After a halt was called on the Munich Transrapid project,
ThyssenKrupp and Siemens held an advisory council meeting in Erlangen on May 8, 2008 at which they resolved to restructure their Transrapid activities. Inview of the reduction in sales and planning activities, the Berlin-based office of the joint venture Transrapid International (TRI) GmbH & Co. KG is to be closed at October 1, 2008. Transrapid International currently employs 38 people who will return to the parent companies from which they were originally seconded. ThyssenKrupp and Siemens are holding onto the core competencies of Transrapid technology.

Transrapid International was established in 1998 by the companies participating in the Transrapid consortium to carry out the Berlin - Hamburg Transrapid project. It was then involved in the Shanghai Transrapid project and in the “Metrorapid” projects in North Rhine-Westphalia and Munich. Recently the joint venture’s work has focused on providing planning support for the Transrapid project in Munich.