Cleaning Device for Electrified Third Rail Insulators. Transit IDEA Program. Final Report

摘要

Securement of wheelchairs on large urban transit buses has been limited to forward facing belt-type systems since before the advent of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990. Although this system is time consuming, requires operator assistance, and is sometimes difficult to correctly use, it has served the transit industry adequately. Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) is in the early stages of implementation in a number of cities around the country. This concept is based on minimizing dwell time at stations to provide much shorter transit travel time than is possible with conventional urban bus transit systems. To accomplish short dwell times, ticketing can be done at the stations prior to entering the bus and vehicles can have multiple doors, all of which can be used for both entry and exit. Clearly the wheelchair securement system currently in use is incompatible with the concept of short dwell time. An alternative that has been used in Europe and Canada is to allow the wheelchair users to station themselves in a securement station facing the rear of the bus with the rear of their chair against a padded backrest. This system appears to have great promise for use in BRT, but before this passive securement system is used in regular transit operations, the comfort and safety that it provides wheelchair users must be evaluated. This project reports results from an extensive and verified study of vehicle dynamics under normal and extreme driving conditions. In addition, qualitative studies were also conducted using rear and side factor orientations with different types of wheelchairs under extreme driving conditions.