A Basic Developmental Scenario for the Maglev Highway ― Maglev Highway as the Future of Transport ―
A Maglev system, in which cars sit on magnetically levitated pallets, could potentially produce substantial benefits compared to conventional car travel, particularly on long distance routes. This paper describes basic developmental scenarios applied to the future of high-speed ground transportation.
Basic sensitivity analysis of parameters for the Maglev highway
This report supplements past studies by analysing operational situations, focusing on transport performance of the system to establish the major parameters of a Maglev Highway. Sensitivity analyses of the major parameters for transport performance that were established in this way - pallet weight, pallet air resistance, magnetic levitation gap length, linear motor gap length, and target speed - were performed to clarify the problems and challenges that will be faced when developing the Maglev Highway for use by passenger cars and large vehicles.
THE SHUTTLE HIGHWAY SYSTEM: A NEW DIRECTION FOR SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE OF THE AHS
The conventional road-vehicle system has many serious problems: environmental destruction, traffic congestion, accidents, and high construction and maintenance costs. The introduction of the intelligent vehicle-highway system (IVHS) may help to alleviate some of these problems; however, IVHS is still based on the conventional system and is not an essentially new concept. To overcome the fundamental problems explained above, and to improve the quality of human life in general, it is necessary to develop a completely new road-vehicle system--one that is faster, safer, more comfortable, less costly, more environmentally friendly, and easily integrated with the existing transportation systems. The basic concept of the Shuttle Highway System (SHS) is the electromagnetic connection between road and vehicle by the automated intelligent pallet vehicle (IPV). The driver still maintains control over the vehicle; however, in contrast with the conventional road-vehicle system, it is now the road rather than the vehicle that provides the driving power. Also, the vehicle is no longer "driven" in the conventional sense, but is rather transported automatically to its destination following the instructions of the driver. The various systems necessary to accomplish this objective--the IPV-road, driving motor, merging and diverging lanes, mode interchanges and vehicle fixation system--are each examined in this study. The SHS makes possible automatic, condensed, super high-speed, exhaust-free vehicle transportation. It uses narrower roads with fewer lanes, resulting in construction costs that are less than those of the conventional system. This new-generation road system promises to revolutionize the entire vehicle transportation system.