Patent Application
20190256110
The present invention belongs to the technological infrastructure sector of transport and logistics, and refers to a universal distributor (DUNI) of transport and public services that, through a metal cable-stayed bridge structure, integrates a public transport system, a system of transportation and distribution of public services and a vehicular road .
As a direct consequence of the industrial revolution in the eighteenth century, the demographic explosion of humanity that reaches currently was generated. This created a flow of people toward the cities attracted by the demand for labor, new technical advances and better living conditions than in the countryside. This is how large modern cities emerged and consolidated and, with these, a great demand for public infrastructure to organize and facilitate the daily performance of its inhabitants.
Today, several forms of public transport systems are known, including underground and elevated subway systems (more details at: http://www.plataformurbana.cl/archive/2015/09/11/los-11-mejores-sistemas-de-metro-del-mundo-segun-business-insider/) They stand out as the oldest meter, the one of London, inaugurated on Jan. 9, 1863; as the most extensive underground subway in the world, New York with 1,062 km of tracks; with the largest number of stations in Paris with 298 stops and the one in Beijing, which is the most frequent train, transporting an estimated 3,400 million passengers per year.
Likewise, since the last century, several systems of elevated meters were inaugurated as a better solution for large cities, ranging from Berlin in 1902, to Dubai in 2009 (more details at: http://www.bogota.gov.co/content/temas-de-ciudad/movilidad/las-razones-por-las-que-grandes-capitales-del-mundo-optaran-por-metro-elevado). The project of the elevated metro of Riyadh, capital of Saudi Arabia and in studies the subway of Bogotá, capital of Colombia, is currently being executed
The suspended monorail systems stands out as the most ingenious solution for the daily mobilization of people in large cities, (more details at: http.//www.structuralia.com/es/noticias-mx/25m-ferrocarriles/10001675-monorrieles-en-el-mundo). In the German city of Wuppertal, you can find the oldest suspended public transport monorail in the world, built since 1901 and which is fully operational, covering a route of 13.3 km with 20 stops. In the Japanese city of Chiba began to work, since 1988, an urban public system of suspended monorail that has two tracks, 18 stations and covers a route of 15.2 km, which classifies it as the longest suspended monorail urban system in the world and that continues to grow. In the same way there are projects in different countries, referred to this public transport system, as for example in Ecuador, Peru and Mexico.
For its part in Bogota, capital of Colombia, is a city where traffic jams are the daily bread, so its inhabitants experience great difficulties to travel to their destinations during an substantial part of the day, especially in the so-called peak times, which total more than 6 hours a day. This generates a great problem in the matter of vehicular and passenger congestion, mainly due to the increase in the number of cars and private motorcycles in recent years, in a clear tendency of its inhabitants to avoid the daily use of public transport, to a large extent due to its inadequacies and low quality in several aspects. This situation has resulted in the application of unpopular measures such as the so-called peak and plate during peak traffic times, which deprives car owners to use them freely, that is, every day and at all hours. It also begins to affect other cities, not as populous as Bogota, as is the case of the city of Cali, where due to the increase in traffic in critical areas and the state of the transport infrastructure, has caused the implementation of the peak and plate system for motorcycles and encourage greater use of bicycles as a means of transportation.
On Aug. 4, 2016, in the Colombian newspaper El Pais, comments were made by Mr. Luis Fernando Andrade, president of the National Infrastructure Agency, within the framework of the First International Congress of Business and Accounting Business Law, held in Cartagena, where he pointed out that Colombia is advancing in an accelerated way to become more competitive and to be able to get out of the decades of delay in the transport infrastructure and that is why they are investing nearly 70 billion pesos in projects throughout the country.
