The Green Mover Max was the first 100% low-floor articulated Light Rail Vehicle (LRV) to be built entirely in Japan. It was developed jointly by Kinki Sharyo

Kinki Sharyo

is an Osaka, Japan-based manufacturer of railroad vehicles. It is an affiliate company of Kintetsu Corporation.In business since 1920 and renamed The Kinki Sharyo Co., Ltd in 1945...

, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries

, or MHI, is a Japanese company. It is one of the core companies of Mitsubishi Group.-History:In 1870 Yataro Iwasaki, the founder of Mitsubishi took a lease of Government-owned Nagasaki Shipyard. He named it Nagasaki Shipyard & Machinery Works, and started the shipbuilding business on a full scale...

, and Toyo Electric Co., and introduced first in Hiroshima

Hiroshima

is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture, and the largest city in the Chūgoku region of western Honshu, the largest island of Japan. It became best known as the first city in history to be destroyed by a nuclear weapon when the United States Army Air Forces dropped an atomic bomb on it at 8:15 A.M...

 by the Hiroshima Electric Railway

Hiroshima Electric Railway

is a Japanese transportation company established on June 18, 1910, that operates streetcars and buses in and around Hiroshima Prefecture. It is known as for short....

 Company (Hiroden). It replaced Hiroden's ailing fleet of Siemens Combinos in 2005.

History - Project U3

In 1998, Siemens

Siemens

Siemens may refer toSiemens, a German family name carried by generations of telecommunications industrialists, including:* Werner von Siemens , inventor, founder of Siemens AG...

 won a contract from Hiroden for supplying what was at the time, its latest line of LF-LRT (low floor - light rail transit) streetcars called the Combino

Combino

The Combino is a low floor tram produced by Siemens Transportation Systems . The first prototype was produced in 1996 at the Duewag works in Düsseldorf; the trams are currently made in Krefeld-Uerdingen. Because of its modular design using standardised components, and the resulting reduced costs,...

s. Hiroden was also the first operator outside Germany to purchase Combinos, starting with 12 units.

According to Hattori, the development of LF-LRVs in Japan was delayed by several factors: overseas manufacturers held patents on many of the basic technologies; low domestic demand increased development risks and established fare-collection protocols. This poor development environment changed in November 2000 when the Barrier-Free Transportation Law was passed. This law required that operators respect accessibility standards when introducing new rolling stock and provided subsidies as tax-relief and tax-exemptions to compensate for the price differences between conventional cars and the more expensive barrier-free designs.

A year later, in 2001, Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (Japan) brought together a group of eight manufacturers who worked on the latest LF-LRT designs to develop a fully Japanese product. This product was to improve upon many Combino features such as low-floor (now down to 360 mm; 330 mm at doorways); VVVF (variable voltage variable frequency) motor capable of regenerative braking, maximum service speeds of 80km/h, and LRVs for both standard gauge (1,435 mm) and narrow gauge (1,067 mm).

Soon, three Japanese companies formed a consortium for creating an improved LRT that was better adapted for local running conditions - Kinki Sharyo, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and Toyo Electric Co. Christened as the "U3 Project", the aim of this collaborative effort was to create a "100% ultra-low-floor articulated light rail vehicle (LRV)" that would be the "Ultimate", "Urban", "User-friendly" Light Rail Vehicle.

Project U3 aimed to create a vehicle that was more spacious in terms of passenger capacity, more reliable, and, for which, most of the components could be manufacturer in Japan itself. Specific tasks were allotted to each of the four collaborators - MHI

MHI

MHI in an initialism which could mean:* Master of Health Informatics See Health Informatics* Mitsubishi Heavy Industries* Mild head injury* Monster Hunter International* Material Handling Instructions...

 took over bogie

Bogie

A bogie is a wheeled wagon or trolley. In mechanics terms, a bogie is a chassis or framework carrying wheels, attached to a vehicle. It can be fixed in place, as on a cargo truck, mounted on a swivel, as on a railway carriage/car or locomotive, or sprung as in the suspension of a caterpillar...

s, brakes, and inner/outer rigging's; Kinki Sharyo

Kinki Sharyo

is an Osaka, Japan-based manufacturer of railroad vehicles. It is an affiliate company of Kintetsu Corporation.In business since 1920 and renamed The Kinki Sharyo Co., Ltd in 1945...

 focused on design, car body, articulations, and drivers cabin; while Toyo Denki Seizo took responsibility for electric parts and control and drive units.

