The origin for LIGHT RAIL TRANSIT or “METRO-LITE” is based on electric City Trams,
that started worldwide at the end of the last but one century. Light Rail Transit is becoming a further mainstay for urban and suburban public transport in India under the term “METRO-LITE” . In India, we find a City Tram relic of the last century in Kolkata:
LIGHT RAIL TRANSITS, LRT, including City Trams, experience worldwide a renaissance. LRT is currently the fastest-growing passenger rail mode, employing a full range of technologies and operational practices. Around the globe, light rail systems, or LRT, have become increasingly popular in recent years due to their lower capital costs and increased reliability compared with heavy rail systems.
In Central European countries, LRT/city trams remained operating since hundred years uninterrupted as the backbone for urban, suburban interurban and regional public transport.
Be it the tram in the classical sense or the suburban and interurban railways, which combine features of underground railways and trams, the global future of urban transport is on the rail with Light Rail Transits. While the construction and running of underground or elevated systems incur huge costs, tram and light rail transit systems can be constructed and integrated into the city-scape at a comparatively lower cost.
The Light Rail Systems can share their ways with road traffic, blending in the surrounding road surface, and as well use their own dedicated tracks on reserved corridors.
The conventional way of track laying had been to lay the rail grids with gauge distance bars bolted to the web without support of cross-ties (sleepers) direct on a aligned and resilient planum, consisting of compacted gravel, metal, bitumen, asphalt, cement, mortar or concrete, or nowadays on elastic noise and vibration attenuation mats. Normally, height adjustment of such tracks takes place by insertion of wedges, and by pouring compounds under the track panel.
In modern ground borne noise vibration mitigating and electric stray current insulating systems the polymer encapsulated rails are laid in prefabricated concrete grooves. In some towns the rails are fixed on sleepers embedded in ballast-less track structures.
To learn more, download PDF:Road embedded Rail Tracks for City Tram, Light Rail Transit and Metro-Lite