The Forums

Hi all,

What could be the factors that can make Maglev look more attractive compared to airports and air travel between two end points?

One important factor in current situation is electrical versus fossil/liquid fuel. What else would you consider very important?

Q2021 wrote: ↑

23. Oct 2021, 09:59

Hi all,

What could be the factors that can make Maglev look more attractive compared to airports and air travel between two end points?

One important factor in current situation is electrical versus fossil/liquid fuel. What else would you consider very important?

In principle, there are the top3 most important factors to influence travel behavior and mode choice:

• Price / Cost

• Travel time

• Travel quality; Comfort

These three factors determine the attractiveness of a transport system from the customer's point of view. At the same time, their importance varies from customer to customer: for some, price is the most important factor, for others a short travel time, etc.
In terms of travel time, maglev systems must provide direct connections to city centers in order to increase their system advantage over air travel.

Nice jok, but besides the point of connecting city centers, how about distance? Do we have any thumb rule like for x km both are nearly equal or maglev is better. Better in what sense? Well, may be how much time it takes a passenger gate to gate (time of entry and time of exit), cost of travel, incidence of delays e.g. weather related disruptions, etc. We can have a given number of passengers per year, or that can also be kept as a variable for the purpose of analysis.

Moreover, what do you think should be a country's strategy if it considers maglev. For now, let's ignore the money constraint. So, for example, are there long term benefits in connecting all major airports by a maglev network, and keep all intermediate major economic centers on the route. Of course, it can be done one by one, like first picking up the pairs between which the demand for air travel outstrips supply. Also, maybe some other important cities can be connected to the airport only by maglev. I mean cities which may not fall on that maglev network and which do not have an airport. Such cities may then not need an airport.

The big problem with passenger maglev is the cost, but the daytime fare could be reduced below that of planes between Sydney and Melbourne saving 5,000,000 tonnes of jet fuel per year while reducing the 500,000 trucks per year and getting the freight to freight sidings 8 hours faster in an overnight container train for next day delivery.

My proposal is for a single 14 meter diameter tunnel with launch shafts every 20 kilometres which the 700 km/h Japanese maglev train would push the pressure build up through exhaust valves keeping the air pressure at a breathable 11 psi.

Thanks Parrahub1!

Q2021 wrote: ↑

9. Dec 2021, 16:37

Thanks Parrahub1!

Thank you mate.

I have another couple of thoughts that have occurred to me and where high speed steel rail cannot have overnight container trains a Japanese maglev can earning at $1/kg up to $20,000,000 per night competing with planes and making the $60,000,000,000 tunnel viable while keeping daytime fares low.

The other thought I have is that you only need to make the front wheels steerable on the Japanese maglev to enter the freight siding.

PS May I also add it is important the two cities connected will only grow bigger.

Parrahub1 wrote: ↑

24. Nov 2021, 03:17

The big problem with passenger maglev is the cost, but the daytime fare could be reduced below that of planes between Sydney and Melbourne saving 5,000,000 tonnes of jet fuel per year while reducing the 500,000 trucks per year and getting the freight to freight sidings 8 hours faster in an overnight container train for next day delivery.

My proposal is for a single 14 meter diameter tunnel with launch shafts every 20 kilometres which the 700 km/h Japanese maglev train would push the pressure build up through exhaust valves keeping the air pressure at a breathable 11 psi.

Regards the African maglev it is hard to get anyone interested in the Sydney to Melbourne Japanese maglev with EXISTING demand so I do not have much hope for a POTENTIAL demand.

As Snowy 2 is being built to stabilise green power and high voltage DC power is all the go nowadays to connect green energy to where it is used, could 2 high voltage DC cables be put in the single tunnel between Sydney and Melbourne so whatever frequency is needed can be produced with a DC motor connected to an AC generator?

PS
20 multimodal TBM like Florence https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeTrLPx6h3U&t=1s could drive stage one Sydney to Canberra in one year.