Get set for 750mph tube rides
● Edinburgh University team hopes to help develop futuristic transport after successful test of Hyperloop vacuum system
The first successful test has been carried out on a transport system that could lead to journey times between Edinburgh and London being cut to 45 minutes.
Hyperloop One’s trial vehicle was propelled at 70mph along a vacuum tube using magnetic levitation at the firm’s development track in the Nevada Desert. It plans to carry passengers at more than ten times that speed.
A team from Edinburgh University has reached the final of a competition to find the most feasible site for the first passengercarrying system.
The prospect of travelling from Edinburgh to London in just 45 minutes moved a step closer after the futuristic Hyperloop One transport system made its first successful test.
A trial vehicle reached 70mph at the company’s development track in the Nevada desert, it has announced.
The shape of a large tray with wheels, it was propelled along a vacuum tube using magnetic levitation. It is due to eventually carry passengers more than ten times as fast.
Edinburgh University team HYPED has reached the final of a Hyperloop One competition to find the most feasible site for the first passenger-carrying system, and expects to hear the results by the end of this month.
It has proposed a route between Edinburgh, Manchester,birminghamandlondon, using 28-person pods.
The Hyperloop One test, in May, involved the vehicle operating for just over five seconds.
It plans to increase the speed to 250mph. The system’s planned operational speed is 750mph.
Shervin Pishevar, its cofounder and executive chairman, said: “Hyperloop One has accomplished what noone has done before by successfully testing the first full scale Hyperloop system.
“By achieving full vacuum, we essentially invented our own sky in a tube, as if you’re flying at 200,000 feet in the air.
“For the first time in over 100 years, a new mode of transportation has been introduced.”
Hyperloop One said the system’s components had been successfully tested, including its motor, suspension, magnetic levitation, electromagnetic braking and vacuum pumping system.
Nick Richardson and Jack Noble of HYPED said: “It is extremely exciting, especially since we are in discussions with Hyperloop One, proposing an Edinburgh-london route in the semi-finals of their Global Challenge competition.
“A full-system test is a true milestone for the hyperloop vision as a whole, and means we are one step closer to hyperloop becoming a reality.
“The test has successfully proven major technical challenges including magnetic levitation and braking, propulsion, and the vacuum tube the hyperloop travels inside.”
The HYPED team is also in the final of a separate contest to design a passenger pod prototype. The group will compete against 24 other groups in the Spacex Hyperloop Pod competition in California next month.
Hyperloop One also unveiled a prototype of its 28-feet-long passenger-carrying pod, made of aluminium and carbon fibre.
Mr Pishevar said: “Hyperloop One will move people and things faster than at any other time in the world. With Hyperloop One, the world will be cleaner, safer and faster.
“It’s going to make the world a lot more efficient and will impact the ways our cities work, where we live and where we work.
“We’ll be able to move between cities as if cities themselves are metro stops.”
However, one transport expert was sceptical the system would be feasible.
Robert Noland, professor of transportation planning and policy at Rutgers University in New Jersey, said: “Hyperloops are being designed with the hope of shooting people and cargo in pods through vacuum tubes at high speed.
“This concept was originally seen as a cheaper alternative to high speed rail in California.
“It is unlikely to be cheaper and is even less likely to be practical.
“Most of the costs of construction will be similar to any rail project, which includes right of way acquisition and station costs.
“For passenger transport, these have been criticised as essentially ‘barf’ [vomiting] pods, given the high rates of acceleration involved.
“Cargo transport might seem like a better option, but where is the market for such high speed cargo transport?
“Maybe countries such as Dubai, with ample undeveloped land, are willing to invest in a technology such as this, and labour costs may make it more feasible, but in developed countries the costs will be prohibitive.”
COMMENT “We essentially invented our own sky in a tube, as if you’re flying at 200,000 feet in the air”
SHERVIN PISHEVAR
Chairman of Hyperloop One