Over the course of the next 50 years, hyperloop technology will spearhead a revolution in transportation. The power of personal mobility, at unprecedented levels of speed and convenience, will alter the landscape of cities, regions and countries. New highly competitive tech hubs, mega-regions and supra-borders will be created, defined by neither time nor distance. Transportation, more than any other technology sector, will determine the future concentration of human capital and, with that, speed the global development of education, wealth and investment.In 2019, we will see the completion of several feasibility studies in the United States, as we work towards the commercialisation of our technology in years, not decades.
Hyperloop will answer the key challenge of environmental sustainability. As mobility is the lifeblood of cities and essential to human life, it goes without saying that it should be highly efficient. It should also be exceptionally adaptable to urban and regional economic changes.
At Virgin we have been in the trains industry for several decades. But we are coming into an age when those trains – or, better yet, hyperloop pods – should, in fact, be on-demand. In the way that the railways powered the last 100 years, Hyperloop could transform the next. It is in this changing landscape of human connectivity that the hyperloop has gone from an abstract idea to an on-the-ground practical necessity. It is one that will be realised within the next decade as the first game-changing transportation technology in a century.
The last great industrial revolution - the one preceding our era of new transportation - was the rise of the internet and digitalisation. This has created transformative technologies that are changing the very foundations of city and regional economies. We see this every day in the emergence of smart products, the evolution of connectivity, cloud and Big Data, resulting in higher customer expectations and a massive increase in competitiveness. And this revolution has been powered by an increase in mobility and the influx of investment in tech hubs and smart cities. The improvement in sensor technologies in the last decade has brought about the wave of same-day delivery in shipping; with hyperloop, this will be reduced to the same hour or half-hour.
Tech-hubs and smart cities are becoming a new kind of regional or state capital. These data-driven cities tend also to have the best leadership one will find. In places such as Spain, India, the Middle East and North America, where hyperloop systems are being developed, leaders are developing a more sophisticated understanding of the areas they oversee, including the need for a sophisticated urban transportation system. Hyperloop will rise to this challenge. Imagine the impact a whole new level of immediate access will have. Trips could be reduced, for example, from three hours by train to 30 minutes, with prices comparable to intra-city public travel. What a difference that will make to all of our lives.
Central to all of this change is the issue that holds the fate of many an industry in its hands: sustainability. Sustainability is the reason for hyperloop’s existence. While there is still-viable competition from other transportation modes, sustainability will set hyperloop apart. From both an engineering and – yes – a marketing standpoint, we are genuine about changing the way the world travels in order to change the world.
The 2015 Paris Agreement called for a new technology framework to meet the challenge of climate change. To date, Virgin Hyperloop is the only transportation system that has risen to the agreement’s call. We have set a new international bar for transformative technology that is capable of fulfilling this global challenge. If every passenger trip on earth between 500km and 1,500km currently made on flights was made by a hyperloop, we could reduce yearly emissions by an estimated 58 per cent.
We have come a long way from the white-paper origins of this technology in 2013. The advances being made are almost a world away from what was proposed then. The aim has been not so much the creative destruction of the transportation sector as the creative concentration of it. Hyperloop is a pioneering technology with the power to create a fundamental, massive shift in human ingenuity and social progress – a genuine industrial revolution.
This article is part of our WIRED on Climate Change series. From the urgent race to make cows fart less to the battle over deep sea mining, we're taking an in depth look at the technologies and ideas at the forefront of our crucial mission to reverse the effects of global warming.
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This article was originally published by WIRED UK
