After just more than a year since it announced what it called "a design breakthrough," Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) has released the results of its new, reduced-contact wheel profile.
BART says the new wheel profile has shown as much as a 15-decibel decrease in interior noise on the current fleet. Additionally, BART says the new wheel profile will no longer rely on the wheel flange catching the rail to turn around corner, which will "drastically reduce the amount of wheel and erosion, and will stretch the life of our infrastructure by many years." The new wheel profile has been outfitted on 13 percent of BART's legacy fleet and the transit authority estimates 90 percent of the fleet will be converted by 2019.