At present among the most important problems in the field of traction systems of railway vehicles are the following: 1) the minimization of the mass-and-overall dimensions of the drive systems; 2) the increase of the drive systems reliability and obtaining their higher fault-tolerance abilities; 3) the minimization of the motion speed pulsations and its oscillations, etc. The results of the researches received by the authors of this paper show that the use of the multiphase (i.e. having the number of phases more than four) inverter-fed induction motors in these traction systems is the most effective way of solving the above mentioned problems. In this case the motion speed oscillations can be decreased only by the increase of the drive phase number without any change in the inverter control algorithm. In addition, the application of some non-traditional control methods in the multiphase asynchronous traction drive system of a railway vehicle allows to decrease the mass-and-overall dimensions of the system and to improve its reliability and some other technical-and economic characteristics.