Laser clearance survey for bi-level trains feasibility

Altavec carries out a laser clearance survey for bi-level trains feasibility, on behalf of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA), Philadelphia

The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) is the sixth largest transportation system in the United States servicing 3.9 million people in and around the city of Philadelphia. As a multi-modal system, SEPTA provides approximately 325 million passenger trips using bus, subway, high speed rail, trackless trolley, regional rail, and para-transit vehicles.

To address capacity constraints due to increasing passenger numbers SEPTA needed to investigate the potential of operating bi-level trains on the Regional Rail Network, a 280 mile network with 13 branch lines currently serviced by single deck trains. SEPTA were already aware of tight locations on the network, but wanted to get a detailed understanding of these tight locations to inform remediation work.

Altavec (formerly Geomatic Technologies) was able to quickly mobilise its AIMS solution on the SEPTA geometry vehicle in preparation for the night time recording windows that were planned. Once recording was completed the raw laser data was combined with inertial data and SEPTA’s track centreline data to produce a geo-referenced 3D point cloud of the Regional Rail Network. Kinematic parameters supplied allowed the modelling of the actual sway and loading of SEPTA’s proposed bi-level train and accompanying locomotive.