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  1. 1 TVR stands for Transport sur Voie Réservée, French for “transport on a reserved track”. It was a tram on rubber tyres. French government report, 2010
  2. 2 It was built to run in two ways: guided by a single central rail, or driven on the road like a bus. French government report, 2010
  3. 3 It was sold as something in between a bus and a tram: a tram’s qualities when guided, an articulated bus’s freedom when it left the rail. French government report, 2003
  4. 4 It also had two kinds of power: electric and diesel. French government report, 2003
  5. 5 The TVR was not invented by Bombardier. The idea came from the Belgian firm La Brugeoise et Nivelles, which Bombardier bought. French government report, 2010
  6. 6 Feasibility trials began on the Ursel test circuit in Belgium in 1980, and a prototype was shown at the UITP congress in Brussels in 1985. French government report, 2003
  7. 7 Two pre-production vehicles built in 1987 were tried on a 3.2 km test line at Rochefort, in Belgium, until 1995. Noise, fast wear of the guide roller and a swaying ride all needed work. French government report, 2003
  8. 8 The French state backed these new “intermediate” vehicles with research money, and had the Paris transport operator RATP test three of them, Civis, Translohr and TVR, on part of the Trans-Val-de-Marne busway. French government report, 2010
  9. 9 On that busway, between Saint-Maur and Chevilly-Larue, 1.5 km was given a central rail. There the TVR ran guided and electric, under an overhead wire with the current returning through the rail; on the rest of the route it ran as a road vehicle on its diesel-electric engine. The trials ran on and off between November 1997 and December 1999. French government report, 2003
  10. 10 For comparison, a standard French steel-wheeled tram cost about 17 million francs a vehicle in the early 1990s. French government report, 2010
  11. 11 Caen was the first city in France to order a TVR. Its first line was let as a concession in 1994. French government report, 2003
  12. 12 Nancy ordered the TVR next, but opened first. French government report, 2003
  13. 13 Nancy’s line was inaugurated in December 2000 and began carrying passengers in February 2001. French government report, 2003
  14. 14 After about six weeks it was stopped. Switching from guided to road mode was not working properly: the links meant to keep the vehicle on a single track did not lock in place, and the driver was not always warned. French government report, 2003
  15. 15 The prefect of Meurthe-et-Moselle halted the service, and it restarted a year later, in March 2002, after changes to the vehicles. French government report, 2003
  16. 16 Caen’s TVR began carrying passengers in November 2002. French government report, 2003
  17. 17 In a single week in November 2002 there were four losses of guidance and other worrying faults on the Nancy and Caen systems, and the transport ministry asked for an expert report. French government report, 2003
  18. 18 The government counted 12 unexpected losses of guidance between May 2002 and November 2003. In December 2003 Bombardier found that the hydraulic power steering was interfering with the guidance system; after a fix, fitted by mid-2005, there were no more of these unexpected losses. French government report, 2010
  19. 19 A loss of guidance was not like a tram leaving its rails: the TVR stayed steady on its rubber tyres and kept all its braking. It could not simply be steered away, though, because the pressure of the guide roller stopped the steering from working. French government report, 2003
  20. 20 Despite all this, the 2003 experts found that people in both Nancy and Caen liked their tram on tyres. French government report, 2003
  21. 21 Each axle had a frame at the front and the back, ending in a grooved roller that ran along the central rail, pressed down by air and steel springs with a force of about 70 kN. French government report, 2003
  22. 22 The front roller was joined to the steering. As it followed the rail into a curve, it turned that axle’s wheels. French government report, 2003
  23. 23 In road mode, rams between the three body sections had to lock into place automatically, so that the long vehicle still followed a single track. French government report, 2003
  24. 24 Each TVR was 24.5 metres long. French government report, 2003
  25. 25 It was 2.4 metres wide, wider than the 2.2-metre Translohr. French government report, 2010
