Back To Basics
What is light rail?
LRT is a transportation system based on electrically powered light rail vehicles (LRV) that operates on a track in a dedicated right-of-way (meaning separated lanes).
It is the operating on dedicated or “reserved rights-of-ways that makes a simple streetcar or tram light rail! many simple streetcar or tram systems have sections of dedicated rights-of-ways, thus can operate as LRT on those sections of line.
The ultimate form of LRT is TramTrain, which can operate on mainline railways.
The Olympic Line tram operated on a dedicated R-o-W and can be considered LRT.
What is LRT? Light rail transit explained
Is it a streetcar? Is it a subway? Metrolinx News is going back to the basics on light rail transit.
Jan 3, 2022
Metrolinx News constantly offers up transit project updates through photos, videos, and graphics.
This content is our bread and butter.
So we may take some background for granted.
There have been countless stories on the light rail transit (LRT) projects happening within the Greater Toronto Hamilton Area (GTHA). From Toronto, Mississauga, and Hamilton, there is no shortage of LRT work happening these days.
But we recently noticed a trend when it comes to online searches. In this case, many people are asking ‘What is an LRT line?’
So we thought we would answer that, as well as explain what makes it different from current transit options in the GTHA.
LRT is a transportation system based on electrically powered light rail vehicles (LRV) that operates on a track in a dedicated right-of-way (meaning separated lanes). They are designed to deliver rapid, reliable, and safe transportation services.
Depending on the project, in the event of a schedule delay, some LRTs have the ability to change the traffic lights to green as they approach, so they can move even quicker along the route.
Grand River Transit’s ION LRT line in action. (Jason897 photo)
LRT is growing in popularity for major cities around the world, including right here in Canada, as it provides significant transit capacity without the expense and density needed for subway systems. Waterloo and Calgary both have popular modern LRT lines. Los Angeles, Portland, Prague, and Paris too.
An LRT stops outside Université de Paris, one of many light rail lines in and around Paris, France. (Cramos78 photo)
LRT lines can run at street level, like a streetcar. However, the dedicated right-of-way means the LRV is not impacted by vehicular traffic and can reach higher top speeds than a regular streetcar – in some cases, up to 80 km/h.
Zwei replies: Most modern streetcars or trams can operate at speeds of 80 kph or higher, but for most urban tram systems with stops every 400m to 600m apart, the maximum comfortable top speed is 60 kph. If higher speeds are needed larger motors can be ordered.
Another cool feature, LRTs can run below ground like a subway. Which is the case for much of the Eglinton Crosstown LRT route.
Zwei replies: Tram subways have been around a long time. Basically a subway is an underground rail route.
Streetcars often need a ‘loop’ in order to turn around. Light rail vehicles, like the ones on the Eglinton Crosstown line, will be bilateral, meaning it can be driven at either end.
Zwei replies: Some cities still use “Y”‘s to turn trams. Loops at the end of the line also include a station and some loops also contain storage tracks or circular park.
A Eglinton Crosstown light rail vehicle is seen driving the route, seperated from car traffic, powered by the overhead wires. (Metrolinx photo)
LRV’s aren’t as long as subways, but multiple LRVs, or trains, can be coupled together to form a longer train if needed. The Alstom Citadis Spirit for example, the type of vehicle being used for the Hurontario LRT project, has a seated passenger capacity of 120 and maximum passenger capacity of 292.
Zwei replies: A coupled pair of Citadis Trams, used in Ottawa is 98 m long and a 5-car rake of MALM (SkyTrain MK.5) cars is 84.5 metres long. Both operate in subways.
Mockup of the Alstom Citadis Spirit that will be used on the Hurontario LRT line. (Metrolinx image)
Power behind the system
Subways get their power from an electrified rail below the vehicle. This requires larger stations, more infrastructure and safety separation. An LRV gets its power from a cable over head, like a streetcar, meaning passengers can easily catch their ride from a stop located on the roadway.
