1.
Trams in Nice
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Trams in Nice was the first-generation tramway system serving the city of Nice, France, which operated between 27 February 1879 to 10 January 1953. The creation of the Compagnie des Tramways de Nice et du Littoral was encouraged by the rise in population of Nice and surrounding towns. The TNLs aim was to build a network linking Nice to several towns along the coast on a 1,000 mm metre gauge network and its lines included, Cagnes-sur-Mer – Nice – Beaulieu – Monte Carlo – Menton Nices urban tram network. The tramway began operations on 27 February 1879 using horsecars, all lines were electrified in 1900 and operated by single car tramcars. In 1930 the TNL was operating 144 km of lines,183 tramcars and 96 trailers, at Cagnes, passengers could board trams of trams in Cannes and travel to Juan-les-Pins, Cannes and Mandelieu. Unfortunately, the line had heavy bus competition. Coastal lines were replaced by buses as early as 1929, the suburban network disappeared in 1934 with many comments from the press saluting the disappearance of this old mean of transport. Nice Town-Hall decided to close the tramway network and by 1939. Due to World War II and the requisition of buses, two lines were reopened, the network was then operated by 48 tramcars and 22 trailers. A few tramcars were rebuilt in 1942, after World War II, the badly maintained tramways were showing their age, which was surprising for such a popular mode of transport in a touristic city such as Nice. Tramways were replaced by trolleybuses from 1948 and the last tramway ran on 10 January 1953, les Tramways de Nice et de la Côte d’Azur by Jean Robert. Media related to Trams in Nice at Wikimedia Commons
2.
Nice
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Nice is the fifth most populous city in France and the capital of the Alpes-Maritimes département. The urban area of Nice extends beyond the city limits. Nice is about 13 kilometres from the principality of Monaco, the city is nicknamed Nice la Belle, which means Nice the Beautiful, which is also the title of the unofficial anthem of Nice, written by Menica Rondelly in 1912. The area of todays Nice contains Terra Amata, a site which displays evidence of a very early use of fire. Around 350 BC, Greeks of Marseille founded a permanent settlement and called it Nikaia, after Nike, through the ages, the town has changed hands many times. Its strategic location and port significantly contributed to its maritime strength, for centuries it was a dominion of Savoy, and was then part of France between 1792 and 1815, when it was returned to Piedmont-Sardinia until its re-annexation by France in 1860. The citys main seaside promenade, the Promenade des Anglais owes its name to visitors to the resort, for decades now, the picturesque Nicean surroundings have attracted not only those in search of relaxation, but also those seeking inspiration. The clear air and soft light have particularly appealed to some of Western cultures most outstanding painters, such as Marc Chagall, Henri Matisse, Niki de Saint Phalle and Arman. Their work is commemorated in many of the museums, including Musée Marc Chagall, Musée Matisse. Nice has the second largest hotel capacity in the country and it is one of its most visited cities and it also has the third busiest airport in France, after the two main Parisian ones. It is the capital city of the County of Nice. Nice was probably founded around 350 BC by the Greeks of Massalia, the ruins of Cemenelum are in Cimiez, now a district of Nice. In the 7th century, Nice joined the Genoese League formed by the towns of Liguria. In 729 the city repulsed the Saracens, but in 859 and again in 880 the Saracens pillaged and burned it, during the Middle Ages, Nice participated in the wars and history of Italy. As an ally of Pisa it was the enemy of Genoa, during the 13th and 14th centuries the city fell more than once into the hands of the Counts of Provence, but it regained its independence even though related to Genoa. The medieval city walls surrounded the Old Town, the landward side was protected by the River Paillon, which was later covered over and is now the tram route towards the Acropolis. The east side of the town was protected by fortifications on Castle Hill, another river flowed into the port on the east side of Castle Hill. Engravings suggest that the area was also defended by walls
3.
France
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France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres and had a population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Toulouse, during the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years War strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a colonial empire was established. The 16th century was dominated by civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. France became Europes dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV, in the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War, the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic. France has long been a centre of art, science. It hosts Europes fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, France is a developed country with the worlds sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, France remains a great power in the world, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a member state of the European Union and the Eurozone. It is also a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or country of the Franks
4.
Light rail
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Light rail, light rail transit or fast tram is urban public transport using rolling stock similar to a tramway, but operating at a higher capacity, and often on an exclusive right-of-way. A few light rail networks tend to have closer to rapid transit or even commuter rail. Other light rail networks are tram-like in nature and partially operate on streets, Light rail systems are found throughout the world, on all inhabited continents. They have been popular in recent years due to their lower capital costs. The term light rail was coined in 1972 by the U. S, Urban Mass Transportation Administration to describe new streetcar transformations that were taking place in Europe and the United States. In Germany the term Stadtbahn was used to describe the concept, and many in UMTA wanted to adopt the direct translation, however, UMTA finally adopted the term light rail instead. Light in this context is used in the sense of intended for light loads and fast movement, the infrastructure investment is also usually lighter than would be found for a heavy rail system. The Transportation Research Board defined light rail in 1977 as a mode of urban transportation utilizing predominantly reserved, electrically propelled rail vehicles operate singly or in trains. LRT provides a range of passenger capabilities and performance characteristics at moderate costs. Light rail is a generic international English phrase for these types of rail systems, the use of the generic term light rail avoids some serious incompatibilities between British and American English. The word trolley is used as a synonym for streetcar in the United States. A further difference arose because, while Britain abandoned all of its trams except Blackpool after World War II, when these cities upgraded to new technology, they called it light rail to differentiate it from their existing streetcars since some continued to operate both the old and new systems. Conventional rail technologies including high-speed, freight, commuter/regional, and metro/subway/elevated urban transit systems are considered heavy rail, people movers and personal rapid transit are even lighter, at least in terms of capacity. Monorail is a technology that has been more successful in specialized services than in a commuter transit role. Due to varying definitions, it is hard to distinguish between what is called light rail, and other forms of urban and commuter rail, a system described as light rail in one city may be considered to be a streetcar or tram system in another. Conversely, some lines that are called light rail are in very similar to rapid transit, in recent years. Some light rail systems, such as Sprinter, bear little similarity to urban rail, in the United States, light rail has become a catch-all term to describe a wide variety of passenger rail systems. There is a significant difference in cost between these different classes of light rail transit, tram-like systems are often less expensive than metro-like systems by a factor of two or more
5.
Tram
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A tram is a rail vehicle which runs on tracks along public urban streets, and also sometimes on a segregated right of way. The lines or networks operated by tramcars are called tramways, Tramways powered by electricity, the most common type historically, were once called electric street railways. However, trams were used in urban areas before the universal adoption of electrification. Tram lines may run between cities and/or towns, and/or partially grade-separated even in the cities. Very occasionally, trams also carry freight, Tram vehicles are usually lighter and shorter than conventional trains and rapid transit trains, but the size of trams is rapidly increasing. Some trams may also run on railway tracks, a tramway may be upgraded to a light rail or a rapid transit line. For all these reasons, the differences between the modes of rail transportation are often indistinct. In the United States, the tram has sometimes been used for rubber-tired trackless trains. Today, most trams use electrical power, usually fed by a pantograph, in some cases by a sliding shoe on a third rail. If necessary, they may have dual power systems — electricity in city streets, trams are now included in the wider term light rail, which also includes segregated systems. The English terms tram and tramway are derived from the Scots word tram, referring respectively to a type of truck used in coal mines and the tracks on which they ran. The word tram probably derived from Middle Flemish trame, a Romanesque word meaning the beam or shaft of a barrow or sledge, the identical word la trame with the meaning crossbeam is also used in the French language. The word Tram-car is attested from 1873, although the terms tram and tramway have been adopted by many languages, they are not used universally in English, North Americans prefer streetcar, trolley, or trolleycar. The term streetcar is first recorded in 1840, and originally referred to horsecars, when electrification came, Americans began to speak of trolleycars or later, trolleys. The troller design frequently fell off the wires, and was replaced by other more reliable devices. The terms trolley pole and trolley wheel both derive from the troller, Modern trams often have an overhead pantograph mechanical linkage to connect to power, abandoning the trolley pole altogether. Conventional diesel tourist buses decorated to look like streetcars are sometimes called trolleys in the US, the term may also apply to an aerial ropeway, e. g. the Roosevelt Island Tramway. Over time, the trolley has fallen into informal use
6.
