The exponential growth of cities worldwide raises many challenges for urban authorities, including reducing road traffic congestion, combating pollution, noise in cities and redeveloping urban zones.

Addressing delegates during a media tour of Alstom’s La Rochelle manufacturing centre, in France, Alstom light rail vehicle platform tram director Eric Caplot said that in 30 years, 70% of the global population would most likely live in cities.

He stated that urbanisation would create more demand for light rail, which is considered the backbone of medium-sized cities and is an important feeder to higher capacity metro systems in large conurbations.

The global tram market, estimated at €3.3-billion, is one of the most promising in the railway industry, Caplot said.

“Over the past 20 years, trams have enjoyed a renewal of interest in growing cities. Trams currently represent 33% of the urban rail market and are set to gain a further 10% in the next two years. The regions seeing the strongest growth in this area are the Middle East and Africa, North America and Latin America.”

He highlighted that trams consumed little energy, have long lifespans of about 30 years and responded well to increases in the numbers of passengers by having the ability to incorporate additional carriages.

Caplot noted that about 2 500 of Alston’s Citadis X05 trams had been ordered by about 50 cities globally. The Citadis X05 benefits from new technologies, including permanent magnet motors, and offers improved heating, ventilation and air conditioning, as well as auxiliary management which reduces energy consumption by 25%.

“The latest addition to the Citadis range is SRS – a static charging system – based on the technology and safety principles of APS. Whereas APS supplies power to the tram while in operation, SRS charges the tram when stopped at stations during normal dwell time in less than 20 seconds,” he said.

Equipped with supercapacitors, the tram is recharged through in-street conductive rails and through collector shoes mounted under its body.

Between two stations, the tram runs autonomously in nominal and degraded modes without any other infrastructure equipment than the guiding rails, and energy is recovered during braking phases.

The energy comes from compact electrical power supply cabinets that are easily integrated into stations.

SRS is also a non-proprietary solution, and can be used by tramways other than those made by Alstom.

“The first project to be delivered with this innovative solution is the Nice tramway in France, which enters commercial service in the summer of 2018,” Caplot said.

He added that SRS is also available for electrical buses. Similar to the trams, the bus is recharged through power pads located at the terminus or at the end of the line. SRS can be implemented in a large range of electrical buses.

“Alstom is also involved in a partnership with Volvo to extend the use of APS to road electric vehicles,” Caplot said.