Overview

State Key Laboratory of Rail Transit Vehicle Systemis a state key open research laboratory which is affiliated to the Chinese Ministry of Education and based on Southwest Jiaotong University. Preparations were started in 1989 for the construction of RVL. The first-stage construction was finished in 1993 and RVL started to carry out research and tests in 1994. In 1995, RVL was officially approved by the central government. In 2003, 2008, 2013 and 2018 the laboratory consecutively passed the national assessment four times and was honored as "Excellent State Key Laboratory” twice. The task of the laboratory is to strengthen scientific and technological research to meet the needs of China rail transit modernization, carry out basic science and its applied science research, explore new scientific and technological fields, train outstanding scientific and technological talents, and gradually develop into a representative national academic, experimental and management level laboratory base and academic activity center.

The laboratory gave birth to the "Shen-Hedrick-Elkin’s Theory" and "Zhai-Sun Model" which are widely used in the field of rail transit dynamics, and gave birth to the railway vehicle roller test rig that ran the world's highest bench test speed, and cultivates a large number of scientific giants, research elites and industry leaders. Taking high-speed railway, maglev transport, heavy-haul railway and novel urban rail transit as research objectives, focusing on basic sciences and key technologies, the laboratory has developed four main research areas, i.e., design and reliability theory of railway vehicle, rail system dynamics, traction power supply and transmission, and new rail transit technology. RVL is composed of 5 research institutions, 1 test research department, and 3 joint institutes. It has 2 experimental buildings, 1 office building and 1 simulation building. The laboratory has set up three platforms, i.e., high-speed train digital simulation platform, basic research experiment platform and service performance research platform. These three platforms cover the system design, prototype development, test verification, product optimization, service tracking of high-speed train. The faculty members are actively involved in many important national research tasks including the National Program on Key Basic Research Project, National Key Research & Development Plan and National Natural Science Foundations of China. Some remarkable achievements had been awarded 2 First Prizes and 8 Second Prizes for National Scientific and Technological Progress Award of China, 1 National Natural Science Award (second class), and contributed to 1 National Science & Technology Progress Award (special class) and 4 achievements were selected into the Top 10 Scientific and Technological Progress of Chinese Universities. TPL has established the International Journal of Rail Transportation and launched the International Conference on Rail Transit, and has possessed the Program of Introducing Talents of Discipline to Universities, Demonstration Base of International Science and Technology Cooperation of Ministry of Science and technology, and Joint Laboratory for International Cooperation of Ministry of Education.

The laboratory actively connects with the "Belt and Road" initiative and bravely assumes the mission of "a country with strong transportation network ", builds and improves the application basic research platform for the modern development of rail transportation equipment, and plays an irreplaceable role in the development of China railways in speeding-up, high-speed, and heavy load. The "Traffic and Transportation Engineering " discipline mainly supported by TPL has ranked first in the country (A+) for 20 consecutive years and has entered the national "double first-class" construction sequence.