Platform screen doors

A platform is a door set into partitions door between race and ride the platform at train stations. Platform screen doors ensure the safety of passengers and are closed when there is no train on the platform. After a retracted train has come to a standstill, they are opened along with the train doors and closed again before the train departure.

Areas of platform screen doors

Platform screen doors to prevent falls of persons or objects from falling onto the tracks and suicide attempts, as well as reduce driving noise of the arriving and departing trains in the railway stations and keep drafts from the waiting passengers. Since platform screen doors (if expanded to ceiling ) limit drafts to the track area, the air conditioning of the platform area is possible. Frequently the partition walls and the platform doors are glazed, so that passengers can see the approaching train and attached thereto destination displays.

Platform screen doors are installed mainly in high-use stations with narrow platforms. Frequent use of the platform screen doors are metro stops and stations of airport railways in the terminal buildings. To enable the use of platform screen doors, the platform equipped only trains of the same type or variant should be approached with equal distances between the doors. In addition, a very precise holding of the trains at a defined breakpoint must be ensured so that the vehicle doors always come right in front of the platform screen doors to a halt. Platform screen doors allow the faster incorporation and train driving, because a compromise of passengers near the edge of the platform (eg by suction and air turbulence ) need not be feared.

Platform screen doors at automatic lanes

Platform screen doors are often used in automatic ( driverless ) powered cars, because no driver exists which can detect the fallen passengers and track objects and initiate emergency braking in case of danger. In addition, automatic trains usually achieve better positioning accuracy, which in turn is essential for the use of platform screen doors, so that the vehicle doors are congruent with the platform doors to a halt.

Examples of automatically operated trains with platform screen doors are the H-Bahn at the TU Dortmund ( which operates as a SkyTrain at the airport in Dusseldorf ), the SkyLine elevated train at Frankfurt am Main Airport, the Skymetro at Zurich airport, the lines 1, 13 and 14 of the Paris Métro, the Métro Lille and the People Mover to the terminal at Stansted Airport.

Alternatives to Platform Screen Doors

If only the protection against people and objects is desired in the track, instead platform screen doors at automatic lanes on the train existing security personnel (such as the Train Chiefs on the Docklands Light Railway ), electronic systems (microwave barriers as in the lines 2 and 3 of the U- railway Nuremberg) or mechanically ( acting on a defined pressure step plates as in the Vancouver SkyTrain Kelana Jaya Line or in Kuala Lumpur ) monitor the track area. These systems cause in case of danger rapid braking of oncoming trains. Depending on the system this will only be switched on routes with arranged in the track area busbars current-free to minimize other hazards.

These systems are less expensive than the installation of platform screen doors and also make the use of vehicles with different intervals door, but do not constitute a physical barrier to the track area and reach the safe state, therefore, only after completing emergency braking annäherenden train.