New Cobra trams for less energy consumption

November 7, 2008

Public transport management and city logistics are nowadays two of most important domains, which deal with rising of life quality in big cities.

Switzerland is well known country, where authorities and people pay more attention on quality of life, ecology and pure energy use. City trams in Zurich (Switzerland) provide continuous passenger traffic flow and decrease air pollution that massive use of combustion engine vehicles would cause on the other side.

ALCAN Extruded Products, a part of Rio Tinto Alcan's Engineered Products unit, is going to produce 88 tram body shells for Switzerland’s city Cobra trams. According to the company, this follows a four-year development phase and the testing of six pilot units. The 37m long units are expected to be delivered to the Zurich Public Transport Authorities in Switzerland by the year 2010. The articulated low-floor trams incorporate light weighting technologies. They have a tailor-made hybrid structure, including aluminium extrusions, aluminium panels, sandwich floor and roof structures as well as the three-dimensionally shaped sidewalls and cockpits made from fibre-reinforced resin at the vehicle's front and rear ends. The sandwich materials provide improved temperature and acoustic insulation, as well as passenger safety…

Low-floor aluminium body Cobra tram on the streets of Zurich

The manufacturer claims, that using aluminium and composite materials will save considerable amounts of weight, resulting in less electricity consumption. Decrease of energy consumption due to lightweight tram body is one of the main reasons why these trams were chosen to serve public transport in Zurich...