[Zurück]

B. Petutschnig, B. Rüger, P. Tauschitz, G. Simic:
"Final Report on Project Results";
Bericht für Europäische Kommission; Berichts-Nr. D 5.4, 2012; 44 S.

The PubTrans4All project´s main objective is to develop a prototype of a vehicle-based boarding assistance
system (BAS) that can be installed into new rail vehicles but also retrofitted into existing rail vehicles and
can be used on many different types of rolling stock and infrastructures.
Accessibility of rail vehicles for people with reduced mobility (PRM) is particularly problematic since rail
vehicles have a long service life (40 years or longer) which means that many currently inaccessible
vehicles in the meaning of TSI PRM will remain in service well into the future.
At the beginning of the project the consortium consciously set the bar very high in order to get the best
possible results. The primary defined goal of the project was to find a technical solution to provide
accessibility to all passengers in all boarding situations.
As a part of developing a new prototype of a BAS, the consortium surveyed at the beginning of the project
state of the art accessibility devices and made recommendations for best practices of use and operation of
these devices. Furthermore an international student contest was held in spring 2010 finding new ideas and
innovative solutions for a new BAS. Any new idea improving the interface between platform and vehicle
was accepted. The consortium believed that students don´t have the detailed knowledge about railway
vehicles and therefor they are more independent in their thoughts. Experts usually have a tunnel vision
because they think too much about reasons why something cannot work. In total 38 students from Austria,
Hungary, Serbia, Croatia and Bulgaria participated at the contest and submitted their ideas.
There is one very big group of high floor railway vehicles in Europe, the so called UIC-wagons. The
consortium came to the decision that the most important step to offer accessibility to all is to focus on UICwagons.
Installation investigations and technical calculations led to the adoption of the swivel lift concept as the best
suitable design concept for the restricted space conditions in classical UIC-wagons.
After finalizing the building phase, the prototype was first factory tested at the site of our consortium partner
and lift manufacturer MBB Palfinger. Therefore a test bench (welded steel construction) was built displaying
all technical restrictions of a classical UIC-wagon for testing purposes. Next, the prototype of a BAS has
been sent to our project partner BDZ in Bulgaria and was installed into a UIC-wagon of the Bulgarian State
Railways. During the summer, the prototype was tested on the railway network in Bulgaria. In September,
the new BAS prototype installed into a UIC-wagon of BDZ was presented to the interested public at the
InnoTrans 2012 in Berlin.

Public Transportation; Railway sector; Accessibility; Persons with reduced mobility (PRM); Boarding assistance systems; Prototype

http://publik.tuwien.ac.at/files/PubDat_213308.pdf

Projektleitung Norbert Ostermann:
Öffentlicher Verkehr - Barrierefreiheit für alle