3.7 Normal-conductive Maglev Ë 77Fig. 3.6:Cross section of the scheme of the
Japanese HSST system. (1) Windings. (2)
Reaction plate. (3) Gap sensor. (4) Levitation
magnet. (5) Levitation system. (6) Propulsion
system. (7) Air spring. (8) Vehicle [96].The first commercial train of the HSST Maglev system (HSST-100 type) [88, 89] began
revenue service on the Tobu Kyuryo Line in the suburbs of Nagoya City in Japan
on March 6, 2005. This route is 9.2 km from the Fujigaoka subway station in Meito
Ward, Nagoya (Aichi Prefecture) through Nagakute Town to Yakusa Station on the
Aichi Kanjo (loop) line in Yakusacho of Toyota City and has nine stations. There
are 3-car trains and the capacity is 3500 passengers/hour. End-to-end trip time is
15 minutes, with 6-minute interval (frequencies) in the peak period and 10-minute
interval during the off-peak period. This is the first full-scale commercial application
of the medium-/low-speed urban Maglev technology in the world.
In 1989, the R&D project for a low-to-medium speed EMS Maglev system started in
Korea.TheurbanMaglevsystemengineeringprogram[90,91]startedinDecember2006.
The program is composed of three core projects: systems engineering, vehicle develop-
ment, and demonstration line construction. The prototype vehicle of two permanently
coupled Maglev vehicles was built in December 2009 and transferred to a 1.3-km test
track in KIMM, Daejon, Korea. Jia-Su Wang and Su-Yu Wang took the prototype Maglev
vehicle during the Maglev International Conference in 2011. The urban EMS Maglev
vehicle system operation is stable and comfortable. An objective of the program is to
develop a competitive urban transit Maglev vehicle and to construct a 6.1-km urban
Maglev demonstration line at Incheon International Airport. In February 3, 2016, this
urbanMaglevlinewasopenedtolinkIncheonInternationalAirportandYongyuStation
and holds an operating speed of 110 km/h. therefore, Korea has the world’s second
commercially operating unmanned unban Maglev line after Japan’s Linimo.
Since the late 1980s, under the support of the Chinese Ministry of Science and
Technology, a national program has started to study the key technologies of Maglev.
Four research and development groups were organized at the National Railway Aca-
demy, the Southwest Jiaotong University (SWJTU) (Fig. 3.7), the National Defence
University, and the Institute of Electrical Engineering of the Chinese Academy of
Sciences. Significant success has been achieved, and several prototype vehicles were
built. The scheme is similar to the HSST in Japan, which uses EMS normal-conductive
Maglev, i.e. an electromagnet for levitation and a LIM for propulsion.