Hyperloop’s roadshows aim to attract funds HOVERING IN A LIGHTNING POD

Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) is geared up to bring its super-fast mode of commuting to India and is conducting roadshows across the country to attract $120 million for funding its pilot project.

Hyperloop is a supersonic train that could, for example, transport passengers from London to Edinburgh or LA to San Francisco in half an hour.

The company intends to finish its first prototype for What is hyperloop? A supersonic train that could, for example, transport passengers from London to Edinburgh or LA to San Francisco in half an hour How will it work? Hyperloop will involve passengers travelling in pods levitating inside massive tubes, surrounded by a cushion of air. India by 2020. “We have identified 15 routes, of which the government would select one for building the prototype. We can build a full-scale prototype in 38 months,” Bibop G Gresta, chairman, Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, told this newspaper. Supersonic speed? How? This cushion, along with reduced air pressure inside tubes, will lower friction and allow pods to travel at insane speeds in safety What will propel pods? Magnets or air expelled from the vessels, and tubes would be suspended off ground to protect from weather conditions, quake

After testing the prototype, the government should be ready with full-fledged Hyperloop within a decade or maybe earlier, he said.

Roadshows to raise $120 million have started in Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru. The money raised would be used to build the first prototype and a research and development (R&D) centre.

HTT has prepared five feasibility studies in four states — Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, Maharashtra and Odisha — and is looking at executing these projects on a public-private-partnership basis.

Gresta met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday to put forward his company’s idea. “We want the government to put in a little investment and we would put the remaining for execution of such contracts,” Gresta said.