Standards Development

Scope

The purpose of this document is to provide methods for quantifying the ride comfort of a passenger in conventional urban rail systems, which means in trams and metros.

The methods aim to quantify the effects of vehicle body motions on ride comfort and to make the assessment of passenger comfort predictable, repeatable, objective and meaningful.

This document applies to measurements of motions. It also applies to simulated motions. Guidance is provided on:

— which method described within the document should be used for different scenarios;

— the validated application range for said methods;

— typical values for different comfort levels;

— testing of tram and metro vehicles with respect to ride comfort.

This document excludes health and safety issues, non-passenger carrying vehicles, vehicle homologation and safety, limit values, motion sickness, design guidelines and measurement technology.

This document refers to present day ‘good practice’ for the evaluation of ride comfort in conventional urban rail systems. It addresses the technical aspects concerning vehicles, track and operation modus which are inherent for urban rail systems and which typically may hamper the application of the ride comfort evaluation methods specified in EN 12299.

This document may also be used as a reference on similar systems like cable cars or monorails, but their operational routes/environments may make it difficult to comply with the requirements of the test methods. This docu

Purpose

EN 12299 specifies some methods for evaluating the ride comfort in rail vehicles which origins from heavy rail operation. These methods cannot provide a guidance on evaluating situations which use to cause discomfort to passengers while being inherent for urban rail systems, like speeding up/slowing down with high accelerating/braking rates, passage of numerous turnouts and crossings, and exposure to high sudden lateral jerks.