by Max Barry

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Transportation

See also: LinkMap of the Transport Systems of Sassony
This is a comprehensive map of the countrywide, local, and urban transportation systems of the Anarchist Commune of Sassony.
Translucid blue dashed lines are countrywide vacuum train lines.
Solid Lines are heavy rail (Mētro, Statsnelbān)
Dashed lines are light rail (U-Bān, strātnbān)
Dotted Lines are bus routes.
This map is a permanent work-in-progress. It is never going to be finished.
Have fun exploring and feel free to ask questions and offer constructive criticism on the map.

The public transport networks of Sassony are among the most extensive and modern in the world. The Communist, Progressive, and Environmentalist political factions are responsible for the quick development that has taken place in the commune's railways and bus fleets in the last few decades. Transportation is considered an everyday necessity and is thus freely accessible for everyone. This makes travel by car almost entirely unnecessary. This article will give an overview over the different modes of transportation that are available within East Angria.


Layout of the typical main street in a Sasson town or city district

Public transit in Sassony uses a network-based integrated schedule. The countrywide network of vactrain, regional and express lines runs on a schedule that maximizes the number of available connections while minimizing connection times. Local services then adapt to arrival and departure times of those trains. In practice, this means that stations are filled with trains, buses and people once every two hours, one hour, or half hour. Everyone has enough time to reach their connection in time and continue the journey without losing any time.
This, of course, does not apply to urban services with a cadence of one departure in every ten minutes or higher.

Bus


Bus

The green circled letter H on a yellow field stands for "Holdstēd". It signifies a bus/tram stop or a meeting point for shared cars, shared taxis, and on-demand transportation. Bus lines usually have a one- to three-digit number designation. There are several different types of bus services in East Angria:

  • Fydlbus (neighborhood bus): These buses usually travel on circular routes within a village or urban neighborhood. They usually connect to one or more fast transit stations and provide dense coverage with stops every 200 or 300 meters, to limit walking distances and encourage using public transport. Their schedule aligns with the arrival of trains at the interchange station. Neighborhood bus lines are usually named after the quarter they serve, rather than their destination. They are operated either by the city, or by the individual settled area that they serve.

  • Statbus (city bus): These buses serve more or less straight routes in populated areas, either going from a central transport hub to a terminus in an outlying area, or connecting two or more transit stations. They are usually operated by the city. City buses usually have a frequency of one to six buses per hour.

  • Landbus (country bus): Country buses establish connections between several smaller settlements, often connecting one village station to another. Due to their decentralized nature, they are often operated by the land, the landʃap, or a joint operation of several villages. Frequencies vary between one bus every two hours in the most remote areas, and four buses per hour where there is more demand.

  • Raisbus (coach): Coaches are designed for long-distance domestic or international travel. They offer more comfort and luggage space than buses and are usually equipped with a toilet. Many of them operate overnight and only offer a few trips per week, rather than per day. Coaches supplement the Sasson regional and high-speed train networks in rural areas and borderlands. Some coaches simply connect high-speed railway stations that don't have rail connection with one another.

Busses in the Anarchist Commune use a wide variety of energy and propulsion systems:

  • Overhead wires: Trolleybusses have electric engines and receive power via trolleypoles from overhead lines - similar to trams and trains. This system is implemented in many city and neighborhood bus services.

  • Batteries: Battery busses have electric engines and on-board batteries. They usually have to be charged at specialized stations after a few trips. More modern systems can be charged on-route via induction at all or some of the stops. Trolleybusses sometimes also pack batteries to serve sections without overhead wires, or to maneuver around obstacles.

  • Hydrogen fuel cells: Hydrogen busses are the up-and-coming green technology for transport in Sassony's rural areas. They are in high demand,especially around nature reserves. These busses carry tanks of compressed hydrogen as fuel. The hydrogen reacts with oxygen to form steam, the vehilce's only emission. The energy thus released is converted for use in the on-board electric engine, while the excess is stored in a battery.
    While completely emission-free on the local level, the process of producing, storing, and transporting hydrogen for local use makes it rather inefficient. Sasson scientists are currently developing geothermal power plants including hydrogen production facilities to alleviate this problem.

