The , commonly known as is an urban

automated guideway transit An automated guideway transit (AGT) or automated fixed-guideway transit or automatic guideway transit system is a type of fixed guideway transit infrastructure with a riding or suspension track that supports and physically guides one or more dri ...

(AGT) system in

Kobe Kobe ( ; , ), officially , is the capital city of Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. With a population of around 1.5 million, Kobe is Japan's List of Japanese cities by population, seventh-largest city and the third-largest port city after Port of Toky ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

, operated by Kobe New Transit. The initial system linked

Sannomiya Station Kobe-Sannomiya Station (), or simply Sannomiya Station (), is a major interchange station located in the Sannomiya area in the heart of Kobe, Japan. This station is the main transport hub of Kobe. Lines Sannomiya is served by the following ...

, Kobe's main transit hub, to the man-made

Port Island is an artificial island in Chūō-ku, Kōbe, Chuo-ku, Kobe, Japan. It was constructed between 1966-1980 (Phase 1) and 1987-2009 (Phase 2) at the Port of Kobe, and officially opened with an trade fair, exposition called "Portopia '81." It now ho ...

, covering a distance of with 9 stations.

Route

As the map indicates, the present system consists of one straight line, originating at Sannomiya Station and terminating at Kobe Airport Station, and a loop attached to the middle of the straight line. The stations on the former are numbered with prefix "P" and on the latter (except those shared with the former) are with prefix "PL". The main section between Sannomiya and the airport is entirely

double track A double-track railway usually involves running one track in each direction, compared to a single-track railway where trains in both directions share the same track. Overview In the earliest days of railways in the United Kingdom, most li ...

, but the remaining of the loop has not been rebuilt so that the three stations with PL prefix still serve only one way.

Stations

All stations are located in Chūō-ku, Kobe.

History

Opened in 1981, the Port Liner was the world's first driverless urban transit system, more than two years ahead of the VAL system used on the

Lille Metro The Lille Metro () is a driverless light metro system located in Lille, France. It commenced operations on 25 April 1983 and was the first system to implement the Véhicule Automatique Léger (VAL, ) technology. While sometimes cited as the ...

, which opened in 1983. Originally, before the 2006 extension to the airport, the loop section was

single track Single may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Single (music), a song release Songs * "Single" (Natasha Bedingfield song), 2004 * "Single" (New Kids on the Block and Ne-Yo song), 2008 * "Single" (William Wei song), 2016 * "Single", by ...

and operated only counter-clockwise trains. On 2 February 2006, the line was extended by to the new

Kobe Airport is a primarily domestic airport on an artificial island just off the coast of Kobe, south of Sannomiya StationAIS Japan

, built on an artificial island near Port Island. In an announcement in 2018, a proposal was made to extend the Port Island Line to 8-car operation following an increase in ridership. Minatojima Station, Iryō Center Station and K Computer Mae Stations were renamed on July 1, 2011, from Shimin Byōin Mae Station, Sentan Iryō Center Mae Station and Port Island Minami Station respectively. Following the decommissioning of

K computer The K computer named for the Japanese word/numeral , meaning 10 quadrillion (1016)See Japanese numbers was a supercomputer manufactured by Fujitsu, installed at the Riken Advanced Institute for Computational Science campus in Kobe, Hyōgo P ...

, K Computer Mae station was again renamed as Keisan Kagaku Center station in June 2021.

Rolling stock

* Kobe New Transit 2000/2020 series (since 2006) * Kobe New Transit 8000 series (from 1981 until 2009)

References

External links