Hiroden was closely involved in this project as its “operation-service” adviser. The result was the "Green Mover Max", a vehicle that had more passenger seats, wider aisles (830 mm – to enable movement of wheelchairs) and lower dependence on foreign patented technology & component makers.

Hattori
notes that the key to the development of an indigenous 100% LF-LRV was the bogie with an independent wheel system, similar to the shaft-less wheel connection to the Combinos. Also similar was the placement of motor and drive unit installed to the outer side of the wheel, which helped in achieving a low-floor vehicle.

Providentially for the Japanese manufacturers, the Combinos started giving problems within a couple of years. Combino cars that had run more 150,000 km, cracks were reported on the connections between the sidewalls and the roof girders such that the safety of passengers in the wheel-less modules could not be assured in the event of a severe collision. This was not a problem specific to Hiroshima - similar problems were reported in other cities that had adopted the Siemens-Combinos, such as Düsseldorf

Düsseldorf

Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...

, Freiburg

Freiburg

Freiburg im Breisgau is a city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. In the extreme south-west of the country, it straddles the Dreisam river, at the foot of the Schlossberg. Historically, the city has acted as the hub of the Breisgau region on the western edge of the Black Forest in the Upper Rhine Plain...

, Augsburg

Augsburg

Augsburg is a city in the south-west of Bavaria, Germany. It is a university town and home of the Regierungsbezirk Schwaben and the Bezirk Schwaben. Augsburg is an urban district and home to the institutions of the Landkreis Augsburg. It is, as of 2008, the third-largest city in Bavaria with a...

, Erfurt

Erfurt

Erfurt is the capital city of Thuringia and the main city nearest to the geographical centre of Germany, located 100 km SW of Leipzig, 150 km N of Nuremberg and 180 km SE of Hannover. Erfurt Airport can be reached by plane via Munich. It lies in the southern part of the Thuringian...

, Nordhausen

Nordhausen

Nordhausen is a town at the southern edge of the Harz Mountains, in the state of Thuringia, Germany. It is the capital of the district of Nordhausen...

, Basel

Basel

Basel or Basle In the national languages of Switzerland the city is also known as Bâle , Basilea and Basilea is Switzerland's third most populous city with about 166,000 inhabitants. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany...

, Potsdam

Potsdam

Potsdam is the capital city of the German federal state of Brandenburg and part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. It is situated on the River Havel, southwest of Berlin city centre....

, Bern, Amsterdam

Amsterdam

Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...

 and Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...

. In March 2004 Siemens Transport Systems confirmed that body-shell problems were emerging at high mileages and it advised all operators to take out about 400 Combinos that had run more than 120,000 km.

This flaw in the Siemens Combino led to the speedy introduction of the GreenMover into the Japanese market, in 2005.

New models

The Green Mover Max consisted of five articulated sections on three cars, two of which were powered. The motors and gears were mounted outside the wheels, allowing them to rotate independently – as in the case of the Combinos.

The Green Mover T-5000 soon evolved into T5100 which had even better specifications - the seat were made more comfortable with spacious sofa seats being used in the front cars and the number of seats was increased from 52 to 62. The next version - Green Mover T5100 - had wider aisles: 830mm in the 5000 series to 880mm in the front cars and 1120mm in Car E, the middle car, of the 5100 series, making for a smoother flow of passengers through the cars. It was more comfortable for both seated and standing passengers. Also most components are made locally, thereby providing reliability and enhanced maintenance.

External links

• Hiroshima Electric Railway Company (Hiroden)
• Kinki Sharyo - Green Mover Max
• First 100% Low-Floor Tram - Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) Paper