Electricity costs have risen rapidly over the past few years for rail transit system operation. Because of the number of nuclear power plants coming on line in regions of the country where these systems are located, the electric bill for rail transit is expected to rise even faster in the future. Opportunities exist for energy cost reduction on present rail operations. Energy cost reduction strategies such as careful scheduling practices, coasting, regeneration of braking energy, support power reduction and load management could save significant energy dollars. This paper demonstrates some of the potential savings identified on the rail systems in Washington, D.C. and Atlanta, GA. Of the two transit systems investigated, it is concluded that careful scheduling with passenger load factor improvement as an objective can reduce the electric bill by 5-7 %. Likewise, coasting can reduce power costs by 5-6 % with less than a one minute increase in one way trip time. The savings realized in Atlanta and predicted for Washington were 14 % and 17 %, respectively. Load management systems, which involve load monitoring, prediction and control may also be effective, but require further study.
Opportunities for energy cost reduction on rail transit systems
Gelegenheiten zur Energiekostenreduktion im Schienenverkehr
Joint ASME/IEEE Railroad Conf. ; 48-65
1986
18 Seiten, 8 Bilder, 16 Tabellen
Conference paper
English
Light rail transit cost performance: Opportunities for future-proofing
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