The Caen guided light transit or Caen ''TVR'', locally known as "the Tram", was an electrically powered guided bus system in

Caen Caen (, ; nrf, Kaem) is a commune in northwestern France. It is the prefecture of the department of Calvados. The city proper has 105,512 inhabitants (), while its functional urban area has 470,000,France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

, which uses

Bombardier Guided Light Transit Guided Light Transit (GLT, french: Transport sur Voie Réservée or TVR) was the name of guided bus technology and associated infrastructure designed and manufactured by Bombardier Transportation (now Alstom). It was installed in two French cit ...

(''TVR'' in French) technology. After a construction time lasting three years, the system opened on 18 November 2002 at a total cost of 227 million euros.''

Tramways & Urban Transit ''Tramways & Urban Transit'' ''(TAUT'' or ''T&UT)'', also known as ''Modern Tramway'', is a British monthly magazine about tramways and light rail transport, published continuously since 1938. Its content is orientated both to tramway enthusi ...

'', January 2003, p. 23.

Ian Allan Publishing Ian Allan Publishing was an English publisher, established in 1942, which specialised in transport books. It was founded by Ian Allan. In 1942 Ian Allan, then working in the public relations department for the Southern Railway at Waterloo st ...

/ Light Rail Transit Association. The Caen transport company,

Twisto Twisto is the brand name under which buses and trams are operated in the Norman city of Caen. The CTAC (Compagnie des Transports de l'Agglomération Caenaise) owns the buses and has been operating services under the Twisto brand since 2002. Its ...

(CTAC), was the operator of the ''TVR'' system and called the system the "Tram". Service was provide by 24 three-section articulated vehicles, guided by a central non-supporting rail. The entire passenger line was guided, and in normal service the vehicles are powered by

electricity Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described ...

drawn from an

overhead wire An overhead line or overhead wire is an electrical cable that is used to transmit electrical energy to electric locomotives, trolleybuses or trams. It is known variously as: * Overhead catenary * Overhead contact system (OCS) * Overhead equipmen ...

through a

pantograph A pantograph (, from their original use for copying writing) is a mechanical linkage connected in a manner based on parallelograms so that the movement of one pen, in tracing an image, produces identical movements in a second pen. If a line dr ...

. The vehicles had auxiliary

diesel engine The diesel engine, named after Rudolf Diesel, is an internal combustion engine in which ignition of the fuel is caused by the elevated temperature of the air in the cylinder due to mechanical compression; thus, the diesel engine is a so-call ...

s and

steering wheel A steering wheel (also called a driving wheel (UK), a hand wheel, or simply wheel) is a type of steering control in vehicles. Steering wheels are used in most modern land vehicles, including all mass-production automobiles, buses, light and ...

s and were able to operate away from the

guide rail A guide rail is a device or mechanism to direct products, vehicles or other objects through a channel, conveyor, roadway or rail system. Several types of guide rails exist and may be associated with: * Factory or production line conveyors * Pow ...

, but only in diesel mode, and under normal operating conditions they ran only in electric mode when carrying passengers along the route, using their diesel engines only when travelling to and from the depot (garage). The use of pantographs for current collection meant the Caen vehicles could not move laterally away from the overhead wire when operating in electric mode, and for this reason they were not considered to be

trolleybus A trolleybus (also known as trolley bus, trolley coach, trackless trolley, trackless tramin the 1910s and 1920sJoyce, J.; King, J. S.; and Newman, A. G. (1986). ''British Trolleybus Systems'', pp. 9, 12. London: Ian Allan Publishing. .or troll ...

es, under the

English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the is ...

meaning of that word,Box, Roland (July–August 2010). "More about the 2000s". ''Trolleybus Magazine'' No. 292, p. 79.Webb, Mary (ed.) (2010). ''Jane’s Urban Transport Systems 2010-2011'', pp. " 0 and " 3 (in foreword). Coulsdon, Surrey (UK):

Jane's Information Group Jane's Information Group, now styled Janes, is a global open-source intelligence company specialising in military, national security, aerospace and transport topics, whose name derives from British author Fred T. Jane. History Jane's Informatio ...

