Magline Transit system could offer Edmonton-Calgary commute in only 45 minutes
By Scott Sutherland
| Geekquinox – 21 hours ago
Magline Transit could be the future of commuting for AlbertaMagnovate Technologies, a company based in Edmonton, wants to bring the future to Alberta, by building a new high-speed transit system between Edmonton and Calgary that would cut the travel time down to just 45 minutes.
Right now, anyone who regularly travels between Edmonton and Calgary faces either a 6-hour round trip in the car, or spending hundreds of dollars a day on commuter flights. Magnovate's proposed new Magline Transit system would offer commuters a choice of traveling in small PRT (personal rapid transit) pods or in larger GRT (group rapid transit) cars, which would zip along at speeds of around 300 km/h, floating above elevated tracks using a technology called magnetic levitation (or 'maglev').
This would cut travel times down to just an hour, and at a cost that's just a fraction of the cost of flying ($60-$75 a ride to start, but apparently that would go down as more people began using the system). Another commuter option would allow you to drive your car up into an 'Auto Express' pod at your starting station, and then travel at speeds of up to 500 km/h, to cut down travel times even further.
Maglev systems have been tested and built in other parts of the world, and there are currently three systems in operation at the moment that are open to the public — Japan's Aichi High-Speed Transit Tobu Kyuryo Line (also called Linimo), China's Shanghai Maglev Train and the UTM-02 maglev system in Daejeon, South Korea.
The next big maglev transit line is supposed to be completed in Japan, running between Tokyo and Nagoya, in 2027, and there's been a lot of hype lately about Elon Musk's Hyperloop transit system between Los Angeles and San Francisco. However Magnovate's CEO, Dan Corns, believes his company's idea is better, cheaper and according to what he told the Edmonton Journal, it's also "closer to being real."
One aspect of the Magline Transit design that is a step up from previous maglev transit systems is that it includes a special switching technology that will allow a pod to exit off the main track at stations, to pick up and drop off passengers, and then rejoin traffic again once it's ready to go. Current systems don't allow for that kind of flexibility.
According to the Edmonton Journal article, prototypes of the Magline cars and track have already been built in California. The next stages of the plan are to construct three full-sized vehicles and a test track in San Jose, as well as a 1-km long track on the University of Alberta. Construction will apparently start early next year.
As for when this system might be available to the public, that will likely depend on whether Magnovate gets the funding it needs for the next testing phase. The cost of building the full system is expected to be as much as $10-$12 million per kilometre of track, although that's apparently only a tenth of the cost of other systems.
