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SAFEGE is an acronym for the French consortium ''Société Anonyme Française d' Etude de Gestion et d' Entreprises'' ( en, French Limited Company for the Study of Management and Business) and is pronounced in English.


Company

The consortium, consisting of 25 companies, including the tire-maker
Michelin Michelin (; ; full name: ) is a French multinational tyre manufacturing company based in Clermont-Ferrand in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes ''région'' of France. It is the second largest tyre manufacturer in the world behind Bridgestone and la ...
and the
Renault Groupe Renault ( , , , also known as the Renault Group in English; legally Renault S.A.) is a French multinational automobile manufacturer established in 1899. The company produces a range of cars and vans, and in the past has manufactured ...
automotive company, is a consulting and engineering bureau. It was formed in 1919 as ''Société Auxiliaire Française d'Électricité, Gaz et Eau'', a holding company with interests in private water, gas, and electricity production and distribution. When in 1947, these public utilities were nationalised, the company became the engineering and consulting office which it is today, taking the name ''Société Anonyme Française d'Études, de Gestion et d'Entreprises''. Today the company is a
subsidiary A subsidiary, subsidiary company or daughter company is a company owned or controlled by another company, which is called the parent company or holding company. Two or more subsidiaries that either belong to the same parent company or having a s ...
of
Suez Environnement Suez SA (formerly Suez Environnement) is a French-based utility company which operates largely in the water and waste management sectors. The company has its head office in La Défense, Paris.consultancy A consultant (from la, consultare "to deliberate") is a professional (also known as ''expert'', ''specialist'', see variations of meaning below) who provides advice and other purposeful activities in an area of specialization. Consulting servic ...
in water and environmental engineering, but not only (bought IDC, etc.) Its main market is France, with 60% of the turnover. It also is a leader in several consortias beneficiaries of lots from the EC FWCs (6, 11 and coleading the 2).


SAFEGE type monorail

SAFEGE gained international recognition for its design of a suspended
monorail A monorail (from "mono", meaning "one", and "rail") is a railway in which the track consists of a single rail or a beam. Colloquially, the term "monorail" is often used to describe any form of elevated rail or people mover. More accurately, ...
in the 1960s. The design team was headed by
Lucien Chadenson Lucien is a male given name. It is the French form of Luciano or Latin ''Lucianus'', patronymic of Lucius. Lucien, Saint Lucien, or Saint-Lucien may also refer to: People Given name * Lucien of Beauvais, Christian saint *Lucien, a band member ...
.


Design concept

The design of the system entails suspending passenger cars beneath rubber-tired wheel carriages of the type used more conventionally in the
Paris Metro Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Sin ...
. The carriages are enclosed and supported by a box-like track or beam, with an opening in the bottom. The rubber wheels of the train run inside the track, supported by flanges on the bottom of the beam. Unlike previous suspended monorails like the Schwebebahn in
Wuppertal Wuppertal (; "''Wupper Dale''") is, with a population of approximately 355,000, the seventh-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia as well as the 17th-largest city of Germany. It was founded in 1929 by the merger of the cities and to ...
, Germany, the tracks are not exposed to inclement weather, and do not need any cleaning or ice-removal systems. This advantage enables them to run in cities where ice and other conditions would impair the reliability of the system.


Test installation

The test track built in France by SAFEGE in 1959, was a monorail line that featured prominently in the 1966 movie adaptation of ''
Fahrenheit 451 ''Fahrenheit 451'' is a 1953 dystopian novel by American writer Ray Bradbury. Often regarded as one of his best works, ''Fahrenheit 451'' presents an American society where books have been personified and outlawed and "firemen" burn any that ar ...
'', directed by
François Truffaut François Roland Truffaut ( , ; ; 6 February 1932 – 21 October 1984) was a French film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film critic. He is widely regarded as one of the founders of the French New Wave. After a career of more tha ...
. Although the track was dismantled not long thereafter, the original car survived longer.


