Author(s)

C. Thatcher

Abstract

SEMALY, a consulting company in Public Transportation has produced software in 1997 for designing tramway alignment especially in city centres where the lack of space and the integration of the tramway are very important. The software takes into account the geometrical parameters of the rolling stock as well as the parameters of comfort of the alignment. The technician will define the radius and the strait alignments he needs in Autocad according to the environment, and the software will automatically draw the whole platform (with one or two tracks) with DKEs, axes, transition curves, extra widths of the DKEs in the curve and will calculate the speed and comfort parameters along the alignment. The alignment will be automatically optimised in order to have the minimum clearances between swept paths in curves and in straight alignments. 1 I

Keywords