Transdev
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Transdev, formerly Veolia Transdev, is a French-based international private public transport operator with operations in 19 countries. The group was formed by the merger of Veolia Transport and Transdev on 3 April 2011, Veolia Environnement and Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations had 50% shareholdings. It was initially planned for the company to be sold by a public offering, potentially accompanied by a rebranding. In early 2012 it was reported that Cube Infrastructure, a controlled by the French bank Natixis, was likely to acquire about half of Veolias stake in Transdev. The Caisse des Dépôts would take over the other half and this was not implemented, but instead, Caisse des Dépôts acquired 10% of the shares from Veolia in October 2012. Following the sale of Transdev subsidiary SNCM in late 2015, CDC, in 2013 CEO Jérôme Gallot confirmed Veolia Transdev would consolidate its operations down to 17 countries. Transdev owned 66% of SNCM, a French ferry company operating in the Mediterranean, however, as of 2014, Transdev was planning to sell its shares. SNCM was finally sold to a Corsican firm Rocca Group in late 2015 and was renamed Maritima Ferries in January 2016, thello operates trains between Italy and France, Transdev relinquishes its 33% holding in 2016. In July 2015, Transdev commenced operating 17 coach routes under the Isilines brand to coincide with the deregulation of the French coach market, Transdev Netherlands is made up of three operations, Connexxion, Veolia Transport Nederland and Witte Kruis. It was set up in December 2015 to group the three together under one brand, after bringing Connexxion and Veolia Transport Nederland under one management earlier in May that year. Each operation continues to exist separately with its branding unchanged and this arrangement was planned ever since the global rebranding of Veolia Transdev in 2013. Connexxion is owned by Transdev-BNG-Connexxion Holding BV, a consortium between Transdev, BNG Bank and Connexxion Holding N. V, the consortium used to own 66. 7% of shares until they bought the remaining 33. 3% of shares from the Dutch state in February 2013. Veolia Transport Nederland operates bus, train and ferry services around Netherlands since 1997, Witte Kruis is Transdevs mobile care organization in Netherlands. In Belgium, Veolia Transdevs operations were known as Veolia Transport Belgium, VTB was sold to a consortium consisting of Cube Infrastructure and Gimv in March 2014. Transdev North America, formerly Veolia Transportation until August/September 2014, is the North American business unit of Transdev and it operates a number of public transport services across the United States and Canada. Transdev North Americas operations can be split into four divisions, Transit, Rail, On-Demand, other North American operations inherited from the old Transdev were never part of Veolia Transportation and therefore are not part of Transdev North America. It was inherited from the old Transdev and hence is not part of Transdev North America operations, Transdev North America US operations include, Denver, Colorado, Regional Transportation District routes throughout the metro-wide District. The contract has been renewed for a term from 2014 with two options
7.
Track gauge
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In rail transport, track gauge is the spacing of the rails on a railway track and is measured between the inner faces of the load-bearing rails. All vehicles on a network must have running gear that is compatible with the track gauge, as the dominant parameter determining interoperability, it is still frequently used as a descriptor of a route or network. There is a distinction between the gauge and actual gauge at some locality, due to divergence of track components from the nominal. Railway engineers use a device, like a caliper, to measure the actual gauge, the nominal track gauge is the distance between the inner faces of the rails. In current practice, it is specified at a distance below the rail head as the inner faces of the rail head are not necessarily vertical. In some cases in the earliest days of railways, the company saw itself as an infrastructure provider only. Colloquially the wagons might be referred to as four-foot gauge wagons, say and this nominal value does not equate to the flange spacing, as some freedom is allowed for. An infrastructure manager might specify new or replacement track components at a variation from the nominal gauge for pragmatic reasons. Track is defined in old Imperial units or in universally accepted metric units or SI units, Imperial units were established in United Kingdom by The Weights and Measures Act of 1824. In addition, there are constraints, such as the load-carrying capacity of axles. Narrow gauge railways usually cost less to build because they are lighter in construction, using smaller cars and locomotives, as well as smaller bridges, smaller tunnels. Narrow gauge is often used in mountainous terrain, where the savings in civil engineering work can be substantial. Broader gauge railways are generally expensive to build and require wider curves. There is no single perfect gauge, because different environments and economic considerations come into play, a narrow gauge is superior if ones main considerations are economy and tight curvature. For direct, unimpeded routes with high traffic, a broad gauge may be preferable, the Standard, Russian, and 46 gauges are designed to strike a reasonable balance between these factors. In addition to the general trade-off, another important factor is standardization, once a standard has been chosen, and equipment, infrastructure, and training calibrated to that standard, conversion becomes difficult and expensive. This also makes it easier to adopt an existing standard than to invent a new one and this is true of many technologies, including railroad gauges. The reduced cost, greater efficiency, and greater economic opportunity offered by the use of a common standard explains why a number of gauges predominate worldwide
8.
Standard gauge
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The standard gauge is a widely used railway track gauge. Approximately 55% of the lines in the world are this gauge, all high-speed rail lines, except those in Russia, Uzbekistan, and Finland, are standard gauge. The distance between the edges of the rails is defined to be 1435 mm except in the United States. It is also called the UIC gauge or UIC track gauge, as railways developed and expanded, one of the key issues was the track gauge to be used. The result was the adoption throughout a large part of the world of a gauge of 1435 mm. In North East England, some lines in colliery areas were 4 ft 8 in. All these lines had been widened to standard gauge by 1846, parts of the United States, mainly in the Northeast, adopted the same gauge, because some early trains were purchased from Britain. However, until well into the half of the 19th century, Britain. The American gauges converged as the advantages of equipment interchange became increasingly apparent, notably, all the 5 ft broad gauge track in the South was converted to standard gauge over the course of two days beginning on 31 May 1886. See Track gauge in the United States, snopes categorized this legend as false, but commented that. It is perhaps more fairly labelled as True, but for trivial, the historical tendency to place the wheels of horse-drawn vehicles approximately 5 feet apart probably derives from the width needed to fit a carthorse in between the shafts. Others were 4 ft 4 in or 4 ft 7 1⁄2 in, the English railway pioneer George Stephenson spent much of his early engineering career working for the coal mines of County Durham. He favoured 4 ft 8 in for wagonways in Northumberland and Durham, the Hetton and Springwell wagonways also used this gauge. Stephensons Stockton and Darlington railway was primarily to transport coal from mines near Shildon to the port at Stockton-on-Tees. The initial gauge of 4 ft 8 in was set to accommodate the existing gauge of hundreds of horse-drawn chaldron wagons that were already in use on the wagonways in the mines. The railway used this gauge for 15 years before a change was made to 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in gauge, George Stephenson used the 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in gauge for the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, authorised in 1826 and opened 30 September 1830. The success of this led to Stephenson and his son Robert being employed to engineer several other larger railway projects. Monkland and Kirkintilloch Railway, authorised 1824 and opened 1825, used 4 ft 6 in, Dundee and Newtyle Railway, authorised 1829 and opened 1831, used 4 ft 6 1⁄2 in
9.
Railway electrification system
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A railway electrification system supplies electric power to railway trains and trams without an on-board prime mover or local fuel supply. Electrification has many advantages but requires significant capital expenditure, selection of an electrification system is based on economics of energy supply, maintenance, and capital cost compared to the revenue obtained for freight and passenger traffic. Different systems are used for urban and intercity areas, some electric locomotives can switch to different supply voltages to allow flexibility in operation, Electric railways use electric locomotives to haul passengers or freight in separate cars or electric multiple units, passenger cars with their own motors. Electricity is typically generated in large and relatively efficient generating stations, transmitted to the railway network, some electric railways have their own dedicated generating stations and transmission lines but most purchase power from an electric utility. The railway usually provides its own lines, switches and transformers. Power is supplied to moving trains with a continuous conductor running along the track usually takes one of two forms. The first is a line or catenary wire suspended from poles or towers along the track or from structure or tunnel ceilings. Locomotives or multiple units pick up power from the wire with pantographs on their roofs that press a conductive strip against it with a spring or air pressure. Examples are described later in this article, the second is a third rail mounted at track level and contacted by a sliding pickup shoe. Both overhead wire and third-rail systems usually use the rails as the return conductor. In comparison to the alternative, the diesel engine, electric railways offer substantially better energy efficiency, lower emissions. Electric locomotives are usually quieter, more powerful, and more responsive and they have no local emissions, an important advantage in tunnels and urban areas. Different regions may use different supply voltages and frequencies, complicating through service, the limited clearances available under catenaries may preclude efficient double-stack container service. Possible lethal electric current due to risk of contact with high-voltage contact wires, overhead wires are safer than third rails, but they are often considered unsightly. These are independent of the system used, so that. The permissible range of voltages allowed for the voltages is as stated in standards BS EN50163. These take into account the number of trains drawing current and their distance from the substation, railways must operate at variable speeds. Until the mid 1980s this was only practical with the brush-type DC motor, since such conversion was not well developed in the late 19th century and early 20th century, most early electrified railways used DC and many still do, particularly rapid transit and trams
10.
Volt
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The volt is the derived unit for electric potential, electric potential difference, and electromotive force. One volt is defined as the difference in potential between two points of a conducting wire when an electric current of one ampere dissipates one watt of power between those points. It is also equal to the difference between two parallel, infinite planes spaced 1 meter apart that create an electric field of 1 newton per coulomb. Additionally, it is the difference between two points that will impart one joule of energy per coulomb of charge that passes through it. It can also be expressed as amperes times ohms, watts per ampere, or joules per coulomb, for the Josephson constant, KJ = 2e/h, the conventional value KJ-90 is used, K J-90 =0.4835979 GHz μ V. This standard is typically realized using an array of several thousand or tens of thousands of junctions. Empirically, several experiments have shown that the method is independent of device design, material, measurement setup, etc. in the water-flow analogy sometimes used to explain electric circuits by comparing them with water-filled pipes, voltage is likened to difference in water pressure. Current is proportional to the diameter of the pipe or the amount of water flowing at that pressure. A resistor would be a reduced diameter somewhere in the piping, the relationship between voltage and current is defined by Ohms Law. Ohms Law is analogous to the Hagen–Poiseuille equation, as both are linear models relating flux and potential in their respective systems, the voltage produced by each electrochemical cell in a battery is determined by the chemistry of that cell. Cells can be combined in series for multiples of that voltage, mechanical generators can usually be constructed to any voltage in a range of feasibility. High-voltage electric power lines,110 kV and up Lightning, Varies greatly. Volta had determined that the most effective pair of metals to produce electricity was zinc. In 1861, Latimer Clark and Sir Charles Bright coined the name volt for the unit of resistance, by 1873, the British Association for the Advancement of Science had defined the volt, ohm, and farad. In 1881, the International Electrical Congress, now the International Electrotechnical Commission and they made the volt equal to 108 cgs units of voltage, the cgs system at the time being the customary system of units in science. At that time, the volt was defined as the difference across a conductor when a current of one ampere dissipates one watt of power. The international volt was defined in 1893 as 1/1.434 of the emf of a Clark cell and this definition was abandoned in 1908 in favor of a definition based on the international ohm and international ampere until the entire set of reproducible units was abandoned in 1948. Prior to the development of the Josephson junction voltage standard, the volt was maintained in laboratories using specially constructed batteries called standard cells
11.