Market position

SAFEGE systems are the leading type of suspended railway in
transit Transit may refer to: Arts and entertainment Film * ''Transit'' (1979 film), a 1979 Israeli film * ''Transit'' (2005 film), a film produced by MTV and Staying-Alive about four people in countries in the world * ''Transit'' (2006 film), a 2006 ...
use, though this consists of just four installations of two different systems. Its chief and more numerous competitor in modern monorail applications are variations of the German-designed
ALWEG Alweg was a transportation company based in Germany known for pioneering straddle-beam monorails. History Alweg was founded by Swedish industrial magnate Dr. Axel Lennart Wenner-Gren in January 1953 as Alweg-Forschung, GmbH (Alweg Research Cor ...
system, in which the vehicles run on top of, and straddle, a solid beam.


SAFEGE-type monorails in the world


Mitsubishi Heavy Industries

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is a Japanese multinational engineering, electrical equipment and electronics corporation headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. MHI is one of the core companies of the Mitsubishi Group and its automobile division is the predecessor of Mitsubishi Mo ...
of Japan has developed a working system of SAFEGE-type suspended railways, and have made three such installations, two of which remain in operation today. *From early 1964 to December 1974, a single-line ran between Higashiyama Zoo and the nearby Botanical Gardens in
Nagoya is the largest city in the Chūbu region, the fourth-most populous city and third most populous urban area in Japan, with a population of 2.3million in 2020. Located on the Pacific coast in central Honshu, it is the capital and the most pop ...
,
Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
. While initially popular, it also suffered from mechanical problems and after the first two years of operation, the novelty wore off and it began making a loss. Plans to expand the zoo and gardens hastened its demise, although the car and a section of track is preserved at one of the stations. While it was initially marketed as a ride, rather than a means of transport, a fare was charged, making it the first revenue-earning SAFEGE/Mitsubishi-type monorail. *In 1970 the
Shonan Monorail The is a Suspension railway, suspended SAFEGE monorail in the cities of Kamakura, Kanagawa, Kamakura and Fujisawa, Kanagawa, Fujisawa in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. It is operated by the which belongs to Michinori Holdings, and opened on March ...
opened. It runs from
Ōfuna Station Ōfuna Station( ja, 大船駅, ) is a railway station in Kamakura, Kanagawa, Japan, operated by the East Japan Railway Company (JR East). Lines Ōfuna Station is served by the Tokaido Main Line, Shōnan-Shinjuku Line, Negishi Line ( Keihin-T ...
in
Kamakura is a city in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. Kamakura has an estimated population of 172,929 (1 September 2020) and a population density of 4,359 persons per km² over the total area of . Kamakura was designated as a city on 3 November 1939. Kamak ...
to
Shōnan-Enoshima Station is a monorail train station on the Shōnan Monorail Enoshima Line located in Fujisawa, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. It is the southern terminus of the Shōnan Monorail Enoshima Line and is located 6.6 kilometers from the northern terminus at ...
in Fujisawa. *In 1988, the first stage of the
Chiba Urban Monorail The is a two-line suspended monorail system located in Chiba, Chiba Prefecture, Japan. It is owned and operated by , a so-called " third-sector" company established on March 20, 1979. Investors include the city of Chiba. The first segment ...
system opened, in
Chiba Chiba may refer to: Places China * (), town in Jianli County, Jingzhou, Hubei Japan * Chiba (city), capital of Chiba Prefecture ** Chiba Station, a train station * Chiba Prefecture, a sub-national jurisdiction in the Greater Tokyo Area on ...
. With a route length, it is the longest suspended monorail in the world.


Siemens Siemens AG ( ) is a German multinational conglomerate corporation and the largest industrial manufacturing company in Europe headquartered in Munich with branch offices abroad. The principal divisions of the corporation are ''Industry'', '' ...

