The concept of a high-speed pneumatic tube transport system was first put forward by Russian professor Boris Weinberg in 1914. He outlined the “vactrain” in his book Motion without Friction (Airless Travel), which proposed a design for a very high-speed train using maglev in vacuum tubes. This, said Weinberg, would lower the air resistance and would mean the trains could travel at speeds of up to 8,000km/h (4,970mph).
The concept was reintroduced in 2012 by the entrepreneur Elon Musk, although this time with the suggestion that it would travel at the slightly more reasonable speed of 1,200km/h (745mph).
For many, the idea of hurtling people in levitating pods through low-pressure tubes at such speed seems more science fiction than science fact. But a US company, not associated with Musk, is fast on its way to making the transport system a reality. Hyperloop One, which was founded in 2014 in a Los Angeles garage, has assembled a 200-strong team, including world-class machinists, designers and engineers, most recently from aerospace companies Northrop Grumman and SpaceX.
Speeding ahead with development, the company successfully tested its linear motor last May and plans on testing a 3km full-scale prototype in the Nevada desert this year. It is also developing routes in five countries and hopes to move cargo by 2020 and passengers by 2021.
In theory, the transport system could drastically cut travel times. A journey from San Francisco to Los Angeles could take just 30 minutes, opening up economic opportunities and reducing congestion on roads and in the sky. It could also have a big impact on the transport of goods.
While the technology promises a great deal, it is undoubtedly viewed by many with a fair amount of scepticism. But, as far as Hyperloop One is concerned, the project is more than just a pipe dream.
The Hyperloop One system uses a linear induction motor to accelerate a levitated pod to cruising speeds of up to 1,126km/h (700mph) through tubes maintained at very low pressures. The pods use passive magnetic levitation, eliminating the need for superconducting magnets or powered electromagnets.
A set of levitation magnets below the pods is arranged in a special pattern known as a Halbach array that creates a strong downward magnetic field as the pods accelerate across the conductive track, lifting the pod off the track. Pods and transporters can carry up to 20 or 30 passengers and any kind of cargo, even as large as standard shipping containers. The transporters will be pressurised to keep people and contents comfortable while travelling through the tube. This low-pressure environment dramatically reduces drag, allowing the pods to achieve high speeds with less energy expenditure. The power for the system can come from any grid source, including renewables.
Alan James, vice-president of business development at Hyperloop One, says: “A typical train always has its engines on when moving forwards, but we will only be powered for 10% of the journey. This offers huge energy savings.”
Josh Giegel, co-founder and president of engineering at Hyperloop One, says: “Combining these technologies means that you form a very unique grouping that is on-demand, weatherproof, direct to destination, ultra-safe, ultra-fast, with an elegant energy system. The key word is system – for moving people and goods. We are building that right now.” What Giegel stresses is that Hyperloop is “definitely not a train in a tube”. It won’t stop at every point along the way from A to B like a typical mode of public transport. Instead smaller pods will be able to go to a destination without stopping, travelling in a two-way tube, to allow pods to pass each other.
The tube transporter could be used to move pallets, packages, cargo or passenger pods and will be built upon an “autonomous backbone”. Giegel explains that, as companies develop different cargo and passenger solutions, they will be able to integrate into the Hyperloop network. They will have a “digital key,” like a motorway toll booth, that means they can move seamlessly into the network.
Giegel also envisions passenger pods that are highly customisable. He says: “What if these pods could drive out on the road like other vehicles, or put existing street vehicles into the transporters? What if I ordered an Uber taxi and it could enter the Hyperloop transporter and travel huge distances, door to door, faster than ever before?”
Those working on the Hyperloop One project have a tendency to wax lyrical about its transformative potential for society. James likens the impact Hyperloop One could have on the global economy to that of the steam train. However, there is still a way to go to prove the technology.