Direct current
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Direct current is a flow of electrical charge carriers that always takes place in the same direction. The current need not always have the magnitude, but if it is to be defined as dc. This contrasts with alternating current which varies the direction of flow, sources of direct current include power supplies, electrochemical cells and batteries, and photovoltaic cells and panels. The intensity, or amplitude, of a direct current might fluctuate with time, in some such cases the dc has an ac component superimposed on it. An example of this is the output of a cell that receives a modulated light communications signal. A source of dc is sometimes called a dc generator, batteries and various other sources of dc produce a constant voltage. This is called pure dc and can be represented by a straight, the peak and effective values are the same. The peak to peak value is zero because the instantaneous amplitude never changes, in some instances the value of a dc voltage pulsates or oscillates rapidly with time, in a manner similar to the changes in an ac wave. The unfiltered output of a wave or a full wave rectifier. In 1820, Hans Christian Orsted discovered that electrical current creates a magnetic field and this discovery made scientists relate magnetism to the electric phenomena. In 1879, Thomas Edison invented the light bulb. He improved a 50-year-old idea using lower current electricity, a vacuum inside the globe and a small carbonized filament. At that time, the idea of lightning was not new. Edison not only invented an incandescent electric light, but an electric lighting system contained all the necessary elements to make the incandescent light safe, economical. Prior to 1879, direct current electricity had been used in lighting for the outdoors and it was in the 1880s when the modern electric utility industry began. It was an evolution from street lighting systems and from gas and it was located in Lower Manhattan, on Pearl Street. This station provided light and electricity to customers in a one square mile range, the station was called Thomas Edisons Pearl Street Electricity Generating Station. This station introduced four elements of an electric utility system, Efficient distribution, competitive price, reliable central generation
12.
Overhead line
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An overhead line or overhead wire is used to transmit electrical energy to trams, trolleybuses, or trains. Overhead line is designed on the principle of one or more overhead wires situated over rail tracks, the feeder stations are usually fed from a high-voltage electrical grid. Electric trains that collect their current from overhead lines use a device such as a pantograph and it presses against the underside of the lowest overhead wire, the contact wire. Current collectors are electrically conductive and allow current to flow through to the train or tram, non-electric locomotives may pass along these tracks without affecting the overhead line, although there may be difficulties with overhead clearance. Alternative electrical power transmission schemes for trains include third rail, ground-level power supply, batteries and this article does not cover regenerative braking, where the traction motors act as generators to retard movement and return power to the overhead. To achieve good high-speed current collection, it is necessary to keep the wire geometry within defined limits. This is usually achieved by supporting the wire from a second wire known as the messenger wire or catenary. This wire approximates the path of a wire strung between two points, a catenary curve, thus the use of catenary to describe this wire or sometimes the whole system. This wire is attached to the wire at regular intervals by vertical wires known as droppers or drop wires. It is supported regularly at structures, by a pulley, link, the whole system is then subjected to a mechanical tension. As the contact wire makes contact with the pantograph, the insert on top of the pantograph is worn down. The straight wire between supports will cause the wire to cross over the whole surface of the pantograph as the train travels around the curve, causing uniform wear. On straight track, the wire is zigzagged slightly to the left. The movement of the wire across the head of the pantograph is called the sweep. The zigzagging of the line is not required for trolley poles. Depot areas tend to have only a wire and are known as simple equipment or trolley wire. When overhead line systems were first conceived, good current collection was only at low speeds. Compound equipment - uses a second wire, known as the auxiliary
13.
French language
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French is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages, French has evolved from Gallo-Romance, the spoken Latin in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues doïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, French was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to Frances past overseas expansion, there are numerous French-based creole languages, a French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French. French is a language in 29 countries, most of which are members of la francophonie. As of 2015, 40% of the population is in Europe, 35% in sub-Saharan Africa, 15% in North Africa and the Middle East, 8% in the Americas. French is the fourth-most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union, 1/5 of Europeans who do not have French as a mother tongue speak French as a second language. As a result of French and Belgian colonialism from the 17th and 18th century onward, French was introduced to new territories in the Americas, Africa, most second-language speakers reside in Francophone Africa, in particular Gabon, Algeria, Mauritius, Senegal and Ivory Coast. In 2015, French was estimated to have 77 to 110 million native speakers, approximately 274 million people are able to speak the language. The Organisation internationale de la Francophonie estimates 700 million by 2050, in 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked French the third most useful language for business, after English and Standard Mandarin Chinese. Under the Constitution of France, French has been the language of the Republic since 1992. France mandates the use of French in official government publications, public education except in specific cases, French is one of the four official languages of Switzerland and is spoken in the western part of Switzerland called Romandie, of which Geneva is the largest city. French is the language of about 23% of the Swiss population. French is also a language of Luxembourg, Monaco, and Aosta Valley, while French dialects remain spoken by minorities on the Channel Islands. A plurality of the worlds French-speaking population lives in Africa and this number does not include the people living in non-Francophone African countries who have learned French as a foreign language. Due to the rise of French in Africa, the total French-speaking population worldwide is expected to reach 700 million people in 2050, French is the fastest growing language on the continent. French is mostly a language in Africa, but it has become a first language in some urban areas, such as the region of Abidjan, Ivory Coast and in Libreville. There is not a single African French, but multiple forms that diverged through contact with various indigenous African languages, sub-Saharan Africa is the region where the French language is most likely to expand, because of the expansion of education and rapid population growth
14.
Alstom Citadis
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The Citadis is a family of low-floor trams and light rail vehicles built by Alstom. An evolution of Alstoms earlier TFS vehicle, most Citadis trams are made in Alstoms factories in La Rochelle, Reichshoffen and Valenciennes, France, and in Barcelona, Spain, also, Gaziantep bought second-hand TFSs from Rouen. The Citadis family includes both partial and fully low-floor trams and LRVs, in versions with three, five, seven, and nine sections, own Russian name according unifying system of rolling stock classification, 71-801. This train type can be built as a dual-voltage or electro-diesel vehicle with various configurations.5 to 5 km, a total of 31 sets have been ordered by the SNCF at an average cost of €3.2 million per train set. Like most trams, Citadis vehicles are powered by overhead electric wires collected by a pantograph. On the networks in France and in Sydney, the switch to conventional overhead wires in outer areas. Another option is to use batteries to store electrical power. The Citadis trams in Nice operate off a set of nickel metallic hydride batteries in two open spaces where overhead wires would be an eyesore
15.
Christian Estrosi
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Christian Estrosi is a French sportsman and politician. He is a former professional motorcyclist and politician, a former Minister, a former Mayor of Nice, christian Estrosi was born on 1 July 1955 in Nice. His grandparents were immigrants from Italy and he was a professional motorcycle racer and competed at the world championship level in Grand Prix motorcycle racing. His best result was a finish in the 500cc 1978 French Grand Prix. He repeated the result with another fourth-place finish at the 1979 Spanish Grand Prix and he received the Youth and Sports gold medal. He was a member of the council of Nice from 1983 to 1990. He was re-elected in 2008, when he was also elected Mayor of Nice, in 2013, he rejected a plan to build a mosque funded by a businessman from Saudi Arabia in Nice. He has served as President of the Urban community of Nice Côte dAzur since 2008 and he served as regional councillor of Provence-Alpes-Côte dAzur from 1992 to 2002, and as its Vice President from 1992 to 1998. He served as Vice-president of the General Council of Alpes-Maritimes from 2001 to 2003, in addition, he has held several ministerial positions in the French government in Paris. He was appointed on 2 June 2005 as Deputy Minister of Land Management and he was then appointed on 19 June 2007 as the Deputy Minister of the Overseas French territories. From 2009 to 2010, he served as Deputy Minister in charge of Industry and he is the recipient of a Doctorate Honoris Causa from the University of Haifa in Israel. He is a Knight of the Legion of Honour from the French Republican, an Officer of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland, and he was married to Dominique Sassone, daughter of Jean Sassone, who served as Vice Mayor of Nice from 1977 to 1998
16.