Zwei replies: Too much of a generalization. MALM (SkyTrain) cars get their power from a rail along the side of the track and some subways get power from an overhead wire. More than few light rail operations get power from a “third rail” between the tracks, using an energized inductive loop technology getting power.
Light rail transit is currently being used in many cities around the world. The new light rail projects being built in Toronto, Mississauga, and Hamilton will transform these cities, offering communities a convenient and safe way to get around.
Zwei replies: There are now over 500 tram/right rail systems operating around the world.
We’ll look to get back to basics with other transit terms we often write about. But for now, we hope these lines have helped get you up to speed on LRTs.
On our side of the pond the difference between light rail and tram is fluid and more depends on the route it takes. Most major tram lines have portions of track operating on a dedicated route, especially at the outer portions of line and then continues with on-street operation in city centres.
Customers like this because it both gives easy access to destinations in city centres and faster commute times in the suburbs. Oh course the advent of TranTrain has greatly changed this metric,
Subways tend to be avoided unless customer volumes are at a point where tram operation slows to a crawl. Karlsruhe built a tram subway to deal with per hour traffic flows of 30K to 35K per hour per direction! The surface tracks have been retained because customers do not like the subways and it is used for through traffic.
The lesson we feel that has not been learned in your part of the world is that customers prefer their transit to be on the surface and easy to use, something that lacks on your foreign shores.
We have found that many planners in North America simply do not understand light rail and try to design it as metro, which in the end makes LRT a metro and with no real benefit in operation or costs.
@Major Hoople, you hit on the main problem of transit in North America, what do you mean by,”slows to a crawl”.
After talking with some my teenaged daughter’s teen aged friends and a few 20 and 30 somethings recently, anything slower than their own car (Mom’s car, Dad’s car, Uber or taxi if they have too) traveling at what I would consider a high speed dash, but none the less, traveling at anything less than 80 km/h to 100 km/h through any part of any city at any time of the day or night, is for them, already too dam slow. That attitude unfortunately is prevalent throughout our continent.
IHow do you make any public transit work in that environment when anything other than, instantly being able to go over 10 km in less than 10 to 15 minutes, any place, any time of day, is considered unacceptable? Oh yes, these conditions needed to do this, can’t cost anything and should never go up in price, ever! Transit is considered a failure if it can’t do that.
This is why the average person is ok with hugely expensive Skytrains and subways/heavy metros because they can approach those time requirements
Most of the people I talked to don’t care about the living environment of the city their traveling through or the concerns of its residents, pedestrians, cyclists and transit users. Or what their high speed traveling world is like to be in, if you aren’t already inside a car or high speed rapid transit vehicle. Mainly because even if they are already inside a public rapid transit vehicle, they aren’t going to be outside that vehicle for very long once they get off said vehicle. They will use an Uber, or high speed electric scooter to get to their final destination. At no time, unless it’s sitting waiting for them already, do they want to wait more than 2 minutes for a connecting bus or streetcar. It’s just too slow. This society of instant gratification that we have created is why public anything becomes difficult in North America.
The problem I see across the Atlantic is two fold. First you are overly concerned about speed and second, we generally have networks and you have lines.
Vancouver is a there and back system and provides speedy service for those who want to go there and back. But that is the end of it.
We generally have routes and one tram or Stadtbahn route may travel on several individual lines to complete the route. One section of line in a major city may have up to 8 tram routes traversing one section of line, all serving different destinations. Except for Toronto, with its heritage tram network, the rest just have there and back lines, with very limited routes.
Back in the 80’s and 90’s the car was king and cities became choked with cars, yet the extensive and expensive transit was not attracting customers. In the mid 1980, there was serious discussion that Germany would be rid of tramways by the year 2000.
Transit managers began thinking out of the box, TramTrain is just one example, but transit systems began catering to its customers, something we do not see in North America.
Today, public transit is now so designed to meet the customer needs and we have been successful at it. Your politicians seem to just want more people to drive, so they can build more autobahns and bridges, which make for good news during an election.
We see North America as we were in the 1970’s and we see change both difficult and expensive.