Last May, the company accelerated a sled to 187km/h (116mph) in 1.1 seconds on its 3km track. It will soon begin building a full-scale test bed, with prototype tests scheduled to begin this year. And the first Hyperloop manufacturing plant has been set up in Las Vegas. The 10,000m2 facility will not only build components for the test bed but eventually for Hyperloop projects across the world.
Companies and governments are taking the potential of the technology seriously. Hyperloop One announced a series of partnerships last year, including with Deutsche Bahn Engineering and Consulting and the British engineering consultancy Arup.
James says: “We are delighted that a couple of tier-one democracies have seen the strategic potential of Hyperloop and are working with us to potentially deliver a proof-of-operations facility in their countries.” He says there have been discussions about the potential to develop such facilities in Finland or the Netherlands. He explains that Hyperloop is keen on developing a facility in the EU because it has the “most advanced safety case and regulatory regime in transport anywhere in the world”. This would also open the door to the technology being accepted in other countries.
There is a full-time team in Dubai working to bring the technology to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on two fronts. The first is a case study in partnership with the port operator DP World. The DP World home port of Jebel Ali will be used to study the feasibility of using Hyperloop to shift containers from ships to inland distribution centres. While the route would only cover tens of kilometres it would serve as a prototype to measure the benefits of potentially taking thousands of truck movements off the roads.
James says: “This is something that can be used at other ports around the world where there is a long haul between the coast and major markets. For example, West Africa has major markets a long way inland, several hundred kilometres from the coast. Over those kind of distances Hyperloop can massively accelerate logistics and distribution.”
Hyperloop One hopes eventually to be able to transport a container from the Pacific to Europe in one day, a journey that would take six weeks by ship. “The transformation that would deliver to global trade is almost beyond imagination,” says James. “Needless to say that isn’t a project for this week.”
Last November, Hyperloop also signed an agreement with the UAE Road and Transport Authority to create a route from Dubai to Abu Dhabi. The journey would take only 12 minutes and it is hoped that it will be operational by 2021. The first stage of the project will be to link in to strategic points along the route. One is likely to be between the existing airport in Dubai and a new one that is under construction. James says: “That creates a multi-runway, super airport and enables flexible operation between those sites. Just in the same way as it would if, say, Gatwick, Heathrow and Birmingham airports were connected by Hyperloop.”
Unlocking major economic value is a key selling point for Hyperloop One. The company has prepared a business case for a route from Helsinki to Stockholm. It currently takes 3.5 hours to travel from one city centre to the other. “We turn that into 28 minutes,” says James. “It creates a super region and it doesn’t matter where you live or where you work.”
Serious effort is also being put into a case for a route along the east coast of Australia, from Sydney to Melbourne. Multiple flights currently travel to and from these cities daily, which consumes airport capacity at each end and means that towns along the route are missing out on potential business from commuters.
“We can solve all of those things for less than the price of building a new airport in Sydney that would be required if you did nothing about it,” says James.
While it may be straightforward to foresee routes being opened in countries such as the UAE where there isn’t a great deal of ageing infrastructure, it would seem to be more problematic in the UK or across the EU. However, the company is looking at how it could hook into existing transport systems, or share transport corridors. For example, there has been a proposal by a German team to build a Hyperloop route suspended above the autobahn. James says: “It is a really clever use of the corridor and it actually reinvents the autobahn.”
Despite the technology sounding far-fetched, it has gained a great deal of traction in recent years. Hyperloop One has not only met with interest from governments and industry, but also received financial backing: last May it closed an $80 million series B funding round which included investment from the French rail company SNCF.
Whether it can continue to secure funding to propel the technology into commercialisation remains to be seen. If it can, the futuristic vision of a super-fast transport system, first envisaged back in 1914, could soon become a reality.
Did you know?
Alan James, vice-president of Hyperloop One, was behind the failed UK Ultraspeed maglev project. UK Ultraspeed was a high-speed magnetic levitation train with a proposed 800km (497-mile) route between London and Glasgow. The project was first proposed as an alternative to High Speed 2.