Public utility
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A public utility is an organization that maintains the infrastructure for a public service. Public utilities are subject to forms of control and regulation ranging from local community-based groups to statewide government monopolies. The term utilities can also refer to the set of services provided by these organizations consumed by the public, electricity, natural gas, water, broadband internet services are increasingly being included within the definition. As a result, they are government monopolies, or if privately owned. The first public utility in the United States was a grist mill on Mother Brook in Dedham, developments in technology have eroded some of the natural monopoly aspects of traditional public utilities. Public utilities can be owned or publicly owned. Publicly owned utilities include cooperative and municipal utilities, municipal utilities may actually include territories outside of city limits or may not even serve the entire city. Cooperative utilities are owned by the customers they serve and they are usually found in rural areas. Private utilities, also called investor-owned utilities, are owned by investors, Public utilities provide services at the consumer level, be it residential, commercial, or industrial consumer. For example, the California Public Utilities Commission is an operating in the state of California, in the United Kingdom and Ireland, the state, private firms, and charities ran the traditional public utilities. For instance, the Sanitary Districts were established in England and Wales in 1875 and they are regulated by Ofgem, Ofwat and Ofcom. Disabled community transport services may occasionally be included within the definition and they were mostly privatised in the UK during the 1980s. World Bank report on Water, Electricity and Utility subsidies Latest News in Utilities and Information Technology Latest in UK business utility news
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Villa
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A villa was originally an ancient Roman upper-class country house. Since its origins in the Roman villa, the idea and function of a villa have evolved considerably, after the fall of the Roman Republic, villas became small farming compounds, which were increasingly fortified in Late Antiquity, sometimes transferred to the Church for reuse as a monastery. Then they gradually re-evolved through the Middle Ages into elegant upper-class country homes, in modern parlance, villa can refer to various types and sizes of residences, ranging from the suburban semi-detached double villa to residences in the wildland–urban interface. In ancient Roman architecture a villa was originally a house built for the élite. The Roman villae rusticae at the heart of latifundia were the earliest versions of what later, not included as villae were the domus, a city house for the élite and privileged classes, and insulae, blocks of apartment buildings for the rest of the population. In Satyricon, Petronius described the range of Roman dwellings. Another type of villae is the villa marittima, a seaside villa, a concentration of Imperial villas existed on the Gulf of Naples, on the Isle of Capri, at Monte Circeo and at Antium. Examples include the Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum, and the Villa of the Mysteries, wealthy Romans also escaped the summer heat in the hills round Rome, especially around Tibur (Tivoand Frascati, such as at Hadrians Villa. Cicero allegedly possessed no fewer than seven villas, the oldest of which was near Arpinum, pliny the Younger had three or four, of which the example near Laurentium is the best known from his descriptions. Roman writers refer with satisfaction to the self-sufficiency of their latifundium villas, archeologists have meticulously examined numerous Roman villas in England. The grand villa at Woodchester preserved its mosaic floors when the Anglo-Saxon parish church was built upon its site, grave-diggers preparing for burials in the churchyard as late as the 18th century had to punch through the intact mosaic floors. The even more palatial villa rustica at Fishbourne near Winchester was built as an open rectangle. Villae rusticae are essential in the Empires economy, two kinds of villa-plan in Roman Britain may be characteristic of Roman villas in general. The more usual plan extended wings of all opening onto a linking portico. The other kind featured a central hall like a basilica. The villa buildings were often independent structures linked by their enclosed courtyards, timber-framed construction, carefully fitted with mortises and tenons and dowelled together, set on stone footings, were the rule, replaced by stone buildings for the important ceremonial rooms. Traces of window glass have been found, as well as ironwork window grilles, with the decline and collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the fourth and fifth centuries, the villas were more and more isolated and came to be protected by walls. In England the villas were abandoned, looted, and burned by Anglo-Saxon invaders in the fifth century, in regions on the Continent, aristocrats and territorial magnates donated large working villas and overgrown abandoned ones to individual monks, these might become the nuclei of monasteries
18.
Allianz Riviera
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The Allianz Riviera is a multi-use stadium in Nice, France, used mostly for football matches of host OGC Nice and also for occasional home matches of rugby union club Toulon. The stadium has a capacity of 35,624 people and replaces the former stadium Stade Municipal du Ray. Construction started in 2011 and was completed two years later, the stadiums opening was on 22 September 2013, for a match between OGC Nice and Valenciennes. The stadium was planned to be completed by 2007. However, construction was halted the previous year because of related to the future cost of the structure. Plans for the stadium, located in Saint-Isidore near the Var, were then shelved, the project was revived as part of Frances ultimately successful bid to host UEFA Euro 2016. Due to sponsorship regulations, the stadium is known as the Stade de Nice in UEFA competition, the stadium was one of the venues of the UEFA Euro 2016 and hosted the following matches, Allianz Riviera website Stadium pictures
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Saint-Laurent-du-Var
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Saint-Laurent-du-Var is a commune in the Alpes-Maritimes department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte dAzur region on the French Riviera. The town was founded in the 11th century when a hospice was founded under Saint Lawrences protection, the main activity was to help passengers to cross the Var, which became a border between Kingdom of France and County of Nice in 1481. St. Laurent is the second-largest suburb of the city of Nice, after Cagnes-sur-Mer and it lies adjacent to it on the west side on the other side of the river Var. Nowadays, the town has developed much and its population has multiplied by ten in the last century. St. Laurent is located close to Nice Côte dAzur Airport, in the side of Var river. The town also has a harbour, an interchange on the motorway A8 and a railway station on the Marseille-Toulon-Nice-Ventimiglia line. Laurent du Var CAP3000 website
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Cagnes-sur-Mer
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It is also home to the only horse hippodrome in the French Riviera, which draws people from all over for its horse races. It is the largest extension to the city of Nice and lies to the west-southwest of it and it was the retreat and final address of the painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir, who moved there in 1907 in an attempt to improve his arthritis, and remained until his death in 1919. In the late 1920s, Cagnes-sur-Mer became a residence for many American renowned literary and art figures, such as Kay Boyle, George Antheil and Harry, parisian artist, poet, and philosopher Georges Charaire had a home In Cagnes for many years. Creating his lithographs in the studio of Paul Gaugin, and also as a co-founder of the Theatre du Tertre in Montmartre, he had a great influence on French art. He helped his friend Eugène Ionesco with his first plays at the Theatre du Tertre, Charaire kept his second home in Cagnes sur Mer until his death in 2001. nt Belarusian-French artist Chaim Soutine created powerful, fanciful landscapes of southern France. A friend of Amedeo Modigliani, Soutine left colourful landscapes from Cagnes from 1924 on, fauvist painter Francisco Iturrino also resided in the town where he died. The town may have been an inspiration for Neo-impressionist Henri-Edmond Cross and it is also known for its horse racing venue, the Hippodrome de la Côte dAzur, and a four-kilometre pebble beach. The Gare de Cagnes-sur-Mer railway station offers services in the directions of Nice. The commune is twinned with, Passau Communes of the Alpes-Maritimes department INSEE Official website Official tourism website The Weather in Cagnes Sur Mer
21.
Ben Vautier
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Ben Vautier, also known simply as Ben, is a French artist. Vautier lives and works in Nice, where he ran a shop called Magazin between 1958 and 1973. In 1959, Vautier founded the journal Ben Dieu, in 1960, he had his first one-man show, Rien et tout in Laboratoire 32. He is also active in Mail-Art and is known for his text-based paintings or « écritures » begun in 1953 with his work Il faut manger. Another example of the latter is Lart est inutile and he has long defended the rights of minorities in all countries, and he has been influenced by the theories of François Fontan about ethnism. For example, he has defended the Occitan language, in 1981 he coined the name of the French art movement of the 1980s Figuration Libre. A French Wikipedia article to understand what is ethnism Anti-art Official website
22.
Jean-Michel Othoniel
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Jean-Michel Othoniel is a contemporary artist born in 1964 in Saint-Etienne. He lives and works in Paris, an artist who has a passion for all sorts of metamorphoses, sublimations and transmutations, Jean-Michel Othoniel has a predilection for materials with reversible properties. Othoniel first gained recognition with a series of made of sulfur. In 1993, Jean-Michel Othoniel introduced glass into his work and began to explore its properties, transformations, mutations of materials, and rites of passage from one state to another echo an essential rite in the artist’s work, that of journeys and memory. Similar to a fruit, the necklace has a life in and of itself, it merges into the landscape. The notion of wound or injury is at the heart of his work, in 1997, Othoniel created Collier Cicatrice, a small necklace made of red glass that the artist offers to whoever wants to wear it with pride. In 2003, Jean-Michel Othoniel conceived Crystal Palace for the Cartier Foundation in Paris and this installation was conceived as a decor for the tiny puppets that Pierre Loti used to play with as a child, and that Othoniel discovered in the house of this famous French writer. Also in 2004, for the exhibition Contrepoint at the Louvre Museum and his monumental glass and aluminum sculptures, which are always created in relation to the places in which they are shown, acquire a timeless and peaceful dimension. The great white river of pearls adorned with nipples, which was purchased by the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, is now on view in the new collection display. For the Unlimited Section at Art Basel 2005, Jean-Michel Othoniel showed The Boat of Tears in a located in front of the fair. The artist, whose works often combine the political and the intimate, salvaged a boat built by Cuban boat people and abandoned on the shores of Miami, a crown, chains and necklaces made of colored glass taper down into giant tears of clear crystal. The sculpture floats on the water like a ghost ship, loaded with tears of suffering and joy, overflowing with memories, the artist has progressively built up a world based on ultimate freedom and the acceptance of the reversible, a world characterizing his personality. His work takes on a variety of forms, drawings, sculptures, photographs, narratives, choreography and his streamlined works are steeped in poetry and eroticism. In 2011, an important exhibition held at the Centre Pompidou Paris presenting the entire gamut of his artistic practice retraced his career. In spring 2013, the Mori Art Museum of Tokyo has ordered him a new piece of work for its 10th anniversary, Kin no Kokoro. On March 12,2015, Jean-Michel Othoniel will open a new exhibit, Secret Flower Sculptures, at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, that will then travel to San Francisco in Autumn. In May 2015, Jean-Michel Othoniel revealed Les Belles Danses, three sculptures installed on the ponds of the new Water Theatre grove created by the landscape designer Louis Benech. The design was inspired by a script that the artist found in Raoul Auger Feuillet’s book Choregraphie, ou, L’art de décrire la dance, par caracteres, figures
23.