  26. 26 On the guide rail every axle followed the same path, so the long vehicle needed less room on corners. CBW magazine, 2023
  27. 27 The two cities fed power to their TVRs differently: Nancy’s took current like a trolleybus, Caen’s like a tram. French government report, 2010
  28. 28 Nancy’s line had a two-wire overhead line at 750 volts DC. Railway Gazette
  29. 29 In both cities the vehicles carried a generator set, so they could move under their own power away from the wires. French government report, 2010
  30. 30 Every working day started and ended in road mode: out of the depot, onto the guide rail, back and forth along the line, then off the rail and back to the depot. French government report, 2010
  31. 31 In Nancy each vehicle also left and rejoined the rail twice on every trip, about ten times a working day. French government report, 2010
  32. 32 Nancy’s route had a 3 km section with no guide rail, where drivers steered; vehicles joined or left the rail at Callot. Railway Gazette
  33. 33 Nancy’s steep gradients were one reason it chose the TVR. CBW magazine, 2023
  34. 34 Only 50 TVRs were ever sold, all of them to Nancy and Caen, and production stopped. French government report, 2010
  35. 35 Nancy had 25 vehicles on an 11 km line, 60% of it guided. French government report, 2010
  36. 36 Caen had 24 vehicles on a 14.8 km network, all of it guided. French government report, 2010
  37. 37 Its guidance was a closed, one-maker design, so no other manufacturer’s vehicles could share the rail. French government report, 2010
  38. 38 With so few made, there were no savings of scale on maintenance or spare parts. French government report, 2010
  39. 39 By 2010 the government judged its reliability disappointing overall, with poor availability and high maintenance costs. French government report, 2010
  40. 40 The state had put more than 60 million euros of subsidies into the two networks. French government report, 2010
  41. 41 The 2010 report advised keeping the TVR running for at least ten more years with a full overhaul. Bombardier priced its modernisation programme at 740,000 euros a vehicle. French government report, 2010
  42. 42 Clermont-Ferrand chose a different tram on tyres, Lohr’s Translohr. The 2010 report said its guidance was well designed and reliable, but the TVR’s troubles had done its reputation no favours. French government report, 2010
  43. 43 Caen stopped its TVR at the start of 2018, and work on a new tramway began. Caen la mer, 2019
  44. 44 Caen’s new tramway opened on Saturday 27 July 2019, replacing the tram on tyres with a tram on rails. Caen la mer, 2019
  45. 45 Caen la mer says the new tram carries 64,000 passengers a day, against 42,000 with the TVR. Caen la mer, 2019
  46. 46 Nancy’s TVR closed on Sunday 12 March 2023, and ordinary buses ran in its place while the route was rebuilt. CBW magazine, 2023
  47. 47 Nancy had planned to turn the line into a steel-wheeled tramway: the plan was set out in December 2018, but the metropolitan council voted to suspend it on 11 February 2021. Railway Gazette
  48. 48 In the end, the same steep gradients that had led Nancy to the TVR meant it chose trolleybuses rather than a conventional tram. CBW magazine, 2023
  49. 49 Nancy’s Line 1 reopened on Saturday 5 April 2025 with all-electric trolleybuses. Métropole du Grand Nancy
  50. 50 The new vehicles are HESS lighTram 25 DC trolleybuses. About 62% of the 9.78 km route has overhead wires, and batteries cover the rest. HESS AG
  51. 51 Grand Nancy’s own comparison: the new trolleybus carries up to 154 passengers (the old tram 136) and uses 2.4 kWh per kilometre (the old tram 4 kWh). Métropole du Grand Nancy
  52. 52 Line 1 carries about 45,000 journeys a day. Métropole du Grand Nancy
  53. 53 The 1985 prototype was called the GLT, for Guided Light Transport. The French reports use GLT and TVR for the same system. French government report, 2010
  54. 54 The 2003 expert report files Bombardier’s guidance papers under the heading “Guidage du GLT (TVR)”. French government report, 2003
  55. 55 Railway Gazette describes Nancy’s line as a guided, rubber-tyred trolleybus route, opened in December 2000 and serving 28 stops. Railway Gazette
  56. 56 By the time Nancy planned its replacement, Railway Gazette was calling the Bombardier TVR “now-discontinued”. Railway Gazette
  57. 57 Technically it was an articulated road vehicle on four axles, each with guidance that could be disengaged. French government report, 2003
  58. 58 The rear roller on each axle could slide sideways, up to a stop. French government report, 2003