Innovative Lightweight Transit Technologies for Sustainable Transportation

In recent years, there is a phenomenon in many major cities that building more roads to relieve traffic congestion achieves nothing more than encouraging more vehicles to use them, resulting in more congestion which is one of the prime sources of bad air quality and inefficient use of energy. Facing with these problems, a number of major cities are either building or planning to build mass transit railways as a backbone, supplemented by light rails and other transit modes to enhance mobility and network connectivity. This paper reviews a number of emerging and innovative lightweight transit systems, from an urban mobility and sustainable development perspective. The objective of the paper is to serve as a reference to practitioners who are involved in the planning and design of sustainable transportation systems.