Hence, all these problems and technological booms are reflected in different systems patented to date on this sector of public transport infrastructure and freight. Taking into consideration those that by their degree of similarity mark a precedent of the present invention are cited:
The patent U.S. Pat. No. 3,511,186 requested on May 15, 1968 and published on May 12, 1970 of the inventor Maurice Barthalon, which presents a conveyor comprising a continuous beam that serves as a track, with at least one automobile suspended and mobile along of said track and provided with drive means for imparting movement thereto and a sub atmospheric air pressure support system comprising at least one support chamber with a non-vertical supporting wall of said track, sealing means carried by said carriage and air extraction means connected to said support chamber. This proposal is about a suspended monorail system with a kind of pneumatic locomotion mechanism, which besides offering limited transportation capacity, does not integrate other transport systems.
The patent U.S. Pat. No. 6,182,576 requested on Dec. 7, 1998 and published on Feb. 6, 2001, of the inventor Einar Svensson, which deals with a monorail system on beam for transporting passengers and light cargo, which provides a support structure with a essentially planar upper surface and a stabilizer guide rail having a vertical beam part supporting the upper part. This system works equally well with a variety of vehicle propulsion and suspension systems, including electromechanical, magnetic levitation or linear electric motors. In this condition, the patent does not include the integration of other transportation systems, as is the case with the majority of monorail systems and elevated meters.
The patent U.S. Pat. No. 6,363,857 requested on Jun. 7, 2000 and published on Apr. 2, 2002 of the inventor John Kauffman, addresses a transportation system that allows passengers to travel at high speeds in relation to automotive traffic, allowing each passenger to select his or her destination individually, the trip begins when a carrier is available and travels with or without his own car. This system includes, in turn, a system of guides that connect several stations, so that a passenger can travel from a station of origin, through the guides, to a station of destination of choice and where each guide consists of lanes parallels that hold support magnets. While the conveyors have supports that extend horizontally with support magnets and can be designed in a variety of ways and be equipped with numerous amenities. This solution is based on a rather personalized transport system, with a limited work capacity to assimilate the large volumes of transportation required in high traffic schedules, and besides, it is not integrated with other transport systems.
The universal distributor (DUNI) proposed, is a cable-stayed bridge-type metal structure, where its main platform physically and functionally integrates the three levels of which it is composed. In
The main platform that makes up the universal distributor, is located at a minimum height of 12 m above ground level and is supported by pillars (4) on both sides. The dimensions of the pillars will be in correspondence with the total weight of the distributor at the most critical work moment. This platform consists of a modularity of 60 meters, that is, to save longitudinally up to 60 m distance among pillars as a maximum and is aided by four cables as braces (5), two on each side of the platform. The pillars are placed on both sides, both in width and along the road on which it is decided to build the structure or other new paths, requiring very small areas of land for assembly and operation.
The design of this distributor is very flexible due to its great capacity to adapt to the dimensions and requirements of the existing roads on which it is decided to build the structure, because these can vary from four lanes, to large highways of several lanes in each direction , as seen in
The three levels of the distributor are listed separately below:
On the first level, which starts from 6 meters above the ground surface, a monorail system suspended for public transport is available. The wagons are electrically self-propelled, and they hang on a monorail, which simultaneously constitutes one of the longitudinal beams (6) of the structure of the main platform, and along its lower end has on both sides of the lane where the beveled metal wheels of the electric traction system of the wagons move.
The electric traction system is fed through outlet bands fixed laterally to the beams of the monorail where the set of movable brushes moves. This system is made up of the entire metallic support structure of the monorail wagons (7) and the electric traction semi-electric modules. The support structure has a mechanical device (8) coupled to the cylinder heads of the traction modules, to guarantee the stability of both modules during the moments of acceleration, running and braking. It also allows to correctly assimilate the turns required by the wagons at the ends of each closed circuit of the route, where the moments of maximum curvature of the monorail are found (9).
