Port Island Line

The Port Island Line (ポートアイランド線), commonly known as Port Liner (ポートライナー) is an urban automated guideway transit (AGT) system in Kobe, Japan, operated by Kobe New Transit.

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.

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".

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.

History
Opened in 1981, the Port Liner was the world's first driverless urban transit system, more than two years ahead of the VAL system used on the Lille Metro, which opened in 1983.

Originally, before the 2006 extension to the airport, the loop section was single track and operated only counter-clockwise trains.

On 2 February 2006, the line was extended by 4.3 km to the new Kobe Airport, built on an artificial island near Port Island.

In an announcement in 2018, a proposal was made to extend the Port Island Line to 8-car operation following an increase in ridership.

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. Following the decommissioning of K computer, K Computer Mae station was again renamed as Keisan Kagaku Center station in June 2021.

Rolling stock

 * Kobe New Transit 2000/2020 series (since 2006)
 * Kobe New Transit 8000 series (from 1981 until 2009)