Dynamic behaviour of tramways with different kinds of bogies

Modern tramways are required to be built in low-floor design because of its advantages to passengers and system operators. There are different construction concepts on how to realize a low floor throughout the complete tramway: One possibility is to waive the conventional wheelsets in the bogie and instead use independently rotating wheels. In this investigation, the typical dynamic behaviour of bogies with independently rotating wheels within a complete tramway in comparison to bogies with wheelsets is presented using multi-body models. Therefore the simulation results are compared for curve tracks with different curve entry layouts. The results do not provide a clear decision in favour or against one of these tracking principles but provide an insight into the behaviour of complete tramways with different bogies.