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Report n°6: Urban Public Transport

The principle of TEOR

At that time, the Trans-Val-de-Marne, operated by the RATP (Parisian transport authorities) in the southern outskirts of Paris was considered to be a model as regards BRTs with exclusive right-of-way. This set the scene for TEOR, a dedicated right-of-way bus-based system. At the same time, Irisbus and Matra were proposing an articulated vehicle with full low-level boarding facilities, propelled by an electric motor housed in the wheels and powered by a conducting guide wire. Guidance is trackless, optical (camera) so that positioning at stops is extremely precise. It is an articulated guided trolleybus, called "Civis" by its manufacturers.

Civis vehicles were to be used for TEOR, but powered by diesel-electric engines, unlike the trolleybus. In fact, TEOR was the global name which identified the route, the exclusive right-of-way, a type of vehicle and a tramway-inspired style as regards urban insertion: the stations are comfortable with platforms to make the buses as accessible as trams, on-line passenger information displays and the colourful platforms are set amid trees and flowerbeds in abundance.

Two diesel-electric powered Civis vehicles (not entirely electrical as for trolleybuses) were purchased to test the vehicle which was still a prototype. Without further delay, some 40 articulated Agoras vehicles manufactured by Irisbus were equipped with the Matra optical guidance system (with some thirty more on order). It would now seem that the Civis vehicles with the diesel-electric motor are not an improvement over diesel-powered Agoras equipped with the optical guidance system, in view of their high cost.

TEOR is not yet completed. Only the eastern section is in service, which represents about half of the total planned network. The construction work required to engineer the passage through the city centre has not yet begun. The line should be completed by the end of 2006. Progressive entry into service of TEOR, without specific equipment, probably did not give the project the spectacular image that the tram commands. The inhabitants of Rouen view the tram as a metro and call it that, so that this will be the name it is given hereunder.

The present line with true exclusive right-of-way includes a common trunk and three branches in the direction of the university campus (TEOR 1), the Notre-Dame de Bondeville area (TEOR 2) and Canteleu area (TEOR 3). The branch to the university campus required the building of an entirely new road for part of its route, so that there was extensive modification of unbuilt-up spaces and some compulsory purchase orders.

The common trunk section of the right-of-way for the three TEOR sub-lines begins close to the city centre, where it intersects with the north-south tram line (in its own common trunk section). In the city centre and eastwards, buses have their dedicated but unprotected lanes.