Unmanned underground transport trials in Guangzhou

The APM system in Guangzhou (Photo by People's Daily Online)
The world's first underground automatic passenger transportation machine (APM system) performed a trial run in southern China’s Guangzhou City on Nov. 8.

The unmanned APM has two separate carriages and took 23 minutes to run a round trip of 8 kilometers from the starting station to the terminal station.

The APM line connects the two top business districts in Guangzhou City and also strengthens ties with southern districts without taking up ground resources, thus it will become the inner city "gold Express."

The terminal station of the APM system is to be temporarily closed on the opening day because of the upcoming Guangzhou Asian Games, and another two stations located in the core area of the Asian Games will not be opened until Nov. 26, one day before the closing ceremony of the Asian Games.

According to the Guangzhou Metro Corporation, the APM system is a fully underground, totally closed and unmanned short-haul passenger transport system. Its carriage is similar to a subway train but has rubber tires like a bus, which run on concrete tracks instead of rails.

The automatic system is run under the control of a main control center. Its maximum operating speed is 60 kilometers per hour with daily delivery capacity of 50,000 passengers.

Currently, the system has two separate carriages and is capable of loading 276 people on board every time. It may be increased to three carriages in the future depending on the traffic situation.

There are only four seats on each carriage of the unmanned APM system because it is designed so that most passengers will stand, and there will be no working staff at every station in the long run.

Passengers can use intercom facilities at station halls and platforms to communicate with the main control center when they need to achieve intelligent traffic.

By Li Mu, People's Daily Online