For Wuppertal, where the town is pretty linear along a river valley, it works. (Even then, a straddle-beam monorail would probably be more cost-efficient if you were starting from scratch). For most places it doesn't.
For Wuppertal, where the town is pretty linear along a river valley, it works. (Even then, a straddle-beam monorail would probably be more cost-efficient if you were starting from scratch). For most places it doesn't.
even if you are only need a single isolated elevated line though monorail still loses just because there is no standard: when you need spare parts in 20 years it is questinable if you can get them.
It's rare to need much in the way of tunnels on an elevated line, by its very nature. And since the beam is narrower than the carriages, it doesn't actually increase the tunnel diameter (for a round cross section) that much.
> even if you are only need a single isolated elevated line though monorail still loses just because there is no standard: when you need spare parts in 20 years it is questinable if you can get them.
These days there are systems that have been built for decades by big name manufacturers, often the same manufacturers that make trains. Hitachi or Alstom-nee-Bombardier aren't going to disappear and leave their clients high and dry, if only because it would be bad for their broader rail businesses to do so.
I'm no fan of monorails - quite the opposite - but there are cases where they work.
That raises the monorail floor, which makes the whole thing larger.
Modern trams can have nearly-ground-level floors.