Personal rapid transit braking systems

A braking system for personal rapid transit equipped with a guideway (100) disposed along a predetermined path and vehicles installed to travel along the guideway (100), the brake system comprising:

• brake reaction rails (120) aligned along each of the inside walls of the said guideway (100) and continuously along the walls of the guideway switch sections;
• actuator shafts (320) movably installed at each side of the vehicle normal to the axial direction;
• link units, disposed opposite to each other being connected to said actuator shafts (320) and composed of pairs of links, for rotating at the re-set position to a predetermined angle in the reverse direction according to whether said actuator shafts (320) move forward or backward;
• a pair of brake arms (350), connected to each pair of said links and installed in a caliper arrangement so that the position and clearance of the lateral ends thereof can be varied according to a rotational angle of said links, for providing the braking force contacting with each of said brake rails (120) at a constant rotational angle of said links;
• a trigger unit (360) for holding the said actuator shafts (320) at a constant position or releasing the actuator shafts (320) when braking is necessary;
• spring members (370) for elastically powering the said actuator shafts (320) held by the said trigger unit (360), and for moving said actuator shafts (320) in the predetermined direction to then provide power for the brake application when the actuator shafts (320) are released from the trigger unit (360);
• and
• brakes (300), including a brake releasing unit (380) driven through intermeshed gear trains by redundant electric motors which are failure monitored, for moving said actuator shafts (320) in the reverse direction as necessary to reset the brakes in the `off` position.