The International Monorail Association has some working groups, that have created documents for Monorail Systems to serve a safe, high quality and reliable total system.
At last year’s Monorailex conference IMA had a panel discussion about the reasons and need of an escape route for passengers and the professionally based explanation of how and whether an escape route can be installed.
As an introduction Marko Kroenke (Kroenke Consulting) illustrated how emergency walkways can be set up and generally be integrated to the monorail system. Ivan Maestrelli as one of the experts at Metro São Paulo described as an example the emergency walkway of Line 17 – Gold, while Juergen Heyn (Tuev Sued, Germany) explained a systematic safety approach what is crucial and important for passengers in case of a breakdown. The ensuing open discussion was about how the fastest possible, low-risk rescue of persons into a safe area can be achieved through the interaction of infrastructure, vehicle technology and emergency operations incl. operations control technology, personnel and rescue teams. This was the starting point of the new IMA working group “Passenger Evacuation”.
As with all public transport systems, passenger safety has top priority. Our working group Passenger Evacuation of Monorail System is a special topic as we are facing some challenges with the narrow track that cannot be used as evacuation path. The group is working on a new document that will bring light into the systematic evaluation of safety critical aspects of passenger evacuation on both technical, operation and environmental interferences. There will be many definitions of relevant tasks. The document aims to be a guidance showing standards and regulations to follow, best practices, prioritised approach of evacuation and possible project specific solutions.
If you are interested in joining us, please contact us at info@monorailex.org. The meetings usually take place fortnightly and of course online.