Development of contact-wire/battery hybrid LRV

Contact-wire/onboard battery hybrid railway electric vehicles run on a hybrid power source that enables energy to be fed from contact wires and /or onboard batteries. We developed a contact-wire/battery hybrid LRV (Light Rail Vehicle) and had it manufactured. This paper concerns the hybrid source technology for the contact-wire/battery hybrid system, and on the running results with onboard rechargeable lithium ion battery (600 V-system). The LRV ran on a commercial service on-street line on an actual operation diagram, and recorded a regeneration ratio of 41 % (the volume of regenerated energy divided by the energy consumed in powering), cutting the energy consumption by maximum 30 % over that of existing inverter vehicles, with the hybrid controlled running. The LRV also achieved the running distance by one spell of charge of 25 km over on a street line and 49 km on an existing railway main line.