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The Role of AGT in Urban Public Transport
2024/9/05
If the trains and buses you use to commute to work come every three minutes or every six minutes, it is obvious that every three minutes is better, right?
In the case of buses, it is not only necessary to have the required number of buses so that they can operate every 3 minutes, but also to have enough drivers for the number of buses.
In the case of trains, it is also necessary to have the required number of trains and the corresponding number of drivers.
In the case of AGT, since it is fully automated and unmanned, there is no need to worry about securing and managing drivers, and the service can be provided according to demand.
In addition to the problem of securing operators, AGT has an advantage in terms of construction costs compared to railroads.
Public transportation in urban areas can be broadly classified into two categories: "track-based transportation," such as railroads, and "non-track-based transportation," such as buses and cabs.
(Figure. 1)
The "track-based transportation" is responsible for the fast and accurate movement of large numbers of users along the line, while the "non-track-based transportation" is ideally responsible for the surface movement based on the stations of the track-based transportation.
The "track-based transportation" is further divided into "dedicated track system" and "non-dedicated track system".
Before railroads were developed, buses were used to move the lines, but the economic loss caused by traffic congestion and inaccurate travel time became large, and "non-dedicated tracks" gradually became popular. Buses have been replaced by trains with "dedicated tracks".
Although streetcars are "track systems," they are a type of "non-exclusive track system" that shares the road with buses and automobiles, and are therefore affected by accidents and traffic congestion in the same way as buses.
There are three types of "dedicated track systems": aboveground, elevated, and underground.
(Fig. 3)
In cities, the presence of railroad crossings is a cause of accidents and traffic congestion, so above-ground tracks are unthinkable on the lines that will be constructed.
Elevated tracks are also difficult to construct because of the difficulty of securing land, so subways must be used.
AGT has the advantage of being able to use existing road space, making it easier to secure land for construction than railroads, and therefore less than one-third the cost of a subway.
The Nippori-Toneri Liner runs on an elevated track over Okubashi-dori from Nippori Station to its terminus at Minuma Shinsui Koen Station.
Since 1980, the AGT has been introduced as the main transportation system on the island connecting Kobe, Osaka, and Tokyo man-made islands and land, such as Port Island, Rokko Island, Osaka Nanko, and Odaiba.
AGT was introduced at Gion-dori in Hiroshima and Okubashi-dori in Tokyo to solve the problem of bus delays due to traffic congestion.
Traffic congestion on Gion-dori in Hiroshima was reduced by 20%, from 3.2 km before AGT construction to 2.5 km after construction.
You may be asking yourself, if AGT is so good, why aren't there more AGT lines?
In Japan, where the population has been declining since 2009, with the exception of the Shinkansen bullet train, few major rail lines have been built since the last Tsukuba Express in 2005, and instead three types of system lines have been built to replace rail: AGT, monorail, and linear motor subway lines.
(Figure. 4)
Among AGT, monorail, and linear subway systems, AGT's low construction cost and fully automated, unmanned operation are key features.
AGT, a dedicated track that effectively uses the airspace above existing roads and excels in safety, speed, and punctuality, is the leading urban transportation system in Ten AGT lines are in operation in Japan, and more than 500,000 people use them every day.
Worldwide, there are 30 AGT routes for cities.
One-third of these are in Japan, making Japan a major AGT country.