Port Island Line

Port Liner
Sannomiya Station of Port Liner
Overview
Owner	Kobe New Transit
Locale	Kobe
Termini	Sannomiya Kobe Airport
Stations	12
Service
Type	Automated guideway transit
Rolling stock	2000 series, 2020 series
History
Opened	February 5, 1981
Technical
Line length	10.8 km (6.71 mi)
Electrification	600 V 60 Hz 3-phase AC Third rail
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Legend
km km P01 Sannomiya 0.0   P02 Bōeki Center 0.8   P03 Port Terminal 1.8   P04 Naka Kōen 2.8 2.6 P05 Minatojima 3.3     1.7 Kita Futō PL09 P06 Shimin Hiroba 3.8 0.0   1.2 Naka Futō PL08   0.6 Minami Kōen PL07 P07 Iryō Center 4.6   P08 Keisan Kagaku Center 5.4   P09 Kobe Airport 8.2   km km

The Port Island Line (ポートアイランド線, Pōtoairando-sen), commonly known as Port Liner (ポートライナー, Pōtorainā) is an urban automated guideway transit (AGT) system in Kobe, Japan, operated by Kobe New Transit. Opened in 1981, the Port Liner was the world's first driverless urban transit systems, a few years ahead of the VAL system used on the Lille Metro, which opened in 1983.

The initial system linked Sannomiya Station, Kobe's main transit hub, to the man-made Port Island, covering a distance of 6.4 km with 9 stations. On February 2, 2006, the line was extended by 4.3 km to the new Kobe Airport, built on an artificial island near Port Island.

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".

Originally, before the 2006 extension to the airport, the loop section was single track and operated only counter-clockwise trains. Presently the main section between Sannomiya and the airport is entirely double track, 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.

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.^[1]

Rolling stock[]

• (since 2016)
• Kobe New Transit 2000 series (since 2006)
• Kobe New Transit 8000 series (from 1981 until 2009)

See also[]

• Rokkō Island Line
• Airport rail link

References[]

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Port Island Line.

• Official site (in Japanese)
• English part of official site(in English)