SAFEGE
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 SAY-fij in English.
The consortium, consisting of 25 companies, including the tire-maker Michelin and the Renault automotive company, produced an arial railway technology. The design team was headed by Lucien Chadenson.
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. 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, 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.
Market position
SAFEGE systems are the leading type of suspended railway currently in transit use, though this consists of very few systems. Its chief and more numerous competitor in modern monorail applications are variations of the German-designed ALWEG system, in which the vehicles run on top of, and straddle, a solid beam.
Safege monorails in the world
- There are two SAFEGE-type suspended railways in Japan. One is the Chiba Urban Monorail in Chiba and the other is the Shonan Monorail in Kamakura and Fujisawa.
- The test track built in France by SAFEGE in 1958, is featured prominently in the 1966 movie adaptation of Fahrenheit 451, directed by François Truffaut. Although the track has been dismantled since then, the original car still exists (SAFEGE vehicle images).
