Suppliers eye market for ‘hybrid’ streetcars

Washington, D.C. and Cincinnati may become the first U.S. cities to purchase dual-power streetcars—and they’ll have plenty of options to choose from.

Just as U.S. streetcar development gains momentum, and U.S. LRT expansion continues apace, objections to “ugly wires” have gained respectable standing. Those objecting now include not just anti-rail partisans or Not-In-My-Back-Yard protesters, but those concerned with visual aesthetics, and/or historical context, of a given location.

Despite published statements suggesting overhead wire power supply is more expensive, dangerous, and always visually offensive, it’s highly unlikely that the traditional power source will disappear, or even be discontinued, as an option. Various claims of lower maintenance costs (often made by advocates and not the suppliers themselves) also are suspect; overhead wires do need repair and replacement, but snow, ice, wind, or even dirt and dust can also disrupt any in-ground power alternative.

“Off-wire technologies are an addition, not a replacement, for streetcars,” one supplier representative remarked at the American Public Transportation Association Rail Conference in Boston in June. “It’s like a hybrid automobile; think hybrid streetcar, mixing its power sources to best result.”

Such results could be critical as continued development of LRT and streetcar systems, arguably the fastest-growing passenger rail segment in the U.S., moves ahead. Responding to the demands of the potential customer, numerous equipment suppliers are offering a solution, or at least a compromise: dual-power streetcars (or LRT), supplied for much of their routes by traditional overhead wire, aided by a second power source for specific (and, at the moment) somewhat limited distances.

The suppliers have at least a three-year headstart, benefitting from reacting to similar concerns voiced by European cities eager for streetcar use balanced against historic or other urban concerns.

Some hybrid streetcars operate in similar fashion to a hybrid automobile, tapping batteries or fuel cells as their second source of power. CAF, Siemens, Kawasaki, and Kinkisharyo produce products in this mold, with Clackamas, Ore.-based United Streetcar LLC promising a “United 300” model wireless option to debut soon.

A second option is to offer power not from overhead, but underneath the vehicle. Alstom, Ansaldo STS, and Bombardier each provide such alternatives based on European development which they believe are ripe for U.S. markets. Each (or all) may be right, as evidenced by Washington’s District Department of Transportation’s recent evaluation of six suppliers for its planned streetcar network, now under initial construction.

Ground(ed) supply

Ansaldo STS’ TramWave System uses a continuous conduit duct embedded in the ground running between the rails. Power is provided by segmented, insulated conductor strips ranging between 3 and 5 meters in length with each segment activated as the train passes overhead. to be powered. A ferromagnetic belt in the conduit lets electricity flow to the streetcar when contact is made with the power collector. Gravity causes the magnetic belt to fall back into place once a train passes by, thereby cutting off the power supply. TramWave can be installed on a variety of vehicles, and can be integrated with traditional catenary lines.

Alstom Transportation’s Aesthetic Power Supply (APS) System is credited by many as the first modern wireless option offered to the market. It taps power units underneath track, with 8-meter-long conduit segments separated by 3-meter insulated joints. Antennae in the APS collector unit send a coded radio signal to the power unit to activate it. Alstom’s APS (originally Alimentation par Sol ) also carries a third power source, a backup battery, in case of emergency. Bordeaux, France opened a streetcar operation in late 2003 using APS, provided by an Alstom-Systra joint venture to power Alstom Citadis trams.

Bombardier Transportation’s Primove System also is in real-world operation, debuting as a test segment in Augsburg, Germany, in 2010. Using a conduit line beneath the ground and between the rails, Primove employs inverters connected to a power network at 750v DC. When a segment is energized, a magnetic field is created, with trains equipped with pickup coils to receive the power and convert it for propulsion. Primove conduit segments also are activated only when a train is in immediate proximity. Bombardier claims that Primove is able to operate in all climates due to its contactless nature.

Batteries (or similar) are included

If marketing drives U.S. decision-making, Kinkisharyo’s ameriTRAM may capture customers in the very near future. The company has touted its e-Brid System relentlessly in the past year with a U.S. tour of its prototype streetcar, with several cities, including (but not limited to) Cincinnati, Dallas, and Washington, D.C., voicing explicit interest.

