Turin Metro
The Metropolitana di Torino is the metro in the Italian city of Turin and the first driverless metro in the country. It is based on the VAL system and was opened to the 2006 Olympic Winter Games.
Route
The fully underground line is currently 13.2 km long and runs from the moment suburb Collegno up directly in the city center in and ends at the Lingotto railway station. The route starts at the maintenance workshop on the grounds of the former airfield of Collegno. A few hundred meters away is the western terminus of Fermi with a large car park and ride facilities. At the next station Paradiso on the outskirts of Turin Corso Francia of is achieved. The subway follows this multi-lane arterial road almost to the city center. After the station Principi d' Acaja follows a tight 120 degree turn and the route reaches the station XVIII Dicembre under the stretch of road Corso San Martino. After passing under the railway station Porta Susa, under the after its construction, a new underground station is to be opened, the route swings one among the Corso Vittorio Emanuele II and leads to Porta Nuova railway station at Piazza Carlo Felice. From there it goes through five intermediate stations to the current terminus Lingotto.
The stations, which are on average 16 m below the surface, are kept in a very uniform style; each station is 60 meters long and 19 meters wide. Only the stations with the main railway stations Porta Nuova and Porta Susa are designed more generous. Designed the stations of Bernhard Kohn & Associés. The artistic design elements take this reference to the immediate environment, such as historical events, sights and personalities, according to which the stations are named. An important feature is the glass walls with sliding doors between the platforms and the lanes of vehicles. Due to the automatic operation, the trains are retracted in a targeted manner, so that the doors of the station and the train open and close synchronously.
While the track tunnel was dug with a diameter of 7.8 meters of a tunnel boring machine, the stations originated in cover design. This means that first the walls caused by special civil engineering techniques in the shell, to which a lid was put on. Thus, the road surface could be restored relatively quickly, while the actual excavation and the full development only took place under the existing cover.
Technology and Operations
Technically, the Turin Metro is the exact counterpart of the Métro Lille, the first U- Bahn network that uses the VAL system. All dimensions and sizes were taken over 1:1. The trains with a total length of 52 m are composed of two train sets. Each of these units in turn consists of two single-car, the 13 m long, 2.08 m wide and 14 t are heavy. A train can hold a maximum 440 people.
The cars have two axles with two rubber wheels and four horizontally arranged thereto wheels with rubber tires. The latter put pressure on the guide rail and therefore having the car. The interior of the rubber tires is in each case a further tire in order to prevent damage during the deformation. Thus it can be secured, that when incidents, the vehicles can run at least until the next breakpoint. Controlled are the trains running fully automatically, ie The unmanned trains centrally from the control center in the maintenance workshop at the western end of the track. Both the trains and automation technology were supplied by Siemens AG.
The Turin Metro operates during the day with an interval of four to six minutes during rush hour every two minutes. Operating hours are Monday through Thursday from 6:00 clock to 24:00 clock, Fridays and Saturdays 6:00 bis 1:30 clock clock, Sundays 8:00 clock to 24:00 clock.
History
In 1936 there was the first time plans for the construction of a subway. In Via Roma tentatively created a tunnel with a length of 300 m, but the project was dropped. In 1960 there was an attempt to build in the city center a seven-kilometer long tunnel, where the tram should run; also this project was shelved.
The reason that Turin could not do it as opposed to Rome and Milan long time to enforce the construction of a subway, mainly because that the necessary funds were not applied by a law or funding. While it was the eligibility of the planned route Fermi in November 1995 - recognized Porta Nuova, however, the funding rate of 35% of the state did not meet the expectations. Nevertheless, in 1998 began the detailed plans. Finally, the feed rate was increased in April 1999 to 60%.
Finally, construction began on 19 December 2000 in Collegno, three tunnel boring machines were used. On 18 March 2005, the shell was complete. Just four months ago, after delivery of the first train on 10 November 2004, had taken place on a short section at the maintenance workshop, the first test drives. The official opening of the first section between Fermi and XVIII Dicembre took place on February 4, 2006, six days before the start of the Winter Olympics.
The second part of the first phase of metro expansion was completed on October 5, 2007. With the opening of three new stations ( Vinzaglio, Re Umberto and Porta Nuova) the route length grew to 9.6 km; the journey from the Fermi station to Porta Nuova now takes 15 minutes. At the same time the Turin City Council was preparing an underground station below the long-distance and regional train station Porta Susa, only when it is itself reconstructed to the metro stop there.
On March 6, 2011, the extension from the Porta Nuova train station went to the Lingotto railway station with a total of six new subway stations in operation. Length of the route grew to 13.2 kilometers. The subway station at Porta Susa railway station was opened on September 9, 2011.
Construction and planning
The metro is in the south of Lingotto up to Benghazi, 1.6 km, extended. The route is to go the end of 2015 in operation and have the stopover Italia '61. An extension to the west by the Fermi station to the distant suburb Rivoli is in the planning. The financing for this expansion are still pending.