A Review of Alternative and Innovative Transit Systems

In recent years, the ever-rising construction cost of heavy rail underground metros has slowed down their development in many countries. In most major cosmopolitan cities, a backbone network of heavy rail underground metro had been highly developed. Under such circumstances, using a lighter scale system, which meets the increasing traffic demands and supplements the existing backbone network, will certainly exalt the financial viability of a new rail transit extension. Also, it is an effective measure to enhance the urban transport functionality. This paper reviews a number of emerging alternative and innovative rail transit technologies, and serves as a reference to practitioners who are involved in the planning and design of rail transit systems.