MonoMetro

MonoMetro

Industry	Transport planning and system manufacture
Founded	1997
Headquarters	Headquarters: Blackwood, Wales
Key people	Gareth Pearce
Website	http://www.monometro.com/

MonoMetro is a company formed to promote a design of suspended narrow-gauge railway. Its main activity has been to promote this as an answer to London's congestion problems, but interest has also been shown in the system by other cities. MonoMetro claims its system would be cheaper to introduce than a tram as it would not be necessary to divert or strengthen sewers along its route.

The system infrastructure costs calculated on mean fabricated tonnage of steel and construction quantities reference a twin track system with a parallel platform station located every 750 metres. Costs including planning, required Acts of Parliament, professional and tendering costs, electrical supply costs and street diversion costs for central London implementation approx £15 million per KM. Costs outside London must be based on approx 1000 tonnes of fabricated steel per Km plus the local cost of planning etc. By comparison to tramway implementation MonoMetro costs around 60% of the cost of building a tramway. The difference however is that MonoMetro is a mass transit system offering 20,000 passengers an hour capacity, Trams offer 3000 - 7000 passengers an hour capacity.

Technology

The paradigm precedent for MonoMetro is that of the Wuppertal Schwebebahn, but the technology of MonoMetro is quite different. The trains, suspended by powered wheeled bogies (or trucks [North America]) running along a narrow gauge pair of rails. MonoMetro is a railway NOT a monorail and cannot be compared with any Monorail technologies.^[1]

The continual infrastructure of beams and columns is entirely constructed from steel.

Visually the columns have three distinct components:

• The lower section, the Kinetic Impact Base (KIB) is constructed using a gussetted hollow box beam steel structure ring bolted to a foundation chamber.
• A foundation chamber with standardized fixings connects the KIB to each of several different foundation types depending on location, sub-ground type, or directly set into bedrock when the top soil is very thin in rare locations.
• The foundation systems, deep piles of varying types, percussed, bored, under-reamed, bucket bell type, or pre-fabricated foundations with submerged pre-cast inverted "mushrooms" ring piled with mini piles, or submerged ground beams able to step over unusual obstacles. Whatever the foundation location for whatever problem exists below the ground, there is a foundation design capable of stepping elegantly over it and closing the site of surgical intervention cleanly and elegantly within the streetscape.

The essential difference between MonoMetro implementation and that of trams is the microsurgical construction limited to a local opening in the groundscape, creating the appropriate foundation type with foundation cap level with the ground ready for standardised fixing of the KIB.

The KIB section is lightweight hollow pre-fabricated from steel plate with specialised internal divisions that is easily manoeuvered on site. The ring bolting to the foundation cap is slightly above the ground surface keeping the bolts dry and visible for inspection. Once bolted into place the KIB can be precision levelled and then concrete filled giving the mass required for impact resistance to collisions. Collision impact resistances satisfy regulations for civil structures adjacent to the full range of transport vehicle carriageways.

After securing, the KIB ring bolt aperture receives a sacrificial urethane deflector profile designed to absorb the primary energy of impact through the vehicle chassis. There are four different deflector skirt profile types for differing locations appropriate to varying traffic speeds. These urethane skirts are also colour coordinated for visibility or aesthetic toning within the precise urban location.

The middle section of the column above the KIB has two sections:

• A lower parallel profile section that allows the column height to be cut for height adjustment that allows for ground undulation.
• An upper tapering section of the column culminating in a double sided column head. This tapering element reduces the lower longitudinal dimension designed to resist the greatest forces upon the column... that of acceleration and braking, to match the dimension requirement of the column head fixing. The internal cellular construction lends maximum torsion resistance and resistance to longitudinal bending of the column. The tapering section, likened to the taper of a classical obelisk enhances the visual proportion giving an elegance to its appearance in the urban landscape.

The column head offers a pair of fixings to which single or paired butterfly arms are attached using the same column for single track or twin track beams. The column remains the same for both types. The butterfly arms are reslilently connected to the column head using well proven SPS elastomer technology. Entirely concealed fixings give a seamless architectural appearance, uncluttered by the nuts and bolts normally associated with civil engineering structures. MonoMetro is civil engineering architecture.