*Two Siemens SIPEM lines exist in Germany, one on the Dortmund University campus, the other at the
Düsseldorf airport Düsseldorf Airport (german: link=no, Flughafen Düsseldorf, ; until March 2013 ''Düsseldorf International Airport''; ) is the international airport of Düsseldorf, the capital of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It is about north ...
. Siemens no longer actively markets this system, but does still deliver the software for the automatic operation of a SIPEM network and vehicles.


Unfulfilled proposals

In 1966, a proposal was considered to construct a SAFEGE-type monorail in the City of
Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
. The line was planned to link
Manchester Airport Manchester Airport is an international airport in Ringway, Manchester, England, south-west of Manchester city centre. In 2019, it was the third busiest airport in the United Kingdom in terms of passenger numbers and the busiest of those n ...
with the city and suburbs, with a tunnel under the city centre, but the scheme, along with the later
Picc-Vic tunnel Picc-Vic was a proposed, and later cancelled, underground railway designed in the early 1970s with the purpose of connecting two major mainline railway termini in Manchester city centre, England. The name Picc-Vic was a contraction of the two sta ...
(which would be a conventional
rapid transit Rapid transit or mass rapid transit (MRT), also known as heavy rail or metro, is a type of high-capacity public transport generally found in urban areas. A rapid transit system that primarily or traditionally runs below the surface may be c ...
line) was abandoned due to cost. The city eventually developed its own light rail network,
Manchester Metrolink Manchester Metrolink (branded locally simply as Metrolink) is a tram/ light rail system in Greater Manchester, England. The network has 99 stops along of standard-gauge route, making it the most extensive light rail system in the United Kin ...
, of which one of its lines, opened in 2014, now links Manchester Airport to the city centre. In November 1967, General Electric proposed to construct a SAFEGE monorail from downtown
San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
to
San Francisco International Airport San Francisco International Airport is an international airport in an unincorporated area of San Mateo County, south of Downtown San Francisco. It has flights to points throughout North America and is a major gateway to Europe, the Middle E ...
. The City of San Francisco studied the proposal, along with an extension of the
Southern Pacific Railroad The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials- SP) was an American Class I railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was operated by various companies under the ...
's
Peninsula Commute The Peninsula Commute, also known as the Southern Pacific Peninsula or just Peninsula, was the common name for commuter rail service between San Jose, California and San Francisco, California on the San Francisco Peninsula. This service ran as a ...
commuter rail Commuter rail, or suburban rail, is a passenger rail transport service that primarily operates within a metropolitan area, connecting commuters to a central city from adjacent suburbs or commuter towns. Generally commuter rail systems are con ...
line and an extension of the
BART Bart is a masculine given name, usually a diminutive of Bartholomew, sometimes of Barton, Bartolomeo, etc. Bart is a Dutch and Ashkenazi Jewish surname, and derives from the name ''Bartholomäus'', a German form of the biblical name ''Barthol ...
rapid transit Rapid transit or mass rapid transit (MRT), also known as heavy rail or metro, is a type of high-capacity public transport generally found in urban areas. A rapid transit system that primarily or traditionally runs below the surface may be c ...
system. The proposal's incompatibility with other rail transit lines, the urban design concerns of an elevated guideway, and potential competitive impact on parallel rapid transit lines, led to its dismissal in favor of a BART extension. Ultimately SFO was connected to downtown San Francisco via
BART Bart is a masculine given name, usually a diminutive of Bartholomew, sometimes of Barton, Bartolomeo, etc. Bart is a Dutch and Ashkenazi Jewish surname, and derives from the name ''Bartholomäus'', a German form of the biblical name ''Barthol ...
in 2003.


References


External links

{{commonscat, SAFEGE * Monorail society:
Technical Page - Safege
'. Retrieved May 25, 2008.
SAFEGE company Web site, in English

SAFEGE in Poland website
Suspended monorails Monorails Monorails in France