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| Swissmetro is an innovative magnetic transportation concept of high speed trains running inside partially evacuated underground tubes with speeds between 300 and 500 kilometres per hour. Some experts see Swissmetro as a promising alternative to both air and ground high-speed transportation.
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Technology field: Non-conventional trains (Maglev etc.)
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General information
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General criteria
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Environmental criteria
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Economic criteria
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Vehicle - fix costs: high |
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(no details available) |
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Vehicle - running costs: (no data) |
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(no details available) |
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Infrastructure - fix costs: high |
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At present, there is no reliable data on the infrastructure costs of Swissmetro systems. The following estimate on excavation effort may however be interesting in this context:
According to Ernst, Geisel et al. 2000, a Swissmetro system operated at 400 km/h has a significantly lower tunnel cross section than the tunneled parts of the track of ground-level HST systems without partial vacuum. Therefore, the excavation volume per unit of tunnel length for a Swissmetro system should be 3 to 4 times lower than that for the required tunnels of ground-level HST systems. In consequence, the construction requirements for a Swissmetro system should be in the same range as that for an HST or Transrapid system requiring 30 per cent tunnelling over a given distance. This should be even more so if additional construction work (bridges, embankments) is required for a ground-level HST system.
It has be taken into consideration that the Swissmetro infrastructure could not be integrated into existing railways system but would rather be additional to existing high-speed railway infrastructure. |
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Infrastructure - running costs: (no data) |
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(no details available) |
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Scale effects: (no data) |
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(no details available) |
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Amortisation: (no data) |
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(no details available) |
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Application outside railway sector (this technology is railway specific)
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Overall rating
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 date created: 2002-10-09 |
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| © UIC - International Union of Railways 2003 |
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