Can Hyperloop actually transform India’s road transport?
If bullet trains that can travel as fast as 600 kilometres per hour (kmph) aren’t good enough, how about travelling in vehicles that can touch 1,200 kmph, rivalling the speed of planes? Two companies— Hyperloop One and Hyperloop Transportation Technologies Inc. (HTT) — are keen to introduce this technology in India.
The concept of Hyperloop, which can enable such highspeed travel, is the brainchild of Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX and Tesla Motors. However, Musk is not developing a commercial Hyperloop, a lowpressure tube in which magnetically levitated pod-like vehicles ferry passengers.
Hyperloop One is currently building a prototype in the Nevada desert in the US. Simultaneously, it is scouting for partners to whom it can license its technology to build Hyperloop routes in various countries. To that end, it launched a global competition— the Hyperloop One Global Challenge—in which several consortia participated. Of these, 30 were shortlisted, five of them from India, according to Nick Earle, senior vice president, global field operations, Hyperloop One.
“We are just weeks away from proving the technology with the world’s first demonstration,” said Earle who is on his first visit to India.
Earle and his team are in India to meet government officials and potential partners and assess what the five global challenge finalist teams from India will showcase on February 27-28. The shortlisted proposals from India include one to connect Bengaluru with Thiruvananthapuram, two to connect Chennai with Bengaluru, one to connect Mumbai and Chennai and one to connect Mumbai and Delhi.
“When we look at which country could benefit the most from Hyperloop, we look for large ridership population or freight demand, GDP growth, requirement for national productivity and the engineering and academic prowess to build this locally,” said Earle.
Alan James, vice-president of worldwide business development for passenger systems at Hyperloop One, said: “India is the primary spot in Asia as far as Hyperloop is concerned.”
That would appear to be true for its rival HTT as well. In December, Bibop Gresta, chairman and co-founder of HTT, met minister of road transport and highways Nitin Gadkari, and proposed to link Mumbai and Pune.
“The cost (of building the track) depends on the location. To be generic, it will be $40 million per km. But it is one-fourth of high-speed rail. When you consider investment in infrastructure, you also consider how fast you can recoup it. This investment can be recouped in eight years,” Gresta said.
Critics of Hyperloop claim that at such high speeds, there could be health hazards arising from travelling in Hyperloop (which can be built on the ground or in tunnels.