DP WORLD CHAIRMAN REPLACES BRANSON AT HYPERLOOP
▶ Sultan bin Sulayem will head the futuristic Virgin Hyperloop One
Sultan bin Sulayem, group chairman and chief executive of DP World, the largest ports operator in the UAE, replaced British tycoon Sir Richard Branson as chairman of Virgin Hyperloop One.
DP World is the largest shareholder of the futuristic company that plans to build a high-speed “pod” transport network. It also announced the appointment of Jay Walder as the new chief executive. Mr Walder who was formerly chief executive of bike sharing company Motivate will also sit on the board of Virgin Hyperloop One.
Mr Branson resigned from his position of chairman at Virgin Hyperloop One at the end of October, saying the role required more time than he could give.
The hyperloop company, which was inspired by Tesla’s Elon Musk, aims to connect cities’ commuting passengers at speeds in excess of 1,100kph. The company is currently in discussions to roll-out the first hyperloop system between the western Indian city of Pune to the country’s financial hub Mumbai. The technology uses magnetic levitation and low-pressure tubes to achieve aircraft-like speed. Virgin Hyperloop aims to build a network of high-speed links in the UAE, India, Spain and the United States. The National reported in October last year that Virgin Hyperloop was looking at a rollout of its technology in 2019.
By December last year, Virgin Hyperloop had raised $295 million (Dh1.08bn) in private finance and had demonstrated a form of the propulsion technology at a test site in Las Vegas.
It is now one of two companies vying to build the first such system in the UAE, the other is Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT), another company based in California.
Under the proposed UAE scheme, Virgin Hyperloop’s pods will take just 12 minutes to cover the distance between Dubai and Abu Dhabi. It currently takes around 80 minutes to drive between the two cities.
Burj Khalifa in Dubai and Etihad Towers in Abu Dhabi have both been identified as possible stations on the Dubai to Abu Dhabi route.
The company is also studying the feasibility of operating the pods alongside motorways, according to Dubai Tourism.
Phase one of the project could involve building a 20km-corridor running parallel to Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed motorway, serving areas such as Dubai South and Dubai Investment Park.
Virgin Hyperloop is also planning for a “cargo hyperloop”, called DP World Cargospeed, which is set to provide deliveries “at airspeed at the price of transport by land”.
The proposed network would serve both passengers and freight, connecting ports to the supply chain.
Time sensitive goods would be packed in special pods that would replace traditional shipping containers and could be loaded directly into hyperloop cargo bays.
The priority project for the company currently, however, is the Pune-Mumbai route, which the Indian government has declared a public infrastructure project in consortium with DP World and Virgin Hyperloop.
The company expects to start construction on an 11km test loop in 2019. Once completed, it will reduce travel time between Pune and Mumbai to just 25 minutes from four hours.