Sarkis Zabunyan
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Sarkis Zabunyan, known as Sarkis, is a Turkish-born Armenian conceptual artist living in France. Born in Istanbul in 1938, Sarkis studied French, painting, in 1969 he was invited by the critic and curator Harald Szeemann to take part in the now legendary show When Attitudes Become Form. Teaching and the sharing of experience are key concerns of this artist, since the 1980s, Sarkis has taken part in numerous international exhibitions and had his work shown in the world’s leading museums. Passages evoked both the permanent back-and-forth between a studio and the museum, and Walter Benjamin’s great unfinished work about the arcades of Paris. The exhibition featured a series of recent or specially created works produced by the Pompidou Centre and these works, standing as the artist’s KRIEGSSCHATZ, comprised found objects, art works and ethnographic objects from different civilizations. In 2011 the Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain in Geneva devoted an important retrospective to the artist entitled Hôtel Sarkis. He has also taken part in the group show La Triennale – Intense Proximité at the Palais de Tokyo with his Frise des Trésors de Guerre, showed at Néon, who’s afraid of red, yellow and blue. At La Maison Rouge – Fondation Antoine de Galbert, and Istanbul Modern at the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, in 2013, Sarkis took part in the exhibition When Attitudes Become Form, Bern 1969/Venice 2013 at the Prada Foundation as part of the 55th Venice Biennale. He also showed at Passages Croisés en or at the Château d’Angers, Sarkis also participated in the exhibition Ici, Ailleurs as part of the Marseille – Provence, European Capital of Culture programme, and the exhibition Modernity. Perspectives from France and Turkey at the Istanbul Modern, and in his exhibition titled Sarkis – Cage/Ryoanji Interpretation at the ARTER – Space for Art in Istanbul. A solo exhibition devoted to his work appeared at the Musée du Château des Ducs de Wurtemberg in Montbéliard
24.
Architecture
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Architecture is both the process and the product of planning, designing, and constructing buildings and other physical structures. Architectural works, in the form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural symbols. Historical civilizations are often identified with their surviving architectural achievements, Architecture can mean, A general term to describe buildings and other physical structures. The art and science of designing buildings and nonbuilding structures, the style of design and method of construction of buildings and other physical structures. A unifying or coherent form or structure Knowledge of art, science, technology, the design activity of the architect, from the macro-level to the micro-level. The practice of the architect, where architecture means offering or rendering services in connection with the design and construction of buildings. The earliest surviving work on the subject of architecture is De architectura. According to Vitruvius, a building should satisfy the three principles of firmitas, utilitas, venustas, commonly known by the original translation – firmness, commodity. An equivalent in modern English would be, Durability – a building should stand up robustly, utility – it should be suitable for the purposes for which it is used. Beauty – it should be aesthetically pleasing, according to Vitruvius, the architect should strive to fulfill each of these three attributes as well as possible. Leon Battista Alberti, who elaborates on the ideas of Vitruvius in his treatise, De Re Aedificatoria, saw beauty primarily as a matter of proportion, for Alberti, the rules of proportion were those that governed the idealised human figure, the Golden mean. The most important aspect of beauty was, therefore, an inherent part of an object, rather than something applied superficially, Gothic architecture, Pugin believed, was the only true Christian form of architecture. The 19th-century English art critic, John Ruskin, in his Seven Lamps of Architecture, Architecture was the art which so disposes and adorns the edifices raised by men. That the sight of them contributes to his health, power. For Ruskin, the aesthetic was of overriding significance and his work goes on to state that a building is not truly a work of architecture unless it is in some way adorned. For Ruskin, a well-constructed, well-proportioned, functional building needed string courses or rustication, but suddenly you touch my heart, you do me good. I am happy and I say, This is beautiful, le Corbusiers contemporary Ludwig Mies van der Rohe said Architecture starts when you carefully put two bricks together. The notable 19th-century architect of skyscrapers, Louis Sullivan, promoted an overriding precept to architectural design, function came to be seen as encompassing all criteria of the use, perception and enjoyment of a building, not only practical but also aesthetic, psychological and cultural
25.
La Rochelle
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La Rochelle is a city in southwestern France and a seaport on the Bay of Biscay, a part of the Atlantic Ocean. It is the capital of the Charente-Maritime department, the city is connected to the Île de Ré by a 2. 9-kilometre bridge completed on 19 May 1988. Its harbour opens into a protected strait, the Pertuis dAntioche, the area of La Rochelle was occupied in antiquity by the Gallic tribe of the Santones, who gave their name to the nearby region of Saintonge and the city of Saintes. The Romans subsequently occupied the area, where they developed salt production along the coast as well as wine production, roman villas have been found at Saint-Éloi and at Les Minimes, as well as salt evaporation ponds dating from the same period. La Rochelle was founded during the 10th century and became an important harbour in the 12th century, in 1137, Guillaume X to all intents and purposes made La Rochelle a free port and gave it the right to establish itself as a commune. Fifty years later Eleanor of Aquitaine upheld the communal charter promulgated by her father, and for the first time in France, Guillaume was assisted in his responsibilities by 24 municipal magistrates, and 75 notables who had jurisdiction over the inhabitants. During the Plantagenet control of the city in 1185, Henry II had the Vauclair castle built, the main activities of the city were in the areas of maritime commerce and trade, especially with England, the Netherlands and Spain. In 1196, a wealthy bourgeois named Alexandre Auffredi sent a fleet of seven ships to Africa to tap the riches of the continent. He went bankrupt and went into poverty as he waited for the return of his ships, the Knights Templar had a strong presence in La Rochelle since before the time of Eleanor of Aquitaine, who exempted them from duties and gave them mills in her 1139 Charter. La Rochelle was for the Templars their largest base on the Atlantic Ocean, from La Rochelle, they were able to act as intermediaries in trade between England and the Mediterranean. The fleet allegedly left laden with knights and treasures just before the issue of the warrant for the arrest of the Order in October 1307, during the Hundred Years War in 1360, following the Treaty of Bretigny La Rochelle again came under the rule of the English monarch. La Rochelle however expelled the English in June 1372, following the naval Battle of La Rochelle, the French and Spanish decisively defeated the English, securing French control of the Channel for the first time since the Battle of Sluys in 1340. The naval battle of La Rochelle was one of the first cases of the use of handguns on warships, having recovered freedom, La Rochelle refused entry to Du Guesclin, until Charles V recognized the privileges of the city in November 1372. In 1402, the French adventurer Jean de Béthencourt left La Rochelle, until the 15th century, La Rochelle was to be the largest French harbour on the Atlantic coast, dealing mainly in wine, salt and cheese. During the Renaissance, La Rochelle adopted Protestant ideas, calvinism started to be propagated in the region of La Rochelle, resulting in its suppression through the establishment of Cours présidiaux tribunals by Henry II. An early result of this was the burning at the stake of two heretics in La Rochelle in 1552. On the initiative of Gaspard de Coligny, the Calvinists attempted to colonize the New World to find a new home for their religion, with the likes of Pierre Richier and Jean de Léry. After the short-lived attempt of France Antarctique, they failed to establish a colony in Brazil and he has been described, by Lancelot Voisin de La Popelinière, as le père de léglise de La Rochelle
26.
