The monorail is a transport system based on a single track (mostly on viaduct, with possible ground level or underground applications), which supports straddle or suspended vehicles, wider than the monorail beam.
This systems offers remarkable cinematic performances (low horizontal radius, high vertical gradient) with a low enviromental impact, thanks to the light infrastructures and to the viaduct solution: monorails, for all this reasons, have many applications in amusement centers (Disneyland, Mirabilandia, etc), parks, zoo and tertiary high tech districts.
In the last 10-15 years, thanks to the success of some applications and to the technological progress, monorails have been more often used as urban transport systems.
Many of these systems are fully automated (APM) and this tendency has became a rule in the last years; among the most important applications, the Siemens H-Bahn (Dusseldorf, Dortmund), The Bombardier UM II (Tampa Airport) and M-III (Jacksonville), the Intamin Moskow and Shenzen Monorails and the Hitachi track into Tokio-Disneyland can be cited.
One of the future most interesting monorails horizons are the so-called MAGLEV (acronym of "Magnetically Levitated and Propelled Vehicles"); Maglev monorails float over the guide track without the classical rolling motion, being suspended, guided and powered by electromagnetical strengths. Maglev monorail can be classified in:
EMS (electromagnetic, with electromagnets set on the veihicles)
EDS (elettrodinamici, with electromagnets set on the monorail beam)
INDUTRACK (with vehicle traction and control obtained with permanent magnets).
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