MonoCab: MonoCab OWL: Construction and demonstration of MonoCabs

There are currently numerous old single-track railway lines that are no longer used for local rail transport for economic reasons. Nevertheless, these track areas could make an important contribution to improving the mobility offer - especially in rural structured areas - through new, demand-oriented and autonomous operating and vehicle concepts. The so-called MonoCabs are small monorail vehicles that are primarily gyro-stabilised. Although they only offer space for a few people, they have the potential to reactivate existing railway lines as new, bidirectional and user-oriented mobility arteries, especially for less densely populated, rural areas. The MonoCab OWL project aims to demonstrate the basic feasibility of this idea. To this end, two demonstrators will be developed and realised on a scale of 1:1 and the associated possibilities of use will be demonstrated on real sections of track and also evaluated with regard to subsequent economic implementation.

The project goal is to demonstrate the feasibility of the MonoCab concept by driving the first demonstrators of MonoCabs on a test track. In order to realise the MonoCab, the following technical sub-lines are being pursued:

• Creation of a vehicle concept MonoCab and construction of two demonstrators.
• Construction of a control and regulation structure, which is the basis for autonomous driving.
• Demonstration of autonomous following driving (platooning) and of encounter traffic on a test track area of the Landeseisenbahn Lippe e.V.

Further goals are:

• The development of demonstrators in order to determine reliable cost estimates and boundary conditions of a standardised product design as well as introduction scenarios. These results make it possible to derive transport concepts and economic efficiency considerations, also for reactivations.
• The elaboration of production requirements and ideas for producing a monorail vehicle or a MonoCab in a Smart Factory.