European–and Global Urban Guided Transit: Green–and Socio–Economic Fit

The study undertook top down research in the low axle load, low speed market space where urban rail is vulnerable to competition from rubber–tyred guided transit modes. Heavy Rail and Light Rail are well established, but Light Metro, Automated Guided Transit, Monorail, and Bus Rapid Transit are ascendant. A global database containing 98 country, city, and modal variables, underpinned a multivariate research design using factor analysis and structural equation modeling. It extracted fourteen latent variables plus a complex but rationally interpretable set of regression coefficients that describe the green–and socio–economic fit between cities and guided transit solutions. The study found that the rubber–tyred modes had positioned themselves between Heavy Metro and Light Metro plus Light Rail, and that ecological adaptation was taking place in the low axle load, low speed, urban transit market space.