. . and the system is sometimes referred to as a "

rubber-tyred tramway A rubber-tyred tram (also known as tramway on tyres, french: tramway sur pneumatiques) is a development of the guided bus in which a vehicle is guided by a fixed rail in the road surface and draws current from overhead electric wires (either ...

".. The service stops in 2017 to let the construction of the

Caen tramway The Caen tramway (french: Tramway de Caen) is a tram in the city of Caen, France. The tram opened on 27 July 2019 and replaced the Caen Guided Light Transit (TVR) that closed in December 2017. The tramway uses the same route as the TVR, with a s ...

begin.

History

It was in 1988 that the SMTCAC (''Syndicat Mixte des Transports en Commun de l'Agglomération Caennaise'') first considered developing public transport on a large scale. However, the opening of the bus system was not without problems as well as lack of interest in the system by the population with only 23% backing the projectSource:

Ouest-France ''Ouest-France'' ( ; French for "West-France") is a daily French newspaper known for its emphasis on both local and national news. The paper is produced in 47 different editions covering events in different French départments within the régio ...

website
/ref>, in 1994, Viacités, one of the guided bus' network partners closed a contract with the consortium STVR (''Société the transport sur Voie Réservée''), existing construction company

Spie Batignolles Spie Batignolles is a French construction company based in Neuilly-sur-Seine. The company provides building and infrastructure construction in France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal and Switzerland. Company history Ernest Goüin fou ...

and

Bombardier Transportation Bombardier Transportation was a Canadian-German rolling stock and rail transport manufacturer, headquartered in Berlin, Germany. It was one of the world's largest companies in the rail vehicle and equipment manufacturing and servicing industry ...

proceeded with infrastructure and vehicle construction. Due to financial contracts the municipality had no other choice but to push the project forward despite a relative lobby against the ''tram''.

Network

The total network was 15.7 kilometres long and comprised two lines, A and B, with a common section running north–south in central Caen. The central section, between ''Copernic'' and ''Poincaré'', encompassed 15 stops. The entire network served a total of 34 stops. There were plans for a second line running from east to west. The ''tram'' served 40% of the public transport trips, 70 000 inhabitants and 60 000 jobs situated within 400m of the line. Service frequency was high (3.5 to 7 minutes between vehicles) and operated between 05:30 and 00:30. Speed was 30% higher than conventional buses and stops were never more than 450 m apart.

Construction

*D-850 (April 2000): Beginning of construction. *D-730 (15 September 2000): Beginning of trackbed construction. *D-120 (May 2002): Rolling stock tests. *D-60 (15 July 2002): First test run. *''D'' Day (18 November 2002): Beginning of commercial operation (three days after an inauguration ceremony).

Safety

The system had been plagued with faults, due to design and operation; on 21 October 2004 a young boy named Nathan was run over and killed by a TVR vehicle in Rue Roger-Bastion. The vehicle, being bus-based, restricted to its guiding rail and lacking grip to brake in time, could not avoid the 11-year-old.Source:

Rue Roger-Bastion à Caen : cinq ans après la mort de Nathan, les riverains veulent plus de sécurité routière
/ref>

Rolling stock

Service was provided by Bombardier GLT guided buses, each long and high, and weighing . Their top speed was .

Replacement with light rail

Viacités confirmed on 14 December 2011 its plans to abandon the TVR in favour of a tramway by 2019, due to its unreliability. The light rail is set take 18 months to construct and has an approximately €170 million price tag. The conversion to light rail will also mean the termination of two concession contracts that Keolis and Bombardier-Spie Batignolles consortium STVR hold. In late 2014, the French government pledged €23.3 million towards Caen's light rail conversion project, which is now expected to cost approximately €230 million. The new tramway which opened on 27 July 2019 follows the same route as the old system, including a new branch Presqu'île.

References

External links

* {{France Metro Tramway

Caen Caen (, ; nrf, Kaem) is a commune in northwestern France. It is the prefecture of the department of Calvados. The city proper has 105,512 inhabitants (), while its functional urban area has 470,000,Bus A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a road vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van. It is most commonly used in public transport, but is also in use for cha ...

Transport in Normandy