  • Diesel engines: Diesel busses still make up the majority of busses used throughout the country. Trolleybusses and battery busses sometimes include small auxiliary diesel engines. However, production of new fossile-fuel vehicles has ceased in 2014. The anarchist commune still mines a modest amount of oil and natural gas in the North Sea, and also imports them from other countries. The general opinion is that this has to stop before 2030 though, making the whole country rely on renewable energies by then.


Tram

The blue circled T stands for tram, streetcar, or trolley, either referred to as tram or strātnbān in the standard language. Trams are light rail vehicles that run on tracks in the street. They may also include sections of independent right-of-way. "T"-trams are operated by the town or city in which they run. Many towns or neighborhoods of 10 000 or more inhabitants have their own tram networks, consisting of at least a single line. Thus, there are hundreds of independent tram systems across all of East Angria.

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Older low-floor tram in Kazl

Wheelchair-accessible tram in Brēm

Modern Denhāx tram

High-floor vehicle used on Builefeld's metro and tram networks

Trams in East Angria are usually standard-gauge or meter-gauge and low-floor, providing easy accessibility for all passengers and reducing the cost and footprint of stations. Buses and trams can often use the same platforms and run on the same street, making it very easy to change from one line to the other. Trams have frequencies between one and thirty vehicles per hour, but average around six to twelve per hour. The naming scheme is usually "T" followed by a one- or two-digit number.

In smaller cities and towns, trams are being supplemented by smaller automated people movers. They allow lines with lower demand to uphold or even improve the schedule without having to use human drivers and full-sized trams.


Ø̄valandbān

Ø̄valandbānen (interurbans) are trams that run on the street and connect several settlements with each other. They are a hybrid between trams and regional railways (landbānen). They are not operated by a single city’s transport coop, but by several municipal agencies. The most famous example is the Kusttram, which runs along the coast of the North Sea in Flānderen. Most island railways also count as interurbans. These are sometimes powered by hydrogen fuel cells instead of overhead wires.

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Interurban tram in Rūrstat

Interurban with Sasson Railways logo

Modern interurban at Zutermēr

Crossing a bridge in Huxtn

Ø̄valandbānen are a special form of trams and are often not distinguished from them. They follow the naming scheme of T# or T##. In other cases, trams use Ø and T in their name to make clear if they're just going to the edge of town, or if they're traveling the whole route through the countryside. This makes sense if the urban area has more passenger demand than the adjacent rural area.

Interurban lines use high-floor trams and raised platforms far more often than conventional tram lines.


U-Bān

The white U in a blue circle stands for Light Rail, known as u-bān, statbān, lictbān, or premētro throughout East Angria. U-bānen cover the middle ground between trams and metros. They often use standard gauge tramcars, but include large sections of independent or grade-separated tracks – usually underground in the city center. A common model includes several u-bān lines bundled on a trunk line, which then branch out onto the surface in the outlying boroughs. Stations are usually 400 to 1500 meters apart. Most u-bānen are currently being automatized to work without human drivers. The naming scheme is "U" followed by a one- or two-digit number.

U-bānen may sometimes run across the country for short distances of under 2 km, blurring the line between them and ø̄valandbānen. In those cases, they still follow the "U" naming scheme, but the stations in the outlying boroughs or villages may sometimes be denoted with the blue circled Ø instead. A similar distinction between Ø- and U-lines still applies in some cases.

Historically, u-bānen were conceptualized to convert urban tram systems into metro rail. The idea was to construct grade-separated tracks which would first be used by the existent high-floor tramcars, which would later be replaced by heavy metro trains. The prime example for this evolution having been completed is Rūrstat's present day M19 between Baukem and Mølm.

The smallest city currently operating its own light rail network is Ɣøtiŋen at 120 000 inhabitants. It lies in southern Eastphalia at the river Lāne. The Ɣøtiŋen U-Bān consists of five lines and serves Bōvnden and Rosdorp in addition to the boroughs of Ɣøtiŋen itself.


Mētro

The white M in a red circle stands for mētro. This term includes underground or elevated heavy rail and monorail systems with high capacities and speeds, which can be found in East Angria’s largest cities and urban areas. Most metro systems are underground, standard gauge, use third-rail electrification, and have headways between two and ten minutes. In areas where the metro originated from a conversion of trams to light rail and then into metro, overhead wires are used instead of the third rail. Among others, this also applies to the Rūrstat metro, by far the largest metro system in the country. Another outlier is the Vupatāl Suspended Monorail.

