There are hopes that hyperloop technology may soon make land travel as fast as flying, but its future is unclear.
“Hyperloop” has been an engineering pipe dream for decades, but it gained traction after Elon Musk published a white paper on the concept in 2013. Promising vacuum tube travel at speeds north of 600mph – making London to Paris doable in under half an hour – hyperloop’s cheerleaders claim the technology will fundamentally recalibrate how we evaluate distance, influencing everything from house prices to where we choose to go for our next city break. Others aren’t so sure…
Counting the cost
Predictably, hyperloop’s projected costs are the source of much debate. “The infrastructure is comparable to high-speed rail, but operating costs are much lower because it’s much more energy efficient;’ says Mark. “In most modes of travel, 85 per cent of energy consumption is used to overcome air resistance. You don’t have that in a vacuum.”
Critics are not convinced. “The capacity of moving people will be much lower;’ says Dr. Robert Noland, director of the Alan M Voorhees Transportation Center at Rutgers University in the US. “Currently, the capsules are smaller than a train.”
Significantly smaller, in fact. The first pod certified for carrying passengers in Europe – developed by the Technical University of Munich- carries just five people, and there’s no loo. This lack of capacity will keep fares high, says Noland, who reckons the money being sunk into hyperloop would be better spent improving existing infrastructure.