“I liked what I saw — a lot,” Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory said following an ameri-TRAM demonstration in his city. “It comes with some very attractive advantages.” AmeriTRAM is equipped with a lithium-ion battery with an advertised range of five miles, designed to recharge when the vehicle operates under conventional overhead wire. That range might be tested in Cincinnati, where some steep hills make for less-than-flat operational terrain.

Kawasaki Rail Car, Inc. relies on a conventional nickel metal hydride battery technology for its Smooth WIn MOver (SWIMO) streetcar. The company says the battery can recapture 20% of its capacity within five minutes at station stops. Kawasaki claims a battery range of 10 kilometers (about 6 miles). The company’s Gigacell is small enough to be installed under vehicle seating. Though it was unveiled in 2007, and featured in Kawasaki displays at U.S. rail-related conferences and exhibitions since then, the company has maintained a fairly low profile in the U.S. market, which nonetheless has begun to take notice of the option.

Siemens Sitras Hybrid Energy System (HES) is a serious contender for U.S. streetcar expansion if only because Siemens Mobility is a current powerhouse supplier of streetcar and LRT vehicles in the nation. Siemens also uses a nickel metal hydride battery, aided by a double-layer capacitor. Siemens says its product can be retrofitted into existing equipment, allowing existing U.S. systems to consider wireless expansion prospects without requiring a fleet overhaul. Siemens claims a battery range of about 8,200 feet, or about 1½ miles, before recharging is required, with recharging assisted by regenerative braking as well as at station stops.

Lisbon, Portugal’s Metro Sul de Tejo network introduced Siemens HES equipment to part of its system in November 2008.

CAF’s ACR, the Spanish acronym standing for “Rapid Charge Accumulator,” is in operation in Seville, Spain, with an onboard supercapacitor designed to charge and discharge energy quickly; it also benefits for regenerative braking and recharging at station stops. CAF claims station stop recharges can take place in as little as 20 seconds.

‘Wireless zone’ drives D.C. shopping

Ask Scott Kubly if the District of Columbia used stealth to advance its proposed 37-mile streetcar system for the nation’s capital, and he suggests any low visibility was prompted by caution, not cunning. “We needed to build a comfort zone” before moving ahead with any project, he says. “We didn’t know what we didn’t know.”

The lack of knowledge included the extent of limits on overhead trolley wire for the federal districtwithin Washington, and whether such limits would gut any citywide streetcar system. Critics and even streetcar advocates nationwide for years said such a limitation would squelch any meaningful return of streetcars within city limits. “In essence it’s Not-In-My-Back-Yard, codified into law,” one advocate observes.

But Kubly, until last month the DDOT associate director working with pro-rail forces and coaxing various opponents, sought wireless streetcar capability earlier than many to bridge the “no-wire” zone and overcome reluctance, notably from those concerned with visual obstruction of historic view corridors.

Given the relative wealth of wireless streetcar products now making their debut, DDOT likely will be among the first to shop the market. DDOT is developing specifications which will incorporate “one-mile of no-wire operations,” augmented by more traditional trolley wire propulsion outside the no-wires zone, in its long-range plans.

Among the companies DDOT has evaluated as part of its search: Bombardier Transportation, Inekon Group, Kawasaki Rail Car, Inc., Kinkisharyo, Siemens Mobility, and U.S.-based newcomer United Streetcar LLC.

More immediately, DDOT continues construction on its first two streetcar segments, along H Street and Benning Road in the Northeast, with access to Union Station, and in Anacostia, within the district’s Southeast quadrant.

Though targeted completion dates now have slipped one year to 2013, the city’s first two streetcar segments have advanced faster and farther than comparable projects in the district’s suburbs, notably the Columbia Pike streetcar plan for Arlington and Fairfax counties in Virginia (and possibly including Alexandria, Va.). “The suburban parts of the region are catching on to this,” Kubly says. But he hopes D.C. will get there first— in part with wireless streetcar capability in place to augment more traditional overhead power.

If DDOT succeeds, streetcars, last seen in operation within the district in January 1962, will return after an absence of more than 50 years.