Smart Cities and Mobility: France is at the cutting-edge in the strategic market for driverless metros

With the advent of new technologies, "Smart Cities" are a major challenge for tomorrow's metropoles; metropoles that have to meet the need to transport their populations effectively and rethink mobility, in cities that need to be ever-more "free-flowing" and environmentally friendly. It is against this backdrop that Wavestone's Transport & Travel Team has created a global benchmark for the performance of driverless metro systems. With its international expertise in the transport sector, Wavestone offers strategic insights into the evolution of this fast-growing market, where the number of kilometers of installed lines will triple between 2010 and 2020. The new benchmark, which reviews 25 of the 40 driverless metro lines listed in the world*,
reveals the extent of French expertise in the field; something to be highlighted in a climate of growing demands on service quality for the urban transport sector.

The driverless metro: the ideal form of transport for Smart Cities and the "Mega-Cities" of 2030

Medium and large-sized metropolitan areas are facing major issues in terms of the daily journeys made by their ever-growing populations. In a context like this, the management of flows becomes a major challenge. New forms of mobility (electric cars, autonomous shuttles, carpooling, etc.) are not adapted to transporting large numbers of commuters (which requires higher transportation frequencies for passengers on the most-used routes) or to sustainable transport. Driverless metro systems embody the concept of an intelligent and innovative solution to mass transit: high transport frequencies, speed, regularity, safety, reduced operating costs, adaptability of the service, and flexibility in human resources.

The geographical distribution of cities that will rank as Mega-Cities, with more than 10 million inhabitants, by 2030: Asia 60%, Africa 30%, and South America 10%.

In terms of overall costs per kilometer, the competitiveness of driverless metros is considerably higher than that of conventional metro systems and will increase with its industrialization.

The market for driverless metros is going to explode in the next five years producing two distinct market types:

/ Large metropolitan areas which are already saturated and are reducing congestion in their city centers by creating peri-urban areas around the main city, putting in place new centers of population to be linked by automatic mass-transit metro lines.

/ The coming Mega-Cities that will appear in Asia, Africa and South America by 2030 (overtaking the large metropolitan areas currently seen in the West, where populations will stagnate) and which will have to deploy sustainable modes of transport that cross the entire urban area.

France, a working showcase for the world's driverless metro systems

As a result of the dynamism of its institutions (regional governments, universities, etc.) and industrial leadership (in construction, operation, and equipment manufacture, etc.), France is now the number-one country in the world when it comes to the driverless metro market. It is the country with the greatest number of kilometers of lines (and stations), after Canada, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates. French transport companies operate the largest number of networks in the world (23.1%), followed closely by Italian operators (19.2%).

 “French industrials have highly-developed expertise in automated mass transportation systems (communications, rolling stock, operations, etc.). However, they need to prepare for more intense competition from other, increasingly effective, international players (equipment manufacturers and operators)," says Philippe Menesplier, Partner at Wavestone.

The world's best driverless metro lines

Analysis of the overall performance of the networks (infrastructure performance and day-to-day operation) reveals that the Lille, London (DLR), Toulouse (Line A), and Taipei driverless metros are among the best in the world. Despite some of these networks being among the earliest systems to be brought into service, making day-to-day management and control of operational costs more challenging, they show particularly robust performance in terms of reliability and quality of service.

For infrastructure and rolling stock performance, Vancouver (Expo Line) and Paris (Line 14) are among the top five in the ranking. When it comes to reliability of performance and quality of service (for daily operation of the line), Lyon is in fourth position.

In terms of innovations that benefit passengers, Paris and Barcelona are at the cutting edge, with the operators RATP and TBM acting as catalysts in the use of contextualized passenger information, advanced mobile services, advanced data strategies, in-station and in-train Wi-Fi, etc. Rennes, Dubai, Lille and Taipei are also strongly positioned here.

What are the challenges for tomorrow?

