Rail Engineer • January 2016
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mobility problems, is the use of jumbo control buttons. The lift is also equipped with the KONE E-Link remote monitoring system to ensure high availability of the equipment. Although the new lift is not suitable for every location across the Tube network, similar lifts are being installed by KONE as part of the Crossrail station developments at Farringdon (two) and Liverpool Street (two). TfL is also examining where else they could be introduced on the Tube in the future.
Mobility
Specific In the Greenford installation, the glass-sided car is hauled by cables along an inclined track. An electric motor drive is located in a machine room at the top of the incline, together with the power supplies and a back-up supply system. The system has several features specific to the London Underground application, including a new style of landing and car door actuation. In conventional lifts the electrically operated car doors usually have a clutch mechanism that unlocks the landing doors at each floor and pulls them open. To improve reliability, the Greenford installation has separately powered car and landing doors. The pressure sensitive door edge strips have LEDs that illuminate green when the doors are open and flash red when they are closing. As an energy saving measure, LED technology is also used for both the car and shaft lighting. New European safety rules for lifts that follow an inclined path were released in July 2014 under the Standard EN 81-22. Whilst basing their design requirements around this, London Underground has improved upon it in several ways in order to comply with its own operating model. For instance, close attention has been paid to the recovery of passengers following a power failure. Another enhancement, perhaps minor but valuable to people with
STATIONS
created by the excavation of a lift shaft are avoided. The operating costs are also less, with a 50% saving in energy usage over that of a conventional vertical lift. The incline lift equipment installed at Greenford was designed and manufactured by Hütter-Aufzüge GmbH. Based in Glinde, Germany this company has specialised in elevator engineering since 1876. It is now amongst the world leaders in incline lift technology. The installation work was, however, undertaken in partnership with KONE GB, which holds an existing contract with Transport for London (TfL) for lift and escalator supply and maintenance. Interestingly, KONE has now gone on to produce its own incline lift design, the first of which has just been installed on the Helsinki metro system.
In 2015, the Mayor of London brought forward a target for more than half of stations on TfL’s underground and rail networks to be step-free by 2018. As part of this plan, around forty more Underground and Overground stations will become step-free over the next 10 years. This forms part of a £326 million investment scheme that includes funding from the Mayor as well as London Underground. It will include major stations such as Bond Street, Tottenham Court Road, Vauxhall and Victoria and those delivered through the Step-Free Access Partnership Fund - the Mayor announced in October 2014 an extra £76 million fund for step-free access schemes where contributions can be found from developers and other third parties. Tower Hill and Vauxhall Tube stations are set to become step-free by the spring of 2016. The number of journeys made by step-free routes each year is expected to almost treble, from 77 million now to 227 million in 2023. Commenting on the Greenford scheme, Isabel Dedring, Deputy Mayor for Transport, said: ‘The Mayor has set an ambitious target of ensuring that more than half of TfL’s stations are step-free by 2018. This lift is [one of] the first of its kind in the UK and a great example of the many innovative projects now underway to achieve that. We’ve got one of the most accessible public transport networks of any major city, but more needs to be done to ensure people can get around our city easily.’ TfL will be working hard to install a raft of measures, including new lifts and raised platform sections at Tube and rail stations across the Capital. This makes the difference between disabled people being able to travel alongside everyone else, or having to take time-consuming alternatives. It’s heartening that real progress is being made towards an equal and accessible transport system in London. However, we may have to wait a while longer for the advent of artificial gravity and inertia-free turbo-lifts!
The new incline lift fits neatly alongside the existing staircase.