
flow behind it.
Vehicles travelling on the main rail can have two possible
configurations:
one to remain on
the main rail and the other to engage the railway switch, which is a railway with a bigger
track gauge. The
vertical deviation is very smooth and comfortable. After the vertical rail switch, the
vehicle decelerates and
enter the station. The vertical railway switch has no horizontal land occupation, a big
advantage especially in
urban environments.
