LRT on-street running-design and safety issues

With the upsurge of interest in light rail transit (LRT) and the desire to keep construction costs down, serious consideration is being given in many cities to mixed running of LRT and other traffic on the streets. This brings many planning, design and safety problems, and the paper highlights some of them and indicates an approach to solving them, based upon experience gained in British cities and more particularly on the Tuen Mun to Yuen Long system in Hong Kong. This system represented a far more difficult challenge than most, with high LRT vehicle flows (some junctions have to cope with 100 an hour), high traffic flows, and very high levels of pedestrian activity. In addition, general observance of signals and road regulations is not of the highest order, and even the slow moving tram system on Hong Kong Island suffers an average of 2 injury accidents a week. Despite this, and a degree of undeserved adverse publicity, the system and its integration with road traffic and pedestrians is very successful and it provides a very good public transport service. >