Wu Guanghui, vice-president of Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China, at a panel discussion at the ongoing annual session of the national legislature in Beijing. [Photo by Du Yang/China News Service]
Shanghai has been operating a maglev train line based on Sino-German technical cooperation between a metro station in Pudong new area and Pudong International Airport since 2006. The 30-km journey takes roughly eight minutes with the train running at a maximum speed of 430 km an hour.
Wu suggested a maglev route from downtown area of one city in the Yangtze River Delta region to that of another, for example, from downtown Shanghai to downtown Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang province.
"Shanghai-based Tongji University has mastered the technology to design maglev trains that can run at the maximum speed of 550 km an hour," Wu said.
"This means that a maglev ride will only take half an hour to run from downtown Shanghai to downtown Hangzhou, which will significantly promote the national strategy of the integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta region," he said.
Shanghai can also consider an underground maglev line from the downtown area to Pudong's Lingang area, the city's smart manufacturing base, to accelerate the development of the area, Wu suggested.
A report on the website of the CAE showed that a meeting attended by 90 domestic experts to launch a research project on a new generation of maglev technology was held in Beijing in December.
CAE Vice-President He Huawu said that the project would organize advantageous resources in the country to carry out strategic, comprehensive and forward-looking research on a transportation model combining maglev technology and a low-pressure vacuum environment.
