In Issue 215 (Jul-Aug 2025) Rail Engineer reported on how Coventry City Council had invited the public to ride on the prototype Coventry Very Light Rail (CVLR) vehicle. This ran on a 220-metre length of the CVLR’s novel trackform which had been installed in eight weeks.
CVLR has been developed to enable a light rail system to be constructed at a target cost of £10 million per km, which compares with around £60 million per km for recent tram projects. The aim is to enable UK towns and cities to afford a light rail system. Currently, the UK has only nine such systems compared with 250 in Europe.
Since 2018, the council, supported by Transport for West Midlands and DfT funding, has been working with the University of Warwick’s WMG to develop its CVLR system at a cost of £30 million to date. The result is an innovative, battery-powered, lightweight vehicle and a novel trackform.
This has a 105mm thick track slab made from ultra high-performance concrete of a high compressive strength. It has been successfully tested at a council depot where heavy vehicles subjected it to one million gross tonnes loading. With such a thin slab, installation of the CVLR requires a dig depth of 300mm compared with 600-900mm for conventional tram track. Hence it avoids the need to divert utilities which can cost around £16 million per km.
The trackform is designed to provide access to utilities – for example, it can be cut to accommodate an inspection chamber and, in extremis, the track can be quickly removed. The track was left in place following last year’s demonstration and, in August, was used to trial access and installation of new utilities by impact moling, horizontal directional drilling, vacuum excavation, and keyhole coring access. If CVLR is to be a success it is essential that the utility companies are comfortable with its track being laid over their utilities.
The next trials
In January, Coventry City Council announced an 850-metre double track CVLR route that is to be installed between Coventry Railway Station and Coventry University’s Technology Park where there will be a service area and charging station. This is being funded by the City Region Sustainable Transport Funding (CRSTS) and is scheduled to be operational by March 2027.
This will trial the operation of the CVLR vehicle alongside live traffic. This includes the installation of an autonomous ready vehicle control system integrated with the city’s traffic signal control system. The council will seek feedback from public and stakeholders on how the vehicle has evolved since its 2025 trial. Installing this new track will also demonstrate how the lessons of the 2025 trial can improve the speed of installation and affordability of the CVLR track.
The lessons from the 2027 trial will inform the business case and design of Coventry’s first commercial route which is intended to be an extension of this trial route to provide a 5km route to the West Midlands Investment Zone on the site of Coventry’s airport, which is to close this year.
It is expected that having the CVLR vehicle running through traffic in the streets of Coventry will stimulate both national and global interest, especially as the Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) World Congress is to be held at the nearby National Exhibition Centre in October 2027.
Image credit: Felix Schmid