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Older metro train at Brēm

Art installation in a Rūrstat metro station

State-of-the-art metro vehicle at Fraŋkfort

Vopadāl Suspended Monorail

Metros have the highest ridership of any mode of public transport in all of Sassony. They serve as the backbone of transportation and city planning in the country's urban areas and are well-integrated with other modes of transport. Metro stops are often named after a landmark, district, or neighborhood. Grocery coops, public service centers, and small shops often flock around metro stops. City people identify closely with the metro station that they use on their daily commutes. Cities of as little as 100 000 inhabitants can have single metro lines, with cities sized 300 000 or 500 000 having whole networks. This also means that the presence of a metro network is a prerequesite for a settlement being called a large city or a metropolis among many Sassons.

Wherever metro networks emerged from tram and u-bān systems, they may still use converted light rail rolling stock in the off-peak hours. In Hanōva and Builefeld metro, for example, you can still see high-floor trams with wooden boards below the doors to make up for their smaller loading gauge.

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Logo of Sasson Railways, the
country's main railroad service


Statsnelbān

The white S in a green circle stands for statsnelbānen, "fast urban trains". They can be compared to elevated metro or commuter rail. S-bānen are usually compatible with the national railway network and often share tracks with landbānen, regionalbānen, and sometimes even freight railways. Their service is usually centered on a single urban core, spreading outwards, servicing stations within the urban area a few kilometers apart, and finally reaching a few towns and villages in the surrounding areas. They have frequencies between 5 and 60 minutes, which may add up to an even tighter schedule on trunk routes, and are often automatically operated.

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A train of the Statsnelbān Hamborc at Hamborc Central Station.

Older "Zylvaliŋ" unit of S-bān Riŋ-Mã

State-of-the art S-train at Rūrstat-Dyørpm

Randstad Sprinter

The existence of a cohesive S-bān network is often the defining factor for whether a populated area is perceived as a metropolitan area. For example, the Rhine Cities and Rūrstat grew together into the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area as their previously independent S-bān systems joined operations. Within the city limits, S-bān stations have a similar function of centralization and identification as metro stations. Outside the city, they give outlying towns a sense of belonging to the urban core.

List of Statsnelbān Systems in Sassony
  • Antverp

  • Brēm

  • Brʉsel

  • Hambōx

  • Hanōva

  • Randstad

  • Rūrstat-Riŋland

  • Riŋ-Mã

  • Both Brēm and Hamborc have Hōɣbān (elevated rail) systems. Metros and S-trains use the same tracks and technology in those cities. Trains marked with the letter M only run within the urban area, while S-trains serve the whole metropolitan area. Those S-trains also use regional railway tracks and have on-board toilets.


    Landbān

    The white L in a green circle stands for landbānen, meaning country rail or rural rail. These train services operate in rural areas, usually serving several towns and villages on a single route. They are usually jointly operated by one or two lands. L-bānen run on the main-line passenger railroads of Sassony, but may also share track with freight railways.

    L-bānen are not centered on a single station or urban area like S-bānen. They usually serve every single stop on the route, unlike R-bānen. L-bānen have comparatively low ridership and frequency, but they are still the backbone of rural Sassony’s economy, establishing important connections in more sparsely populated areas.
    Some L-bānen are still unelectrified and may run on diesel or hydrogen.


    Regionalbān

    The white R in a black circle stands for regionalbānen, or regional railways. R-bānen are trains running on national railways, connecting several cities or towns, but only stopping at important stations so as to reduce travel time. They also do not share their track with freight railways. R-bānen are often have computer control, bilevel cars, an average speed of 70 to 100 km/h, and a shared operation among up two four lands. R-bānen have a frequency between four trains per hour and one train every two hours, and travel distances of several hundred kilometers.
    The most important R-bān subnetwork is the RRR, or Regionalbānen Riŋ-Rūr. Their trains serve the trunk route between Køle-Dysldørp-Rūrstat-Ham with a headway of five minutes in both directions, then branching onto other railroads on either end.


    Magnetic Levitation Train

    Magnetic levitation trains or maglevs are currently the state of the art of transport throughout East Angria. Maglev tracks are equipped with two sets of heavy-duty magnets. The first repels the train, making it float a few centimeters above the track. The second set switches on and off again to pull the floating train forward, allowing it to accelerate quickly and reach speeds of up to 500 km/h. This technology has a higher energy efficiency than conventional railways at its average speed of 300 to 400 km/h.

