Véhicule Automatique Léger, or VAL is a type of automatic rubber-tyredpeople mover technology, based on an invention by Professor :fr:Robert Gabillard|Robert Gabillard from the Université Lille Nord de France. It was designed in the early 1980s by Matra and first used for the then-new Lille Metro system. This was one of the world's first fully automated driverless mass-transit rail networks to serve a city centre, and the first such in Europe. The acronym was originally for Villeneuve d'Ascq à Lille, the route of the first line to be projected. In contrast to some other driverless metro systems like the Docklands Light Railway or Vancouver's SkyTrain, the VAL design uses platforms that are separated from the rollways by a glass partition, to prevent waiting passengers from straying or falling onto the rollways. Platform screen doors – produced by Swiss glass door manufacturer Kaba Gilgen AG – are embedded in these partitions and open in synchrony with the train doors when a train stops at the platform. The original platform-edge doors were manufactured and installed by PLC Peters in Hayes, Middlesex and were used on the first line. In addition to the trains being driverless, the station platforms are unstaffed in normal operation. In the original Lille metro system, they are monitored by a large closed-circuit television system with 330 cameras and 24 television monitors in a remote control room.
Technology
The VAL system uses a fully automated elevated guideway, which may be metal or concrete depending on prevailing weather conditions. Primary suspension is by rubber tires, with pairs of horizontal tires to provide lateral guidance. Electrical power at 750 V DC is collected by shoes from the guidebars. The vehicles are lightweight 2-car sets with 124 total capacity, or twin sets with 80 seated and 160 standing capacity. All axles on these vehicles are motored with 150 kW electrical motors. The system detects the location of trains on the guideway by the use of ultrasonic sensors. VAL can cope with unanticipated demand by inserting additional trains into the network as required by remote command from the control center. The control center computer system automatically speeds up or slows down trains in order to maintain a timetable. The VAL system can handle headways as small as 60 seconds, and the Lille VAL system rapidly proved itself with a 99.8% availability.
List of VAL systems
The Lille Metro was inaugurated on April 25, 1983. VAL systems were subsequently built in several other French cities:
The automatic trains on lines 1 and 14 of the Paris Métro are not VAL, but they use part of the VAL technology. Siemens is going to transform line 4 into an automatic system like lines 1 and 14.
Line D of the Lyon Metro is a larger rubber-tyred metro; it was originally developed independently but ended up incorporating some components of VAL technology. The type of vehicle is the same as on Paris lines 1, 4, 6, 11 and 14: rubber-tyred metro.
NeoVal
In 2006 the NeoVal project, successor of the VAL, was announced. It will feature regenerative braking. 40% of the 62 million Euros set aside for the programme will come from the Agence de l'innovation industrielle. The program is managed by Siemens Mobility, in association with Lohr Industrie. The NeoVal will be guided by a single central rail, similar to that of the Translohr, and will be able to operate without any electrical supply between the stations, making the cost of infrastructure much lower.
CityVal
CityVal is based on the NeoVal system. 19 CityVal trainsets have been ordered for the second line of the Rennes Metro.
When VAL was introduced to Taipei, the term medium-capacity rail transport system was coined by railway planners to differentiate VAL from heavy rail. Since then, this term has begun to be applied on similar capacity transit systems–mainly in Asian cities–even when the systems are not based on VAL's technology. On Siemens' official website, VAL is advertised as the "first fully automated light metro", in which the term "light metro" can be traced back to Moscow MetroButovskaya Light Metro Line.
