Technical and economic comparison of high-speed-rail and maglev systems

摘要

For around 150 years, high-speed guided transport was the sole preserve of the railway in its conventional "wheel-on-rail" sense, until magnetic levitation appeared on the marketplace as a novel means of achieving the same end and of doing so with improved performances. The apparent competition between the two high-speed technologies is frequently at the heart of lively debates amongst specialists. Unfortunately, it sometimes happens that technical and economic evaluations are made on the basis of obsolete data, or that arguments and computations are based on nothing better than estimates. To put an end to that situation, the German Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Housing ("BMVBW") commissioned an example-based comparative study of systems for long-distance transport back in 2003. The results of that study have taken the latest available data about both high-speed guided systems into consideration. Excerpts from it were presented at "Maglev 2004" in Shanghai.