Poitou-Charentes
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Poitou-Charentes is a former administrative region in south-western France. It is part of the new region Nouvelle-Aquitaine and it comprises four departments, Charente, Charente-Maritime, Deux-Sèvres and Vienne. Historical provinces are Angoumois, Aunis, Saintonge and Poitou, other important cities are La Rochelle, Niort, Angoulême, Châtellerault, Saintes, Rochefort and Royan. The regional council is composed of 56 members, the region is the home of Frances losing presidential candidate Socialist Ségolène Royal in the election of 2007. In French its residents are known as Picto-Charentais, in 2003, the region ranked 15th out of 26 in population. In area it ranked 12th in size, three regional languages, Poitevin, Saintongeais and Occitan are spoken by a minority of people in the region. Poitou is believed to be the region of origin of most of the Acadian and their ancestors emigrated from the region in the 17th and 18th centuries. At first, these French immigrants from Poitou settled in eastern Canada and this area of the New World was dubbed Acadia by the French, after the Greek Arcadia - the idyllic part of the Peloponnesian peninsula in Greece. It was renamed Nova Scotia in the aftermath of the 1755 expulsion of most of the Acadians by the English, Poitou is a historic region in west central France. Poitiers, the capital of the region, is its city, although the port of La Rochelle, capital of the province of Aunis. Farming is important to the economy, wheat, corn and cattle are farmed, industries produce machinery, chemicals and dairy products. The regions first known inhabitants, the Pictavi, a Gallic tribe, were conquered in 56 BC by the Romans, the Visigoths seized the region in 418 AD, but it passed to the Franks in 507. In 732 or 733, Charles Martel brought the Muslim invasion of Western Europe to a standstill by his victory in the Battle of Poitiers. From the 10th to the century, the counts of Poitou were also the dukes of Aquitaine. In 1152, Poitou came under English control through the marriage of Eleanor of Aquitaine to Henry II. The region was reunited with the French crown in 1416 and was a province of France until the Revolution, françoise-Athénaïs, marquise de Montespan was born in the area in 1640. She was the mistress to Louis XIV, Some of their descendants are still alive today
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Bus
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A bus is a road vehicle designed to carry many passengers. Buses can have a capacity as high as 300 passengers, many types of buses, such as city transit buses and inter-city coaches, charge a fare. Other types, such as elementary or secondary school buses or shuttle buses within a post-secondary education campus do not charge a fare, in many jurisdictions, bus drivers require a special licence above and beyond a regular drivers licence. Horse-drawn buses were used from the 1820s, followed by steam buses in the 1830s, the first internal combustion engine buses, or motor buses, were used in 1895. Recently, interest has been growing in hybrid electric buses, fuel cell buses, as of the 2010s, bus manufacturing is increasingly globalised, with the same designs appearing around the world. Bus is a form of the Latin word omnibus. The first horse-drawn omnibus service was started by a businessman named Stanislas Baudry in the French city of Nantes in 1823, Nantes citizens soon gave the nickname omnibus to the vehicle. The omnibus in Nantes was a success and Baudry moved to Paris, a similar service was introduced in London in 1829. The first mechanically propelled omnibus appeared on the streets of London on 22 April 1833, in parallel to the development of the bus was the invention of the electric trolleybus, typically fed through trolley poles by overhead wires. The Siemens brothers, William in England and Ernst Werner in Germany, sir William first proposed the idea in an article to the Journal of the Society of Arts in 1881 as an. arrangement by which an ordinary omnibus. The first such vehicle, the Electromote, was made by his brother Dr. Ernst Werner von Siemens and presented to the public in 1882 in Halensee, Germany. Although this experimental vehicle fulfilled all the criteria of a typical trolleybus. Max Schiemann opened a trolleybus in 1901 near Dresden, in Germany. Although this system operated only until 1904, Schiemann had developed what is now the standard trolleybus current collection system, in the early days, a few other methods of current collection were used. Leeds and Bradford became the first cities to put trolleybuses into service in Great Britain on 20 June 1911, in Siegerland, Germany, two passenger bus lines ran briefly, but unprofitably, in 1895 using a six-passenger motor carriage developed from the 1893 Benz Viktoria. Another commercial bus line using the same model Benz omnibuses ran for a time in 1898 in the rural area around Llandudno. Daimler also produced one of the earliest motor-bus models in 1898, the vehicle had a maximum speed of 18 kph and accommodated up to 20 passengers, in an enclosed area below and on an open-air platform above. With the success and popularity of bus, Daimler expanded production, selling more buses to companies in London and, in 1899, to Stockholm
28.
Ground-level power supply
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Ground-level power supply, also known as surface current collection and Alimentation par le Sol, is a modern method of third-rail electrical pick-up for street trams. It was invented for the Bordeaux tramway, which was constructed from 2000, until 2011, this was the only place it was used, with proposals to install it elsewhere. Reims has adopted this technology for its new Reims Tramway, which was opened in 2011, as have Angers, ground-level power supply is used, primarily for aesthetic reasons, as an alternative to overhead lines. Conduit current collection was used in historic tram systems in Washington, Manhattan, Paris, Berlin, Marseilles, Vienna, Budapest, in Prague on the Charles Bridge a system invented by František Křižík was used, similar to todays APS. Unlike the track-side third rail used by most metro trains and some railways, APS does not pose a danger to people or animals and so can be used in pedestrian areas. APS uses a third rail placed between the rails, divided electrically into ten-metre rail segments with three-metre neutral sections between. Each tram has two power collection shoes, next to which are antennas that send signals to energise the power rail segments as the tram passes over them. At any one time, two consecutive segments under the tram will be live, modern ground-level current collection was pioneered by the Bordeaux tramway in France. Facing complaints both from the public and the French Ministry of Culture, planners developed APS as a way of replicating the conduit system. APS was developed by Innorail, a subsidiary of Spie Enertrans but was sold to Alstom when Spie was acquired by Amec, there are 12 km of APS tramway in the three-line network of 43.3 km as of 2008. Bordeaux Citadis trams use pantographs and electric lines in outlying areas. Before use in Bordeaux, APS was tested and proved viable on a section of reserved-track in the French city of Marseille. Problems have included water-logging, when the water does not drain quickly enough after heavy rain, in July 2006, it was announced that two new French tram systems would be using APS over part of their networks. These are located in Angers and Reims, with both opening in 2011. The Dubai Tram, which opened in 2014, is equipped with APS over its entire passenger length. The predecessors of APS were developed around 1900, and used by several companies in Paris. Associated with these systems were the inventors Dolter and Diatto, each contact contained a fuse, which would be blown by an earthed safety shoe on the rear of the tram should the contact not have switched out. This proved to be unsatisfactory because the strong currents melted down the switch contacts, another system of ground-level power supply was used by Budapest trams from 1887
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Third rail
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A third rail is a method of providing electric power to a railway locomotive or train, through a semi-continuous rigid conductor placed alongside or between the rails of a railway track. It is used typically in a transit or rapid transit system. Third rail systems are supplied from direct current electricity. The third-rail system of electrification is unrelated to the third used in dual gauge railways. Third-rail systems are a means of providing electric power to trains. On most systems, the rail is placed on the sleeper ends outside the running rails. The conductor rail is supported on ceramic insulators or insulated brackets, the trains have metal contact blocks called shoes which make contact with the conductor rail. The traction current is returned to the station through the running rails. The conductor rail is made of high conductivity steel. The conductor rails have to be interrupted at level crossings, crossovers, tapered rails are provided at the ends of each section, to allow a smooth engagement of the trains contact shoes. Because third rail systems present electric shock hazards close to the ground, a very high current must therefore be used to transfer adequate power, resulting in high resistive losses, and requiring relatively closely spaced feed points. The electrified rail threatens electrocution of anyone wandering or falling onto the tracks. This can be avoided by using platform screen doors, or the risk can be reduced by placing the rail on the side of the track away from the platform. There is also a risk of pedestrians walking onto the tracks at level crossings, the Paris Metro has graphic warning signs pointing out the danger of electrocution from urinating on third rails, precautions which Chicago did not have. The end ramps of conductor rails present a practical limitation on speed due to the impact of the shoe. The world speed record for a rail train is 174 km/h attained on 11 April 1988 by a British Class 442 EMU. In the event of a collision with an object, the beveled end ramps of bottom running systems can facilitate the hazard of having third rail penetrate the interior of a passenger car. This is believed to have contributed to the death of five passengers in the Valhalla train crash of 2015, third rail systems using top contact are prone to accumulations of snow, or ice formed from refrozen snow, and this can interrupt operations
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Bordeaux tramway
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The Bordeaux tramway network consists of three lines serving the city of Bordeaux in Aquitaine in southwestern France. The first line of Bordeauxs modern tramway opened on 21 December 2003, the system is notable for using a ground-level power supply of the Alimentation par Sol system in the city centre. It has been operated by Keolis Bordeaux since 1 May 2009, the first tramway line of Bordeaux, with cars towed by horses, dates back to 1880. In 1946, the transportation system in Bordeaux had 38 tram lines with a total length of 200 kilometres. A rudimentary system of power supply was used on some stretches with mixed success. As in other French cities at the time the mayor, Jacques Chaban-Delmas, embraced anti-tram arguments and he found the tramway to be old-fashioned compared to the bus and its attachment to set tracks on the ground hindered the increasing flow of cars. The lines were closed one after the other, in 1958 the last line of tramway was terminated. By the 1970s the failure of the all car transport policy had become obvious, Bordeaux had to wait until 1995 and the election of Alain Juppé as mayor – as well as the total strangulation of the city by its transport problems – before the situation was tackled. Following two years of studies, the Bordeaux Urban Community adopted the plan in 1997. A particular feature of the new Bordeaux tram network is its power supply system which is used in the city centre to avoid overhead wires spoiling the view of buildings. This was the source of difficulties and breakdowns when first introduced. The new trams are a part of Bordeauxs current tourist redynamization strategy. The three lines were extended in 2007 and 2008 to reach several housing estates as well as the suburb of Mérignac, the whole system is under video surveillance, with a camera installed inside each vehicle. Trams operate on all lines from around 4. 30am until midnight, all stops have panels showing the waiting time until the next tram. On Sunday and holiday mornings, trams run every 30/40 minutes until around 1000am then every 20 minutes, weekday and Saturday services operate every 10 –12 minutes with additional service during rush hour and for special events. However, there is no service at all on May 1, as of July 2009, the Bordeaux tram network has a total route length of 66.1 kilometres, with 116 stops. The current routes of the three lines are, The first line was opened on 21 December 2003 in the presence of President Jacques Chirac, and it ran between Mériadeck and Lormont/Cenon. It was extended on 26 September 2005 to new termini at the Pellegrin Hospital, further extensions opened in 2007, from Cenon to Floriac on 27 February 2007, and from Saint-Augustin to Mérignac Centre on 21 June 2007
31.
