Let's take Light Rail – The new Era of Public Transport

A book about modern public rail transport.

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The basic idea in the book is the development in public transport in Europe in the last half of the 20th century. The book explains that there are no more separate systems like tramways, underground railways and commuter trains on a railway net only. Instead today there is only one integrated system. Same rolling stock is capable to operate on different kind of tracks. These tracks may be administered separately, but the public transport system serves passengers without the need to change from one coach to another. And often the service is faster than using a private car.

Another main theme in the book is the interaction between city structure and public transport. The city structure that is based on the use of a private car prevents competitive public transport. On the other hand, in classic city structures the traffic cannot be based on cars as there is not enough space for cars. Modern city planning often has to deal with the problem of fitting these two different structures together in a way that works.

The book includes plenty on images, mainly from European examples (app. 250 images) illustrating both good and bad examples. The book has 140 pages in landscape A4 format. Items concerning the economy of public transport are described in the form of graphs. The book has 12 chapters plus an extra chapter, which explains the backgrounds of the calculations presented inthe book and cites source literature in a scientific way. The source literature used includes f.ex. the books of Carmen Hass-Klau and Graham Crampton.

The Finnish version of the book is directed towards a Finnish audience. For other language versions the contents can be adjusted for the target audience. There will be a raw translation in English available during autumn 2007. A preliminary agreement to publish a Russian version in spring 2008 exists.

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See how the contents look like. Click small pages to see the page in larger format.

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The titles of the chapters

• Urban space and traffic
• The size of the city and public transport
• New generations of the public transport
• The rolling stock of rail transport
• The popularity factors of public transport
• The structure of the public transport network
• The economical profitability of public transport
• The influence of public transport to the city economy
• The environmental impacts of rail transport
• The public transport city
• Public transport as a tool for urban planning
• Let’s take Light Rail

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The author

Mr. Antero Alku, M.Sc., born 1955. Alku is a public transport consultant and is working for a doctorate at the Helsinki University of Technology. The subject of the study plan is ”Determining the profitability of public transport.”

More about the author at the main page.

The publisher

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Created 8.10.2007 / AA. Last update 8.10.2007 / AA.