The passenger carriages are 3 m wide, 2.7 m high and 16 m long, with an approximate load capacity of up to 200 passengers and will travel at a maximum speed of 80 km per hour. Cargo cars generally have the same upper structure as passenger cars, except that in this case there are four electromechanical lifting groups conveniently located to operate containers of 20 and 40 feet. They also have a cabin for two operators, and the rest of its structure is a cage designed with the dimensions and locking mechanisms and safe to house and fix inside the containers previously described.
All the wagons of the distributor will have safety and evacuation systems in case of emergencies that may arise, in such a way that the height above the ground to which the wagons work is never a problem for the safety of the passengers. Its operation will be automated and constantly monitored by an operator on board in his cabin as well as a virtual office in the operations center. This operator in certain emergencies can take manual control of all functions.
They also have the option to work in the convoy system, that is to say in sets, which can be two or three wagons maximum in line, always starting from the resting position. In these cases the connection between wagons will be wireless, in such a way that the front wagon will operate in “master” mode, and those that follow will be in “slave” mode, this means that all the actions taken by the first wagon will be replicated and adapted in real time by those who follow, having to guarantee an average distance between them that matches the locations of the doors at the stations.
The ordinary wagons will have two doors on each side, as shown in presented in
The passenger stations of the system, according to their function, are divided into three types:
These three types of stations have an upper passage that joins the stations located on both sides of the road, which allows passengers to select the required wagons without leaving the system, and passers-by to cross the structure on the road safely without taking risks for their lives. The express and trunk stations, due to their size and number of passengers, will conveniently dispose of services annexed to the distributor facilitated by their elevated design, such as food platforms, related shops, associated parking lots, service pumps, heliports and others.
All this allows a greater integration of the services required by the people. In the case of the associated parking lots, besides being a service as an added value for the distributor, it favors and encourages an authentic and healthy integration between the use of private cars and public transport. In the same way one of its routes could be assigned as a cycle route with all the security guarantees for its users.
This monorail system suspended for public transport, offers a high efficiency in the consumption of electricity, as it is integrated into the electrical transmission and distribution system, which additionally guarantees a very low ecological impact, by generating zero carbon dioxide emissions for its operation. In addition, it offers a high and effective capacity of work, based on its possibilities of increasing or decreasing the frequency of wagons depending on the demand. Having a frequency of up to three wagons per minute in each line per station during peak hours. At the points of entry of the distributor to the city, the access problems regarding mobility that could exist before the start of their operation would be solved.
Likewise, this distributor consists of a center of management offices, administration, supervision and control, which will be located at its ends. In these centers there is an entire attached structure from where, through a sliding platform (10), the entrance and exit of the wagons to the public transport system is controlled and managed according to the demand of the maximum demand schedules. It is also in this structure where all the wagons will be temporarily parked and all the cleaning, maintenance and repairs will be carried out.
The sliding platform, through which the operation of entry and exit of the wagons to the system will be performed, has a maximum operating capacity of up to 6 wagons simultaneously in an approximate time loop of 2 minutes to complete the operation. Optionally in these centers there will be a virtual room that will have all the technological support required so that each car can be supervised and managed virtually by remote control, if so required.
In the second level, a system of technological conduits attached to the structure of the platform is conceived, allowing simultaneously to transport, distribute and dispose of general public services and other optional services first hand, as well as to reorganize and enhance the totally buried distribution through its pillars.
This system runs through the same structure as the main platform. Its design divides in two halves the frontal surface of the transverse beams of the structure, in such a way that the installation of the ducts is made through the upper half of the front surface of the beams, reserving the lower half to allow entry or the exit of all the required conduits, either for income or service derivations.
In this way it is achieved that all the distribution of services in the areas surrounding the distributor is through underground routes in the ground, avoiding the use of poles for both electrical and telecommunication distributions. In the same sense, the existence of poles for public lighting is not required, because this function is also assumed by the same structure of the distributor (11). These technological conduits will be built according to the standards and technical requirements of each public service to be transported and distributed. Here is a brief description of each public service separately:
1. Electrical system: it can transport the whole range of the electrical system, that is, the high, medium and low voltage, which allows simultaneously to obtain first hand and with the highest possible efficiency the most suitable voltage to feed the electrical system of propulsion of the wagons of the public service. Assuming through its own network of transformers, all the industry, commercial and residential distribution of the surrounding areas to the passage of the distributor, and interconnecting other networks within the city.