    The monorail-like track is raised up a few meters above the ground on a pair of stilts, yielding a smaller environmental impact and allowing it to be constructed above existing railway tracks. The impact of difficult terrain such as steep gradients on track construction and on train operation is lower than with conventional railways. Once constructed, the tracks only require very little maintenance. Maglevs are also much less noisy than conventional trains.

    The maglev trains in Sassony are remotely controlled from a central operating station in Rūrstat-Dȳsbureś. They require no driver and no signaling along the track, and they are one of the safest modes of transportation in the world. It allows one to reach every metropolitan area or regiopolis within the anarchist commune within no more than a few hours.

    The design of the maglev tracks allows them to be upgraded to vacuum train tracks at some point in the future. Vacuum Trains, VacTrain, or vakuumbānen would travel through a vacuum tube of highly durable, but slightly flexible polymer, propelled by a combination of linear induction motors and air compressors. They would be able to reach travel speeds of up to 1200 km/h, which is significantly higher than that of jet airliners. Efforts are underway to collect plastics from landfills and from the world's oceans and recycle them into material for the vacuum tube.

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    Maglev train on the Ʃēde-Līn

    Maglev train at Dȳsbureś station

    Entering Amsterdam

    Vacuum train station concept

    The maglev train network currently consists of seven lines serving the whole country:

    • Nōrd-Zø̄d-Līn: This line is the longest by far. It goes from Ārhūs in the North to Letsebueś in the South, serving Hamborc, Hanōva, Ɣøtiŋen, Fraŋkfort and Zārbrige along the way.

    • Riŋdāl-Līn: The busiest line in the system follows the course of the river Riŋ from Fraŋkfort via Mēnts, Bon, Køle, Dysldørp, Rūrstat (Dȳsbureś) and Arnem to Amsterdam.

    • Ōst-Vest-Līn: The east-west line serves Dover, the British Channel Tunnel, Brysel, Oxe, Køle, Vopadāl, Rūrstat (Dyørpm) Ham, Builefeld, Hanōva, Brūnsvīk and Meideborc.

    • Rūrstat-Ekspres: Serves all five stations of Rūrstat: Dȳsbureś, Møln, Æse, Baukem and Dyørpm. Then it branches off onto one of the other lines as a supplement.

    • Hanze-Līn: This line runs from Lȳbēk in the northeast to Køle in the southwest. It serves Hamborc, Brēm, Osnbryɣe, Mønsta, Rūrstat (Æse) and Dysldørp.

    • Holand-Līn: The shortest inter-city line in the system goes from Amsterdam to Brʉsel via Roterdam, Brēdā and Antverp.

    • Ʃēde-Līn: The least busy route in the network. It runs along the northwest to southeast axis of the country, from Ɣøtiŋen via Patabuorn, Builefeld, Osnbryge and Liŋen to Ɣrōniŋe. The line originated from a smaller test track in Ēmsland, North Angria.

    Further lines are being planned to replace the most important Express Regional trains on the routes Hanōva-Brēm-Lēe, Lelystad-Ɣrōniŋe, Antverpen-Eindhōvn-Rūrstat and Ytrext-Eindhōvn-Oxe.


    Ferries
    The white Ʃ in a blue cirlce stands for Ʃip, meaning ship. This denotes all types of waterborne transport, such as ships, ferries, and boats. There are ferries that simply cross a river or canal in cities, there are some that reach islands in the North Sea, and there are some reaching over to other countries across the sea. Ferries are still largely operated by humans as opposed to computers. They often connect to railway stations or bus stops on land.

    Special Lines
    Street- and track-based public transport lines may include an extra letter in front of their usual designation:

    • E: Express lines only stop at the most important stations, thus reducing the overall travel time. They are often used during rushhour or with more limited service throughout the day.

    • N: Night lines replace the usual lines at some point between 8 PM and 1 AM in some networks.

    • D: Day-and-Night lines continue their service at night without being rerouted or replaced by another line. This is only applicable for systems with a distinct daytime and nighttime network.

    • A: On-demand (Anrop) lines only run if somebody orders them via telephone, app, or website.

    • I: Auxiliary (Inzats) lines are used to supplement the regular lines during peak hours or special events such as football games, university hours, or demonstrations.

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