Rapid transit

The term rapid transit is both an historical and a current designation of transport with changing, partly overlapping meaning. With the end of the 20th century it became the generic term for various rail transport systems in public transport. In transport ( public transport ) Quick service runs contrary to trams on their own rail bodies. Regional various different classifications of individual vehicles are made.

Development of rapid transit systems

In many large cities in North and South America as well as Europe develop rapidly in the late 19th and early 20th century urban as well as suburban lines of the steam railway. In addition to the originally driven interurban traffic. As high-speed trains, the trains were only in urban traffic initially - refers to the urban railways.

The first two built in Germany in this mode, routes, were the Berliner Ring ( since 1871 ) and the light rail (1882). This was followed by suburban (English: Suburban railway) and S-Bahn trains with steam (from 1891) and electric power (from 1903). Equally, however, are unique in the world and the oldest elevated railway system in Germany, the Barmen- Elberfeld and Wuppertal suspension railway (1901 ) and the former Wiener Stadtbahn (from 1898) and also underground and elevated railways (English: elevated or overhead railway) to name.

The term has been boosted by the increasing surface area of ​​the cities into the countryside (including satellite towns ), the progressive development of transport systems and composite rooms extensions. So today all must be given within metropolitan areas and larger cities with suburban, metro and light rail to it, but also regional trains ( RB). Likewise, regional express trains (RE ), for example in the Ruhr and Berlin, the higher speeds reach ( max. 160 km / h) are counted as the local S-Bahn to the high-speed trains. This is evident by

• Adjustments of U, trams and suburban trains another, for example the driving as subway and far into the countryside in the inner cities fast light rail in the Cologne / Bonn (eg Rhine railway and Vorgebirgsbahn )
• The transferred of urban street railway lines in the inner cities (some former ) railway tracks light rail, which lead to far into the countryside ( Karlsruhe Model )

This results in the metropolitan areas or composite new extensive rapid transit networks, which may include other tracks ( Wuppertal suspension railway, H-Bahn or similar ). Today must often be distinguished on the metropolitan areas also propelled regional rapid transit between pure urban railways and urban widely in the surrounding areas.

The development of an approximation of different rapid transit systems, however, has already begun earlier. Identify the end of the 1930s, completed underground S- Bahn line in Berlin between Anhalt Station and North Station ( north-south tunnel ), which is similar in construction and the speeds of a subway. The development of the S -Bahn in Berlin ( West) after 1984 were made handing over the operations to the Berlin public transport operator BVG (West ) to the political changes introduced an adjustment to the Berlin U -Bahn is ( expansion plans similar to an inner-city metro for example, by denser station spacing, transformation and refinement of the old or new vehicles).

City high-speed rail

A city high-speed railway is a railway that serves the intra- urban transport ( public transport ). Often thereby suburbs are involved, partly through city limits. It is characterized by speed ( above 30 km / h Cruising speed ), high efficiency ( over 15,000 persons per hour per direction ) and dense sequence of moves (more than twelve trains per hour) (the values ​​in parentheses are reference values). This is achieved through its own rail body, strong acceleration, electric power units with many doors, high-level platforms and appropriate station distances.

In general, the abbreviation "S -Bahn " for the city train ( or rapid transit, light rail ). Furthermore, city high-speed railway is a generic term for S- and U -Bahn. The transition is partially fluent here. A distinction is usually between suburban trains, which have evolved from the classic railroad out and subways or elevated trains, which have evolved from urban initiative and / or from the area of the trams out. The border with regional trains on the one hand and light rail on the other hand can no longer draw sharp.

Examples of typical urban railways are the DC-powered commuter trains in Hamburg and Berlin, the pure metros ( with busbars ) of Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and Nuremberg and the resulting from the former Wiener Stadtbahn partly Vienna Metro ( see main article S -Bahn ).

Regional rapid transit

The brand of a regional express train (RSB ) designated a type of train the German Federal Railroad. From this, the present-day regional express trains (RE) were developed.

Regional express train on the other hand, the generic term for high-speed trains that serve regions and metropolitan areas across city boundaries. A special role is played by the development of the light rail to regional light rail ( the part, as in the Cologne / Bonn simply " light rail " hot ) and newly developed regions trams (Kassel ) or Tram -Trains.

S- Bahn systems in foreign countries take their brand name in many cases with respect to their regional character, such as the French RER ( Réseau Express Régional ).

Long-distance traffic

In the long-distance transport, there are also high-speed railways. Here, however, other terms such as high-speed rail are used, but also rapid transit route. For ICE, TGV or a simple express the term is, however, hardly used.