Passenger Comfort for the Next Generation Train: Excellent Comfort

Excellent passenger comfort should become a competitive advantage for railways again. For a long time railways lost the alignment to other modes of transport as e.g. automobiles. In the frame of the Next Generation Train (NGT) project plenty of passenger comfort aspects, including operational and interior design, boarding /disembarking and luggage, ride smoothness, vibration, acoustic noise, pressure fluctuation, lighting, and air-conditioning in high-speed trains are addressed. This paper is the first in a series [1,2] giving a comprehensive overview on the passenger comfort activities at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) since 2007. The current paper shortly introduces the NGT high-speed train concept from the passengers’ comfort perspective. Among others it contains passenger guidance to their reserved seats. On arrival at the seat, a feel-comfortable atmosphere should be created. Important components of passenger comfort are factors such as ride smoothness and vibration, pressure fluctuations and acoustic noise. Previous results concerning those features are given and on-going studies on air-conditioning are presented. Based on this experience a holistic solution for passenger comfort is under investigation with the objective of best utilizing the most safe and environmental friendly mode of transport. A description of the specific test environment and the subject trials concerning ventilation and lighting are the content of the next two papers in this series of papers.