2. Telecommunications system: it has a network of fiber optic cables, including all technological cabinets designed to assume with total reliability and reserves, the highest quality and performance requirements required for communications, both for the correct functioning of the system automated public transport, as to provide a stable and solid Wi-Fi network to the entire distributor and the surrounding residential areas. Through the pillars it is allowed to enhance the network of cellular antennas, due to its height, which will always be greater than 20 meters. All this system can be constituted in a high quality platform that can be managed and negotiated as support for all operators in the city, interested in a better service.
3. Aqueduct system: it has a network of conductors and distributors, with its automated system of protections, rebounds and valves required for its correct operation. In this way the water supply and distribution in the distributor and the surrounding areas is guaranteed. In the same way, existing networks can be interconnected in the city and improve their performance and quality in the service. Simultaneously, it supplies and feeds the distributor's fire system according to all the required technical standards.
4. Natural gas system: it has an automated network of specialized pipes and valves for the safe transportation of residential and vehicular natural gas, and all the derivations required for industrial, commercial and residential distribution.
5. Optional: a network could be designed and operated for the transportation and distribution of fuels under the security and protection standards required to guarantee the supply of existing service pumps to the distributor structure, and thus supply all remaining ones. included in the surrounding areas.
In addition to these general public service systems, the duct system can be used for specific uses, always complying with the required safety standards, and protecting the environment.
Level three has a road for light cars, ambulances, freight distribution cars and others, whose gross weight does not exceed 3 tons and its height above the floor does not reach 3 meters. It is a synthetic road built for high performance in terms of amplitude and road safety. All accesses have an electronic toll system that will ensure compliance with the fundamental parameters required for vehicles to enter the system, and additionally the commercial technical requirements determined by the administration of the distributor.
Because this roadway does not have intercepts at the level of each other, its general design is oriented so that the vehicular traffic is very fluid and agile, so that by its interior lanes, that is to the side of the separator, the circulation can be high speeds, at approximately 100 km per hour, without this implying risks of accidents. And the rest of the lanes are designed so that the vehicles during their entry, circulation and exit of the distributor, do not have to stop their march at some time, except for reasons of force majeure, such as traffic accidents, mechanical failures or natural phenomena.
The constructive system of this distributor can be very compact and agile, since it is only necessary to build from the ground, the first 180 m of the structure, because from that moment a kind of mother crane can be installed on the same structure. continue the assembly of the rest of the structure along the entire route, advancing on the construction, and only be required to run on the ground, the excavations of the foundations for the assembly of the pillars, as well as some specific support required by the assembly operations in support of the mother crane.
In a general sense, the present invention offers a very compact and functional physical integration concept between public and vehicular transportation, by placing them on the same platform, as well as including, and with dual purpose, the transportation and distribution of almost all general public services, which makes a big difference with respect to the main transport systems and their infrastructures known to date. This is an integral solution for the major problems of urban public transport, transportation and distribution of public services and for vehicular mobility in large cities. In the same way opening the possibility of being applied to make new tracings in the open field, or to connect existing roads between them.
The wagons are electrically self-propelled and depend on a monorail, which simultaneously constitutes one of the longitudinal beams (6) of the structure of the main platform, and which along its lower end has both sides of the lane, where they move the beveled metal wheels of the electric traction system of the wagons. The luminaires of the public lighting system (11), will be supported by the same structure of the distributor.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| NC2016/0003999 | Nov 2016 | CO | national |
| Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| PCT/CO2017/000009 | 11/3/2017 | WO | 00 |
