Media Partnership: Sustainable Future for European Transport: Levitating MagRail Trains on Existing Railways

When one considers the future of transport, typically it is assumed to be simple extrapolation and evolution of existing technologies. On the one hand – it's about spreading its range (i.e. construction of further High-speed rail lines), on the other – it’s about continuous improvements that allow to reach better operational parameters and reliability while reducing unit variable costs (i.e. decreased usage of energy per passenger km). However, these continuous improvements are reaching their barriers: railways, after almost 200 years of improvements, seem to have limited possibilities for further upgrades of efficiency, while aviation – despite declared ambitious net-zero goals – is still far away from reaching these targets.

Today, societies have two main goals related to transportation. First, they want it to be as sustainable as possible, as the climate crisis becomes an increasingly important issue. Second, the reduced carbon footprint cannot come at a cost of reduced mobility. Railways, considered as the most sustainable mode of transportation, can offer an alternative to regional aviation to an extent, but with speeds up to 300kph they are not competitive at distances above 1000km (i.e. at a majority of intra-European “regional” routes). In other words, there is a substantial market gap – lack of a next-gen zero-emitting transport mode, which would be competitive against aviation at distances ranging from 1,000 to 3,000 km.

A European company, Nevomo, is bridging this gap by developing a new generation of High-speed railways. During the first part of the event Nevomo will unveil results of unprecedented levitation tests on conventional railway infrastructure using its revolutionary MagRail technology. Levitation capabilities drastically reduce friction, increase efficiency and speed, while retrofitting existing rail systems is both cost-effective and environmentally friendly, and allows for interoperability with already deployed trains.

After that panelists will discuss the social, economic, and environmental impact, as well as potential financing opportunities of levitating MagRail trains on already existing railway infrastructure.