Against a background of increasing urbanization, it is imperative that existing city-center infrastructures are optimized, something that brings scalability problems in terms of capacity. The solution that presents itself is the automation of conventional lines. Developing new infrastructures at the peripheries will also be important, incorporating a high quality of service for passengers, while controlling costs. Driverless technologies can offer solutions to both these scenarios.

According to the UITP (the International Association of Public Transport), there will be about 2,300km of driverless metro lines in operation by 2025, compared with about 800km today.

The roll-out of CBTC (communications-based train control) technology to all driverless and conventional metros, as well as rising living standards in emerging countries, will improve the competitiveness of automation solutions and increase the demand for associated equipment.

By 2025, Asia and Europe are expected to account for 33% and 30%, respectively, in terms of kilometers of driverless lines, followed by the Middle East (25%), where ambitious projects, such as the Riyadh Metro, are underway. Looking further east, China has announced the commissioning of two new driverless lines by the end of 2017—with one of them being constructed using solely Chinese technology.

 “Tomorrow's main challenge is to cut congestion in medium and large cities, creating peri-urban centers, which are viable both residentially and economically, and putting in place transport solutions that can streamline and optimize urban mobility, and reduce the time taken for commutes," explains Aurélien Gué, Senior Manager at Wavestone.

What do passengers think?

As part of the benchmarking study, Wavestone compared passenger-satisfaction levels in two areas where the operator's scope to influence is important: cleanliness and passenger safety. On cleanliness, lines such as Lyon, Barcelona, ??Rennes, and Taipei come top, with positive passenger-satisfaction levels, which reach 99.3% for Lyon, compared with less than 70% for Vancouver and Milan. When it comes to safety, the operator's influence is key, even if there are strong socio-demographic effects in an area that a line serves. Against this measure, the Copenhagen, Dubai, and Taipei systems stand out, with satisfaction levels exceeding 90%.

* The UITP Observatory of Driverless Metros accounts for 55 lines by bringing within its scope some driverless people movers (APMs), LRT systems, AGT systems, and trains with a capacity of >100 passengers/train (compared with a capacity of >400 passengers/train in Wavestone's study), monorail trains (versus only duo or three-rail trains in the Wavestone work), as well as the use of Maglev technology (compared with only pneumatic or steel for Wavestone). The reason for the difference in scope, compared with the UITP's reference observatory, is that the Wavestone study aims to compare the operational performance of particular technologies, and the use of equivalent urban mass transit systems.

METHODOLOGY

Of the 40 metro networks listed across the world, the study analyzed the performance of 25 systems, in 14 cities (Paris, Lyon, Lille, Copenhagen, Nuremberg, Lausanne, Turin, Rennes, London, Toulouse, Barcelona, Milan, Dubai, and Taipei), for which information was considered to be available, accessible and reliable—in particular, using information from Wavestone's international offices—to provide the necessary data for benchmarking.

This study is the result of both:

• an analysis of documentation gathered from multiple sources (supported by Wavestone's international offices); and
• a series of interviews with major players in urban transport (transport authorities and operators), and experts in the field.

At the end of the information-gathering phase, Wavestone defined a methodology, with three major threads, in order to compare the various driverless metro lines:

• Infrastructure and rolling-stock performance;
• Reliability and quality of service;
• The innovations adopted by the various operators.

In a world where permanent evolution is the key to success, Wavestone's mission is to enlighten and partner business leaders in their most critical decisions.

Wavestone draws on some 2,500 employees across four continents. It is a leading independent player in European consulting, and the number one in France.

Created from the merger, at the beginning of 2016, of Solucom and Kurt Salmon's European activities (excluding retail and consumer goods consulting), Wavestone is a company listed on Euronext Paris and eligible for the PEA-PME (a French investment instrument that encourages individuals to invest in smaller and intermediate firms).  In 2017, Wavestone was again recognized as a Great Place To Work®.

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