2007, Tram for Stockholm

Tram is not just a transportation tool. It is more a part of the city, compared to bus. This is a 8-week project to design a tram concept for Stockholm in 2015, in collaboration with Alstom France. You can read the design report for more details if you like. Team members: Aydin Mert, Johannes Warncke & Tao Lin

Why Tram:

As technology evolves, the government of Stockholm has proposed to bring back the tram, to relieve the ever-increasing traffic burden the Blue Line Bus. Compared to bus, tram has many technical advantages. Not only is it safer, more capable, and more eco-friendly, but also quieter, and more economic in the long run. With new technologies like ground power feeding, and better rail system, the old wired and noisy image of tram has started changeing.

Understanding:

We have done an extensive research in the first 4 weeks. Large amount of background information were given to us thanks to the expertise Alstom has in this field. Given the guideline and their perspective of future development, we were asked to build our design upon their modular system "CITADIS".

We paid a field visit to Stockholm after going through the papers. Through the trip, we collected pictures and impressions of the city, and some knowledge about the environment that the tram is going to be running in. We also visited Bordeaux to try the latest tram they built. That gave us a good ground to build our design on.

Ideation & Initial Decisions:

We have generated ideas covering various aspects of the tram. As for the scale of the project, there are many aspects we have to consider. To understand the system from technical to social level, and integrate them into design, is the most challenging part for me.

Apart from exterior and interior, we also re-thought about the whole system from the ground up. Many ideas arise in the area of maintenance, modules, infrastructure etc. However, due to the limitations set by the sponsor, and the time frame which is 2020, most of those ideas were not adopted.

Design Proposal:

We decided to use the smallest module of CITADIS system as our main configuration, since we believe that smaller module would benefit more flexibility. For example, you can send more units during rush hours, and less during other time, to better use the energy. (We found that the long bus is usually very empty after rush hours.)

For the interior, we aimed to find a layout that takes more account for wheel chairs and bicycles. Of course there are compromises to make, to balance among seat number, capacity, and accessibility. Further, we also raised the window line a bit, to gain a lot more viewing angle. The extra viewing angle would be a very nice point for a tram, since it is more attractive to tourists than bus.

We also removed the instrument box occupying the roof of the middle cart, which was made feasible because we chose to use a minimum module. Thus it feels much more spacious and open inside. The extra sunlight gained would be a nice feature for the Scandinavian winter.

"Driver's Cab"?

We found that the best place in the tram is used for driver's cab. It is fine because the driver needs a good view. As a two-directional tram has to have 2 locomotive, one on each direction, one of the driver's cab is always empty.

So we propose to utilize this space, not only for capacity, but also the nice view there. Thus we have come up with this convertible "driver's cab" concept.

With the technology progress in 15 years, we can presume that the practical “driving” function would be more and more automated, and there’s going to be less and less need to have a “driver”. Instead, a “Guide”, who has more social functions, would be more of a role he/she would play in the future, which cannot be replaced by computers.

Experimenting with seat arrangements and driver's cab concept

The Wonderful Teammates