IN THE LOOP
Human passengers mark new milestone for Virgin’s high-tech transportation system
IT COULD bring the transport utopia of the future, and it’s just reached another major milestone – Virgin Hyperloop carried its first human passengers this week. Safely. The test run on the 500m track might seem like not much to shout about, but it provided proof that the revolutionary transportation system can work.
All the company has to do now is scale it up to something a little bit more useful in terms of getting people from A to B.
Hyperloop is a new kind of train system, which was first theorised by Elon Musk – he of Tesla cars and SpaceX.
The basic idea of Hyperloop is to eliminate as much friction from the system as possible – this allows for high speeds and low running costs.
Essentially the Hyperloop capsules run through a tube which is more-or-less air free, and are raised millimetres off the ground by
magnets.
The electric motors that power the capsules are expected to be able to allow it to reach speeds in excess of 1,000kph – or 620mph. Speeds comparable to a cruising airliner.
Virgin has so far managed to hit speeds around 240mph, and has conducted more than 400 test runs on its DevLoop track in the desert just outside Las Vegas.
While they’re not the only company investing in this technology, they became the first to transport humans earlier this week.
Josh Giegel, Virgin Hyperloop’s co-founder and Chief Technology Officer, and Sara Luchian, the company’s director of passenger experience, were the first people in the world to ride on this new form
of transportation.
The trip didn’t last long – less than a minute, in fact – and the twoseater XP-2 test vehicle only just tipped over the 100mph on the run.
But the test is an important milestone on the way to proving the safety of the system and receiving the required certification to run commercial services.
At the moment Virgin has a series of projects, mostly in the US and India, working towards the construction of real-world Hyperloop systems.
In India, approval has been granted for work to start on a route between the cities of Pune and Mumbai.
When complete, the 92-mile journey will take 25 minutes.
At the moment if you travel by air,
it’ll take you more than four hours.
The next stage in testing the system is the building of a larger test track – work is expected to start soon on that in the US state of West Virginia.
Of course, Virgin is not the only company working on the technology – TransPod in Canada is developing a similar system.
North America does not have the monopoly on work, either.
In Europe Zeleros in Spain and Hardt in the Netherlands are also making good progress.
Hardt has developed a system that includes lane-switching technology – this allows capsules to switch tracks without slowing down, which leads to faster journeys in more complex systems.
Hardt’s vision is to build a Europe-wide network that brings the kind of convenience found in light rail underground railways to connect cities across the continent.
Of course, the technology is still experimental, and it will be the next decade at least before we start to see commercial operations. But if the dreams of all these companies are realised, it will bring revolution, not just to the way we travel, but to the way we live our lives.
Go to virginhyperloop.com for more on Virgin Hyperloop.