See Also:
-1 Likely cost of Tram Tracks £10m /km in Germany.
0 Likely Tram Track Installations costs for Bath – French Tram Engineering Experts EGIS
1 tram light rail track installation costs
2 Recent German Light Rail Tram Track costs – £13 – £20m / km
3 UK Tram track light rail installation costs – “circa £20m to £30m per route kilometre”
4 Tram track installation costs – where can the money come from to install trams in cities?
7 Buried underground cables pipes utilities movement diversions and tram light rail installations
8 Tram light rail track installation costs
9 Professor Lesley’s initial analysis into Bath Tram likely installation costs
10 Modern VLR, Very Light Rail track costs – around £5 – £10m/km
Various new technologies have been around and some proven in various installations which are much cheaper than the conventional trams we see in Britain ie Edinburgh and so on, can be installed much more quickly, and without service diversions being needed.
Coventry VLR:
” The urban VLR track may cost as little as £10m per km to install, compared to traditional trams which cost upwards of £25m per km, sometimes as much as £100m per km in city centre locations, making urban rail a possibility for smaller towns and cities in the future”
TIG/m – proven in 7 locations worldwide.
Dave:
Your question about our track costs:
This is a “track mile” unit cost used for high-level estimation of
projects. Fixed cost comes much later after an RFP and information about the
site and the specific requirements of the project result in a Bid.
Track mile = 1 track for a length of 1 mile. US$ 10MM (ten million).
This cost only includes:
* Demolition
* Excavation
* Track Construction
* Repaving
Specifically excluding all of the other line items in listed in my previous
email.
2 tracks for a length of 1 mile under the same stipulations would be
US$20MM (twenty million).
Using .6214 as a factor to convert from miles to kilometers and the current
exchange rate of $ to ₤; this yields a cost of approximately ₤5MM per track
kilometer (five million).
2 tracks for a length of 1 kilometer would be ₤10MM (ten million).
I consider this cost to be high as it includes contingency. As design
progresses and contingency is reduced, the estimation should theoretically
be refined and the price should come down.
I hope that is clear.
Best regards,
Brad Read
PRESIDENT
TIG/m, LLC
Office: 818.709.8500
Mobile: 818.815.9119
Previous communications:
On Mon, Sep 11, 2023, 18:42 Brad Read <brad@tig-m.com
<mailto:brad@tig-m.com>
<mailto:brad@tig-m.com <mailto:brad@tig-m.com> > > wrote:
Dave:
The term “track mile” as a unit cost is used for everything from cost
quotations for track construction to completed project all-in cost
comparisons. So, as I said, the term needs to be clearly defined whenever
it
is used. There are also site-specific costs that can cause the same defined
unit cost to differ wildly from place to place. For example, the cost to
build a specific track form on a flat newly developed street in Boise,
Idaho
will be quite different from the cost build the exact same track form on a
150 year old hilly street in Boston, Massachusetts.
Project comparisons normally take the overall project cost of design
through construction and delivery including rolling stock and project
financing, and divide that by the number of miles of track in the project
and say “this project cost $30MM a mile to build”
For construction quotations:
What is included in, and excluded from, the track mile unit cost?
* Design
* Right-of-way costs
* Insurance
* Traffic management, policing, and barriers during construction
* Demolition
* Excavation
* Utilities Relocation
* Remediation of sub-code corridor structures and pavements
* Track construction
* Drainage structures
* Repaving
* Wayside speed control systems
* Passenger Stations
* Real time arrival systems
* Tram priority signalization systems
* Tramway specific signage
* New traffic signal installation
Of course I have left out all cost components relating to wayside power
systems because we do not need them, such as:
* Design
* Overhead wires
* Line poles
* Tie offs and guy wires at curves
* Tensioning devices
* Sectionalizing switches and associated hardware
* Duct bank construction
* Substations and substation feeds
* Power distribution and negative return cables
* Cathodic protection for buried utilities
* Utility relocation associated with underground construction
* Electrical isolation of the rail
So you need to define what you want to talk about and compare with.
When I talk about high-level estimating for our track installations (no
wayside power systems) and without having any detailed information about
the
site (age of streets or condition of subgrade utilities), I use the figure
of $10MM/mi. (₤5MM/km at today’s exchange rate) and I define that Track
Mile
as including:
* Demolition
* Excavation
* Track Construction
* Repaving
I hope this is helpful to you.
Best regards,
Brad Read
PRESIDENT
TIG/m, LLC
Office: 818.709.8500
Mobile: 818.815.9119
