Siemens Mobility has unveiled its Airval vehicle at the UITP World Congress in Vienna, Austria.
The driverless, rubber-tired model of airport people mover vehicle Airval features increased modularity, energy efficiency, improved flexibility, and reduced implementation and operating cost.
The vehicle offers the driverless Communication Based Train Control (CBTC) function. The train also has the capability to dynamically change its size during peak and off-peak hours of large airports by coupling or decoupling up to six cars.
The vehicle provides a flexible passenger capacity from 1,000 to 30,000 per hour, per direction and has the service capability of up to 24 hours and seven days a week.
The focus of the development programme was to minimise energy consumption and reduce dust and noise emissions.
The reduction of electrical consumption was achieved by combining several innovative concepts including 100% electrical braking and energy reuse on-board and along the line through a combination of energy storages with double-layer capacitors and batteries, as well as by using fleet optimisation algorithms which maximise the reuse of energy by accelerating trains.
