Abstract: Accurate and real-time measurement of traction motor speed plays an important role in electric multiple unit (EMU) traction control system. According to the characteristic of EMU speed measuring system, this paper proposes a method for traction motor speed estimation. This method obviously overcomes measurement time delay caused by low resolution of speed encoder, and speed estimation accuracy is not affected by traction motor parameters and their variation. By this speed estimation, EMU traction control system can increase speed precision, and improve flux orientation accuracy at the same time. The control system performance is heightened mostly during low speed area and dynamic process of speed regulation. At last, this paper shows the correctness and validity through Matlab simulation and experiment on real test-rig.