Pantograph (transport)
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A pantograph is an apparatus mounted on the roof of an electric train, tram or electric bus to collect power through contact with an overhead catenary wire. It is a type of current collector. Typically, a wire is used, with the return current running through the track. The term stems from the resemblance of some styles to the mechanical pantographs used for copying handwriting, the pantograph was invented in 1879 by Walter Reichel, chief engineer at Siemens & Halske in Germany. A flat slide-pantograph was invented in 1895 at the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad The familiar diamond-shaped roller pantograph was invented by John Q. Brown of the Key System shops for their commuter trains ran between San Francisco and the East Bay section of the San Francisco Bay Area in California. They appear in photographs of the first day of service,26 October 1903, for many decades thereafter, the same diamond shape was used by electric-rail systems around the world and remains in use by some today. The most common type of today is the so-called half-pantograph. Louis Faiveley invented this type of pantograph in 1955, the half-pantograph can be seen in use on everything from very fast trains to low-speed urban tram systems. The electric transmission system for electric rail systems consists of an upper. The pantograph is spring-loaded and pushes a contact shoe up against the underside of the wire to draw the current needed to run the train. The steel rails of the act as the electrical return. As the train moves, the shoe slides along the wire and can set up standing waves in the wires which break the contact. This means that on some systems adjacent pantographs are not permitted, pantographs are the successor technology to trolley poles, which were widely used on early streetcar systems. However, many of these networks, including Torontos, are undergoing upgrades to accommodate pantograph operation, as a precaution against loss of pressure in the second case, the arm is held in the down position by a catch. For high-voltage systems, the air supply is used to blow out the electric arc when roof-mounted circuit breakers are used. Pantographs may have either a single or a double arm, double-arm pantographs are usually heavier, requiring more power to raise and lower, but may also be more fault-tolerant. On railways of the former USSR, the most widely used pantographs are those with a double arm, some streetcars use double-arm pantographs, among them the Russian KTM-5, KTM-8, LVS-86 and many other Russian-made trams, as well as some Euro-PCC trams in Belgium
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Trams in France
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Trams in France go back to 1837 when a 15 km steam tram line connected Montrond-les-Bains and Montbrison in the Loire. With the development of trams at the end of the 19th century. Since the opening of the Nantes tramway in 1985, more than twenty towns, as of 2013, there are 25 operational tram networks in France, with 3 under construction and 4 more planned. France is also home to Alstom, a leading tram manufacturer, one of the key inventions in the world history of trams was that of the girder rail developed in 1852 by Frenchman Alphonse Loubat. It brought the track down to road level, avoiding accidents to pedestrians. On a trial basis, it ran along the banks of the Seine from the Place de la Concorde to the Pont de Sèvres in the village of Boulogne, several French cities were equipped with horse-tram networks towards the end of the 19th century. In Paris, Tramways Sud operated horse trams from 1875 to 1901, in Marseille, horse trams operated by Compagnie Générale Française de Tramways entered service in 1876 on a number of routes including the Canebière. In Strasbourg, horse tram began in 1877. As horse trams presented a number of disadvantages, it was not long before various mechanical systems came into use. These included, Compressed air systems, first introduced in Nantes in 1879 with Mékarski compressed air cars operating between Doulon and the Gare Maritime, initially there was a fleet of 22 trams, two locos and four open-topped double-deck trailers. The first line was just over 6 km long, built to gauge and was mostly level. Mekarski trams were operated in Paris, Vichy, Aix-les-Bains, Saint-Quentin. Steam traction was introduced fairly widely in the 1880s and 1890s, for example, the Versaille Tramway started using steam trams for the stretch to Saint-Cyr in 1889 before electrification in 1895. In Strasbourg, there were steam trams from 1879 to 1899 although electrification began in 1895, marseilles steam trams came in 1892, shortly before their electric counterparts in 1900. While electricity offered considerable benefits including ease of operation, many municipalities were reluctant to bring overhead cabling into their city centres, nevertheless, over the next 15 years, well over 100 standard and small gauge electric tram networks came into operation. Most of Frances tram systems closed during the 1930s or in the post-war years, the only systems which have remained in continuous use are those in Lille, Marseille and Saint-Étienne but even these were extensively reduced in size before the recent revival. Over the past 30 years, a growing number of Frances cities have developed modern tramways or light rail networks. At present, there are 22 modern tram systems spread right across the country, many of these are being extended while at least seven other municipalities are in the process of planning or acquiring new tram networks
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RATP Group
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The RATP Group, also known as the Régie Autonome des Transports Parisiens is a state-owned public transport operator headquartered in Paris, France. Formed in 1948, the group has its origins as the transport operator for the city of Paris. Its logo represents, in a version, the Seines meandering through the area around Paris as the face of a person looking up. In the Île-de-France region, RATP carries about 3 billion passengers per year, whilst the RATPs Paris operations are still a major part of the business, its operations have now extended to include businesses around the globe. These include involvement in the operation of bus, tram, rapid transit and inter-city rail services, located in Europe, Asia, Africa, RATP Group is currently the worlds fifth largest operator in the public transport sector. Earlier, the CMP had absorbed the Société du Chemin de Fer Électrique Nord-Sud de Paris in 1930 and the Ligne de Sceaux in 1937, which extended commuter rail to the suburbs. The STCRP had been created on 1 January 1921 by the merger of about half a dozen independent bus, by the time the STCRP was merged into the RATP, all of its streetcars had been replaced by bus routes. In the early years of the 21st century, a partnership with the Transdev group resulted in RATP acquiring a minority shareholding in that group, with its many worldwide transport operations. However, in 2009, the Caisse des dépôts et consignations, as part of the resulting agreement, made in May 2010, it was agreed that the RATP Group would take over ownership of some of Transdevs operations in lieu of cash payment for its holdings in Transdev. This had a impact on RATPs international profile. On 1 August 2011 the RATP Group purchased Stagecoach Metrolinks contract to operate the Metrolink light rail system in Greater Manchester, two years later, in 2013 RATP purchased the nearby long-established coach company, Selwyns Travel, a National Express operator. In Paris, RATP operates, under its own name, on behalf of the Syndicat des transports dÎle-de-France, RATPs services include, The Paris Métro system of mostly underground rapid transit lines, which run throughout the city, with some lines extending somewhat beyond the city boundaries. The Métro has 16 lines, with 214 km of track and 300 stations, parts of the RER, the Paris regional express railway network that runs mostly underground in the city and overground in the rest of the region. The RATP owns sections of the infrastructure of lines A and B, the remainder of the system is owned by the RFF, the owner of the French national rail network, and the SNCF, the French national rail operator, operates trains on all five lines. The extensive Paris city bus system, including the buses of the Noctilien network. Eight lines of the developing Paris tram system, Ligne 341 is the first line of 100% electric full-size buses. In addition to these directly operated services, wholly or partially owned companies of the RATP also operate in the Paris region. These companies are owned through RATPs RATP Dev subsidiary, covered further below, RATP Groups subsidiary, RATP Dev, operates RATP Group services outside Paris although it also operates some specialised services within Paris
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Railway Gazette International
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Railway Gazette International is a monthly business journal covering the railway, metro, light rail and tram industries worldwide. Railway Gazette International traces its history to May 1835 as The Railway Magazine, the Railway Gazette title dates from July 1905, created to cover railway commercial and financial affairs. In April 1914 it merged with The Railway Times, which incorporated Herapaths Railway Journal, around this time it also absorbed The Railway News. It then reflected all aspects of railway activity, particularly in the British Empire, in January 1964, it merged with sister publication Diesel Railway Traction and its frequency reduced from weekly to fortnightly. In October 1970, it was renamed Railway Gazette International and reduced in frequency to monthly, Railway Gazette International is part of the Railway Gazette Group, itself part of DVV Media Group. It was part of Reed Business Information until 1 April 2007
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Rapid transit in France
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There are several rapid transit systems in France. Lille, Lyon, Marseille, Paris, Rennes and Toulouse all have metro systems, twenty-six French cities have light rail and tram systems. Trams in France go back to 1837 when a 15 km steam tram line connected Montrond-les-Bains, with the development of electric trams at the end of the 19th century, networks proliferated in French cities over a period of 15 years. Only trams lines in Lille and Saint-Étienne have operated continuously since the 19th century, since the opening of the Nantes tramway in 1985, more than twenty towns and cities across France have built new tram lines. As of 2013, there are 25 operational tram networks in France, France is also home to Alstom, a leading tram manufacturer
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Rapid transit
