VAL

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This article is about the people mover system. For other uses, see Val.
VAL 208 from Lille metro.
VAL 208 from Lille metro.

VAL is a type of automatic rubber-tired people mover technology, based on an invention by Professor Robert Gabillard. It was designed in the early 1980s by French Matra, for the then new metro system in Lille.

The acronym was originally for Villeneuve d'Ascq à Lille (Villeneuve d'Ascq to Lille), the route of the first line to be projected (and inaugurated). It now officially stands for Véhicule Automatique Léger (automatic light vehicle).

In contrast to some other driverless metro systems like the Docklands Light Railway or Vancouver's SkyTrain, the VAL design uses platforms that are separated from the rollways by a glass partition, to prevent waiting passengers from straying or falling onto the rollways. Platform screen doors, which are produced by Swiss glass door manufacturer Kaba Gilgen AG, embedded in these partitions open in synchrony with the train doors when a train stops at the platform.

When VAL has been introduced to Taipei, the term medium capacity system is coined to differentiate VAL from heavy rail (metro). Thus this term is being applied mainly among Asian cities and railway planners though they are not using VAL's technology. In Siemens official site, VAL is advertised "first fully automated light metro", in which the term "light metro" can be traced back to Moscow Metro Butovskaya Light Metro Line.

Contents

[edit] List of VAL systems

VAL 206 from Toulouse Metro.
VAL 206 from Toulouse Metro.

The Lille metro was inaugurated on April 25, 1983. VAL systems were subsequently built in several other French cities, including:

Outside of France, VAL systems are also used in:

A VAL system is in project in Uijeongbu, South Korea [1]PDF (73.8 KiB).

The Chicago O'Hare and Taipei lines use the wider VAL 256 version of the system.

Jacksonville had a VAL line inaugurated in 1989, which was shut down in December 1996 and replaced by a monorail, the JTA Skyway. The rolling stock was sold to O'Hare International Airport.

[edit] Other uses of VAL technology

VAL 256 from Taipei's Muzha Line.
VAL 256 from Taipei's Muzha Line.

The automatic trains on line 14 of the Paris Métro are not VAL, but they use part of the VAL technology. Siemens (the company that acquired Matra) is going to transform line 1 of the Paris Métro into an automatic system like line 14. Lyon's metro line D is a larger rubber-tyred metro; it was originally developed independently but ended up incorporating some components of VAL technology. The type of vehicle is the same of Paris lines 1, 4, 6, 11 and 14: rubber-tyred metro (trains that run on rubber tyres and steel wheels, in contrast to VAL trains, that use only rubber tyres).

[edit] NeoVal

In 2006, the NeoVal project, successor of the VAL, is announced. It will feature regenerative braking. 40 % of the 62 millions Euros of the programme will come from the AII (tech. supporting project). The program is managed by Siemens, in association with Lohr industrie. The NeoVal will be guided by a single central rail and will be able to operate without any electrical supply between the stations (no third rail or overhead), making the cost of infrastructure much lower [2].


[edit] See also

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[edit] External links