Urban Monorail Vehicles for Chongqing

Manufacturer	Hitachi, Ltd.
Built for	Chongqing Rail Transit (Group) Co.,Ltd., China
Route	Line 2 of the Chongqing Monorail
Product type	Monorail cars
Year ordered, delivered or shipped	Ordered in November 2002
Launch of commercial operations	Opened on June 18, 2005

Hitachi, Ltd. and Mitsui and Co., Ltd. jointly received this order through the company Changchun Railway Vehicles. Eighty-four cars were manufactured: in Japan, Hitachi produced eight prototype cars and bogies for 40 cars, and under a technology transfer arrangement with Changchun Railway Vehicles, 76 cars and bogies for 36 cars were manufactured in China.

The design is based on specifications for urban monorail cars in Japan, with consideration given to conditions imposed by the Chongqing environment and the fact that the cars would be produced in China.

The city center has many steep slopes, buses, taxis, cars and other motor vehicles all contribute to the heavy traffic congestion, and atmospheric pollution is severe. A straddle monorail system was constructed as a public transit system capable of addressing these issues. It is China’s first urban monorail.

In addition, the signaling systems were delivered by Nippon Signal Co., Ltd..