Are there any health or environmental hazards from the magnetic fields of a MagLev vehicle?
A. There are no health and environmental hazards from the magnetic fields around the MagLev vehicle. The magnetic fringe fields from the quadrupole magnets on the vehicles drop off much faster with distance than do the fringe fields from dipole magnets. This rapid decrease in fringe fields allows the magnetic fields in the passenger compartment to be at Earth ambient level, ~ 0.5 Gauss. All humans live constantly in Earth’s magnetic field and are adapted to it. They will experience no difference in field strength when they ride in a MagLev vehicle. In fact, people presently experience stronger magnetic fields than the Earth ambient value when they ride subways and electrified trains, when they operate electrically powered equipment in the home or when they walk down city streets. The magnetic fields in vehicles will be lower than in the above examples.
