4 ways the Hyperloop will change how we travel
If you are like most, you probably find air travel to be a stressful experience.
There’s the commute to the airport, the long lines to check your bag, the security check, and then once you’re finally on the plane, there’s the tight squeeze of sitting for several hours with barely any legroom.
And yet, air travel is really our only option for traveling hundreds of miles quickly. But the Hyperloop could change that.
The Hyperloop is a tubular transport system that carries passengers in capsules at speeds reaching more than 700 miles per hour. Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk first proposed the idea in a white paper published in 2013 and made his research public so others could pursue developing the concept. The LA-based startup Hyperloop One is doing just that.
But Hyperloop One doesn’t just want to build a system that is as fast as a plane. The company wants to create an entirely new travel experience, one that is a lot less stressful and a lot more convenient.
“It’s not about getting somewhere, it’s about being somewhere. We’re not trying to optimize the transportation experience, we are trying to eliminate it,” Brogan BamBrogan, Hyperloop One’s co-founder and chief technology officer, said at a company event earlier this month.
How exactly does it plan on doing this?
It will be more accessible and more efficient.
For starters, Hyperloop One wants to put stations in the middle of cities so that there’s no annoying commute to an airport-like hub outside metropolitan areas, Brogan BamBrogan, Hyperloop One’s co-founder, told.
“Effectively, the Hyperloop will move people about the speed of an airplane. But we can do it city center to city center as we integrate ourselves into tunneling, so that’s really a value add,” BamBrogan said.
That’s right, effectively you’d get to say goodbye to that $30 cab ride to and from the airport outside the city.
What’s more, because the Hyperloop is in a controlled environment and is completely autonomous, you will never be delayed because of weather or because of an operator’s error.
No more ticket lines.
BamBrogan also said the company wants to introduce a streamlined ticketing system so that lines are a thing of the past.
“Certainly, as we move forward, there’s going to be autonomous ticketing systems and you’re going to have an absolute elevator experience that is going to seamlessly deliver you to your destination.”
BamBrogan didn’t elaborate on how exactly this would work, but he did mention that part of the process could be through your smartphone.
In Musk’s white paper, he stated that all ticketing and baggage tracking would be handled electronically, effectively doing away with printing boarding passed and luggage labels.
The seats will actually be comfortable.
As for the seating, BamBrogan said the company is working to design passenger pods that are not only comfortable, but also spacious enough to allow people to keep their luggage with them at all times.
The company aims to share some renderings of potential pod designs sometime during the next three months, BamBrogan said.
It will be affordable.
In addition to being comfortable and convenient, the company also wants to make the Hyperloop affordable.
“Any Hyperloop form of transportation is going to be extremely low cost,” BamBrogan said.
“All the value the Hyperloop brings isn’t worth it at a very high price. So our goal is to make Hyperloop very inexpensive to deploy relative to other forms of transportation, so that on top of that low cost you would also get the high-speed extremely safe and energy efficient.”
While BamBrogan would not share a specific price point, Musk’s original white paper suggested a $20 one-way ticket.
