Motivation
In large cities and metropolitan areas, metro networks are of particular importance because they are unaffected by traffic congestion on the roads. This independence and the short journey times make the underground ever more popular. In Berlin, for example, the number of passengers increased from 2008 to 2015 by almost 20 % to more than half a billion passengers per year.
However, diverse threats and incidents can lead to great impairments of underground transport. A few possible scenarios are bomb threats, flooding, fires and gun rampages. For this reason it is necessary to further improve the resilience – resistance against damaging effects – of underground public transport systems.
Objectives and procedure
In the U-THREAT project, concepts and technical solutions are being produced, firstly to run degraded mobility mode quickly after an incident, and then be able to return to normal operation. The basis is an evaluation scheme to determine the vulnerability of sections of a metro network and individual stations. Then measures will be prepared in order to improve the resilience of all the significant areas:
- Operation
- Structures
- Users
Innovations and perspectives
The concepts and technical solutions developed collaboratively by the German and French partners will be demonstrated and assessed on real public transport systems in Germany and France. The innovations of U-THREAT will make a contribution to more reliable and more secure transport of passengers in the future.