The junction between the butterfly arms and supporting beams is designed to allow for the principle degree of freedom of the beam, longitudinal plane rotation as the primary movement to be accommodated between the beam and column. The fixing is also designed to resist torsion and the longitudinal force of acceleration and breaking. There is also load sharing along the beamway that increases redundancy achieved with a patented consecutive beam junction that damps low frequency oscillations and distributes attenuated loads forward and backward along the beamway so a number of columns resist loading at any one time.

The beamway is an advanced torsion resistant macro-cellular constructional assembly achieving longitudinal structural continuity with a patented junction between consecutive beam modules. The assembly delivers entirely accurate constructional alignment overcoming any variations in fabrication tolerances and longitudinal and torsional structural continuity at the same time as allowing longitudinal expansion and contraction through environmental temperature ranges. This continual beamway structure breaks free from the need of regular column spacing, this escaping the "post and lintel" characteristic common to all other beam carried transit structures. A permissible span of up to 33 metres under dynamic loading allows for optimising the spacing between columns for convenient ground positioning to avoid foundations clashing with sub-ground services. The design flexibility of irregular column spacing minimises visual impact and obtrusive collisions of the column footprint with existing urban features on the ground minimising the need for costly relocations whether it be a telephone box or an important data carrying fibre optic cable.^[2]

MonoMetro tracks have a specialised cross section with an advanced wheel interface geometry that reduces point loading and wheel wear. The rails have special end junctions and are laid along continuous rubber cushions along the beams, held in place by regular (Pandrol) railway torsion clips.^[2]

MonoMetro 2012

Monometro 2012 is the name given to MonoMetro's plans for a New Regional Metro called for in the Governments 1999 white paper. The system using railway technology is not at all a Monorail functionning in a similar way to other railways.

Initially, following winning of London's bid for the Olympics the Chairman of the Olympic Committee Lord Coe wrote to MonoMetro with enthusiasm for implementing MonoMetro as part of the 2012 Olympic project. However a later communique asked for MonoMetro to "try to understand" that MonoMetro would be excluded. The Olympic Committee has been unable to clarify what it wishes MonoMetro Limited to "understand".

A route map geogramme for the 270 km planned network is shown at map.

The computer aided solid model engineering design drawings for MonoMetro have been precision assembled on location within an ordinate studio model of the urban streetscape of London and animated to show the precise spatial impact of implementation. These views are not artists impressions since no artists have been employed in the creation of MonoMetro or any presentation of the engineering designs shown. The views are technically accurate precise views of the engineering set in virtual reality and merged with views of the actual places in various locations of the planned system within London. This extremely accurate prediction is Engineer Expert evidence that is wholly reliable in the Courts for Legal purposes. The views are chosen to demonstrate specific views that cover a range of location types from crossing the Waterloo Bridge structure to passing through the east west transepts of Brunels Barrel vaulted Paddington station. The routes of MonoMetro pass through urban corridors that are able to permit implementation, that is in terms of space and environmental planning sensitivity. Contrary to alarmist assertion there has never been any intention of running MonoMetro through locations lined with historic monuments or buildings of architectural significance such as Regent Street or across the frontage of the Palace of Westminster. Further still views of Engineer Expert evidence taken from the animation can be seen at their website.

The Company is currently in deadlock with the UK Government over the breaking of EU Law regarding Statutory Assessment of Candidate Technologies for public transport systems. The UK Government refuses to disclose before the UK Parliament an important Statutory Assessment of MonoMetro carried out under the instructions of then Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2002. Reasons given in Financial Times interview with Transport for London's Managing Director for the Rail division cite fear that revealing the assessment contents will deter policymakers to implement a political decision to build an expensive railway through London.

MonoMetro argues that choice of technology for any public transport project should be Due Process driven so that choice of the technology can be weighed against a raft of considerations that will deliver best value for money.

Previous Government abuses of due process have ended up in the Courts.^[2]

External links

• MonoMetro official site
• Article from The Wharf^{[dead link]}

References

1. ^ "Technology". MonoMetro. http://www.monometro.com/technology.html. Retrieved 2008-08-06. 
2. ^ ^{a b c} "Memorandum by MonoMetro (LR 63)". Select Committee on Transport Written Evidence. House of Commons. February 2005. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200405/cmselect/cmtran/378/378we45.htm. Retrieved 2008-08-06.