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Rapid transit, also known as heavy rail, metro, subway, tube, or underground, is a type of high-capacity public transport generally found in urban areas. The stations typically have high platforms, without steps inside the trains and they are typically integrated with other public transport and often operated by the same public transport authorities. However, some transit systems have at-grade intersections between a rapid transit line and a road or between two rapid transit lines. It is unchallenged in its ability to transport large numbers of people quickly over short distances with little use of land, variations of rapid transit include people movers, small-scale light metro, and the commuter rail hybrid S-Bahn. The worlds first rapid-transit system was the partially underground Metropolitan Railway which opened as a railway in 1863. In 1868, New York opened the elevated West Side and Yonkers Patent Railway, china has the largest number of rapid transit systems in the world. The worlds longest single-operator rapid transit system by length is the Shanghai Metro. The worlds largest single rapid transit service provider by both length of revenue track (665 miles and number of stations is the New York City Subway. The busiest rapid transit systems in the world by annual ridership are the Tokyo subway system, the Seoul Metropolitan Subway, the Moscow Metro, the Beijing Subway, Metro is the most common term for underground rapid transit systems used by non-native English speakers. One of these terms may apply to a system, even if a large part of the network runs at ground level. In Scotland, however, the Glasgow Subway underground rapid transit system is known as the Subway, in the US, underground mass transit systems are primarily known as subways, whereas the term metro is a shortened reference to a metropolitan area. In that vein, Chicagos commuter rail system, serving the area, is called Metra. Exceptions in naming rapid transit systems are Washington DCs subway system the Washington Metro, Los Angeles Metro Rail, and the Miami Metrorail, the opening of Londons steam-hauled Metropolitan Railway in 1863 marked the beginning of rapid transit. Initial experiences with steam engines, despite ventilation, were unpleasant, experiments with pneumatic railways failed in their extended adoption by cities. Electric traction was more efficient, faster and cleaner than steam, in 1890 the City & South London Railway was the first electric-traction rapid transit railway, which was also fully underground. Both railways were merged into London Underground. The 1893 Liverpool Overhead Railway was designed to use electric traction from the outset, budapest in Hungary and Glasgow, Chicago and New York all converted or purpose-designed and built electric rail services. Advancements in technology have allowed new automated services, hybrid solutions have also evolved, such as tram-train and premetro, which incorporate some of the features of rapid transit systems
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Lille Metro
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The Lille Metro is a driverless metro located in Lille, France. It was opened on 25 April 1983 and was the first to use the VAL system and this VAL system was the first fully automated driverless metro of any kind in Europe. The metro is made up of 2 lines that serve 60 stations, the metro forms part of a multi-modal public transport system covering the Lille metropolitan area, along with buses and trams, operated under the Transpole brand. The decentralisation resulted in the creation of the Public Establishment of Lille East development in 1968, in the 1970s, a plan for a proposed four line metro system was developed, favouring the VAL system over conventional rail systems. Construction started in 1978, and the first section was opened on 25 April 1983 between Quatre Cantons and République, on 2 May 1984 line 1 was completed, with a length of 13.5 kilometres, linking CHR B Calmette to Quatre Cantons via Gare de Lille Flandres. All 18 stations have doors between the platform and the train, Line 2 opened on 3 April 1989 and it reached CH Dron near the Belgian border on 27 October 2000. It is 32 kilometres long with 43 stations, while line one opened in April 1983 between 4 Cantons and République, it was extended, with the extension from République and C. H. R. B Calmette opening on the 2nd of May 1984, the cost of opening the first line in both its phases cost in excess of 2 billion Francs. Construction of line two began in April 1985, a depot was opened on the second line at Villeneuve dAscq, after the terminus of the line Saint Philibert in Lomme. Line one became operational in late 1988 with testing being carried out for four months, the first extension was inaugurated on 5 May 1994K, the underground section has a length of 500 metres and connects the Euralille business area to the rest of Lille. The third part is the longest to be opened, making about 13 km and it became operational in March 1999 and commissioned on 18 August that year. This section goes through the towns of Villeneuve dAscq, Wasquehal, Cross, Roubaix, though the route is mainly underground, the metro runs on a 1.3 km viaduct between the stations of Fort Mons and Jean-Jaures. The final section was inaugurated on 27 October 2000 by Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, while a system of four lines was initially planned in the 1970s only two lines have been built. Lille Métropole Urban Community indicates in its transport plan adopted in June 2000 that the subway construction cost does not allow new achievements. In 2003 a third line was estimated to cost €810 million, Line 1 is 13. 5-kilometre long and serves 18 stations. Trains are 2 metres wide and 26 metres long, and are rubber-tyred, platforms are 52 metres in length, long enough for two units. Each unit can carry 156 passengers, the metro operates from 5,00 a. m. until midnight, with trains every 1½ to 4 minutes, and every 6 to 8 minutes early mornings and evenings. On Sundays there is a train every 2 to 6 minutes, since January 2013, work to double the capacity of Line 1 has been ongoing
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Lyon Metro
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The Lyon Metro is the metro system of Lyon, France. The Lyon Metro currently consists of four lines, serving 40 stations and it is part of the Transports en Commun Lyonnais system of public transport, and is supported by Lyons network of tramways. Unlike all other French metro systems, but like the SNCF and RER and this is the result of an unrealised project to run the metro into the suburbs on existing railway lines. The loading gauge for lines A, B, and D is 2.90 m, the loading gauge for line C is 2.78 m. The Lyon Metro owes its inspiration to the Montreal Metro which was built a few years prior, the metro had 740,000 daily weekday boardings in 2011. Trains on both run on rubber tyres rather than steel wheels. Line B was extended to Jean Macé on September 9,1981, to Gerland on September 4,2000, an extension to Vaulx-en-Velin La Soie on Line A opened in October 2007. By 2020, Line A and B will be automated, with the system as Line D. The Croix-Rousse-Croix-Paquet rack railway, which was refurbished in 1974, was integrated into the Metro in 1978 as Line C and it was extended to Cuire on December 8,1984. The Croix Paquet station claims to be the steepest metro station in Europe, Line C uses an overhead wire while Lines A, B and D use a third rail. Line D, the first fully automatic metro line in France, started with operators on board trains on September 4,1991, the line was extended to Gare de Vénissieux on December 11,1992, when it switched to driverless operation. On April 28,1997, it was extended again to Gare de Vaise, using rubber tyres like on lines A and B, trains on line D are controlled by a system known as MAGGALY. Unusually for a metro, no platform screen doors are installed on station platforms. The trains use infrared sensors to detect obstructions on the track, only the Nuremberg U-Bahn does so as well. The deepest of the lines in Lyon, it was constructed mainly using boring machines and passes under both rivers, the Rhône and the Saône, at 12.5 kilometres long with 15 stations, it is also the longest line in Lyon. The Metro, like the rest of the public transport system, is operated by SLTC - the Société lyonnaise de transports en commun. It is operated on behalf of SYTRAL - the Syndicat de transports de lagglomération lyonnaise, a Syndicat Mixte
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Marseille Metro
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The Marseille Metro is a metro/rapid transit system serving the city of Marseille, in southern France. The Marseille Metro opened in 1977, as of 2013, the system comprises two lines, partly underground, serving 28 stations, with an overall route length of 21.5 kilometres. It carried approximately 76.7 million passengers in 2012, the Metro uses the rubber-tyred metro technology derived from some lines of the Paris Metro. The first plans for a system in Marseille appeared in the early years of the 20th century. Many plans were put forward, but quickly abandoned due to lack of financing, the most serious proposal emanated in 1918 from the Compagnie délectricité de Marseille, which proposed to build an underground network similar to the Paris métro. This proposal was met with opposition from the Compagnie générale française de tramways. This project ultimately failed, and the idea of building a metro in Marseille was abandoned for many decades, the tramway system, badly damaged during the Second World War, was almost completely scrapped during the 1950s and replaced by buses. However, by 1960, the city was suffering from congestion due to the growth in automobile use. New metro projects resurfaced in the mid-1960s, as a means to traffic congestion. After several years of studies, the city council voted unanimously in 1969 for the creation of a metro system, construction of the first line started on August 13,1973 and lasted until early 1977. Revenue operation started on November 26,1977 on a portion of the line, the rest of the line opened on March 11,1978. The plans for the line were approved in 1978. The central portion of the line, between Joliette and Castellane, opened on March 3,1984, southern and northern portions of the line were opened in February 1986 and February 1987 respectively. Subsequent extensions took place in the years on line 1. The rolling stock comprises 36 4-car trains, named MPM76, trains have a capacity of 472 passengers. MPM76 trains use the rubber tyre metro technology developed by the RATP for the Paris métro, trains were built in Valenciennes, France, by a group of French companies which are now part of Alstom group. A first batch of 21 3-car trains was delivered in 1976, a second batch of 15 was delivered in 1983, for line 2. In 1985, a car was aded on every train, in order to increase capacity
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Rennes Metro
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The Rennes Metro rapid transit line serves the city of Rennes in Brittany, France. Opened in 2002, it is based on the Siemens Transportation Systems VAL technology, there is one line, the A Line, with fifteen stations. There are 140,000 passengers each day, a second line, the B Line, with an orientation north-east to south-west, is scheduled for 2019. 1986, City Council decides to create a line on a south-western/north-eastern axis. 1989, The municipality decides to use VAL technology,1992, The A Line project receives planning and environmental approvals. 2011, The B Line project receives planning and environmental approvals,2014, Beginning of work on Line B Opened on 15 March 2002, the A Line is based on the Siemens Transportation Systems VAL technology. There is one line, the 9. 4-kilometre A Line, services run between 05,20 and 00,40 each day, and with a waiting time of approximately 80 seconds between trains. From end to end, it takes around 16 minutes, with a train speed of 32 km/h. All stations are equipped with platform doors and lifts. The system has 30 trains, each weighing 28 tonnes and 26 metres long, in January 2005, three park-and-ride lots were set up, offering 900 places to motorists. Two more opened in 2006–2007, able to accommodate an additional 700 vehicles, on 1 March 2006, a card called KorriGo was created as a supplement to the ticket system to improve the metro traffic and the citys bus network. The line is maintained by Service des Transports en Commun de lAgglomération Rennaise and it has a staff of approximately 100. It is operated from a control centre situated in Chantepie, the station at La Poterie and viaducts on the line were designed by Norman Foster. With a population of just 205,000 inhabitants for city proper, however in 2013,425,000 people are served by the network in 43 municipalities. On average, there are 135,000 metro trips each day, the station names have been chosen for the nearest existing streets or for points of interest near the station locations. A second line, the B Line, with an orientation north-east to south-west, is scheduled for 2019,19 2-car CityVal trainsets have been ordered for this line. List of metro systems Interactive Rennes Metro Map STAR – official website Projected metro line for 2015 Rennes at UrbanRail. net
