The latest step forward in the cut-throat and curious world of hyperloop transportation is actually (maybe) a major leap. India’s Maharashtra state has declared its intention to work with Virgin Hyperloop One to build a hyperloop between Pune and Mumbai.
According to Virgin Hyperloop One chairman Richard Branson, who signed a framework agreement for the project over the weekend with Indian prime minister Narendra Modi and chief minister of Maharashtra, Devendra Fadnavis, travelling via hyperloop on the connection between Pune, Mumbai and Mumbai’s international airport will take around 25 minutes, compared to two-and-a-half hours by car, or more than three hours by train. That’s if they ever get the thing built.
“I believe Virgin Hyperloop One could have the same impact upon India in the 21st century as trains did in the 20th century,” Branson claims. “The Pune-Mumbai route is an ideal first corridor as part of a national hyperloop network that will dramatically reduce travel times between most of India’s major cities to under two hours.”
The announcement is just that – an intention to build a hyperloop, starting with an operational test track, rather than spades in the ground. As WIRED discovered in 2016 when investigating the two major attempts to bring hyperloop technology to the masses, there’s a big difference between saying you’ll build a transportation network and actually doing so.
One of those companies, Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT), said it would build its first hyperloop “by 2018”. As of yet, that hasn’t happened – though on Thursday it announced it had signed a “feasibility study” for a potential hyperloop between Cleveland and Chicago. But with HTT, it's very much a case of talk with little action.
This weekend’s announcement is markedly different to the hype that’s surrounded the world of hyperloop since Elon Musk first announced his intention to build a vaccum- and maglev-powered transportation system back in 2013.
For one thing, the presence of Narendra Modi on stage alongside Richard Branson as he signed the framework agreement for the Virgin Hyperloop One track is a major signal of intent. Having the Indian prime minister present indicates that this is no longer wide-eyed entrepreneurs making outlandish plans for the future – many of which might not come off smoothly. Government involvement of any type gives Virgin Hyperloop One’s plans a veneer of legitimacy and would indicate that plans have progressed further than is being publicly shown.
That some details were released at the time of the announcement – the 25-minute journey time, the intention to connect 26 million people working in both parts of India, and the forecast that 150 million passenger trips a year could take place on the transport system – is even more heartening. Questions of capacity are among the most frequently asked queries about any hyperloop system, and to have them put front and centre shows that this could become a significant transportation system.
We even got information about money – after a fashion. The Pune-Mumbai route could result in $55 billion of socio-economic benefits over 30 years of operation thanks to a reduction in accidents, the amount of time spent on clogged roads and ongoing operational costs. Virgin Hyperloop One claim that 86,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions could be cut over the coming three decades as a result of commuters switching from trains or vehicles to the hyperloop.
However, for all the newfound transparency in the hyperloop world, we didn’t get concrete information about how much the hyperloop will cost, nor who will be funding it: Virgin Hyperloop One, regional or national government, or all of the above working together.
We also didn't get any sense of timescale. Richard Branson has form in setting start dates for technologies that are then pushed back and back and eventually dropped. In 2008, Branson told reporters that the first Virgin Galactic space flight would take place within 18 months; ten years on, we're still waiting. (WIRED has asked Virgin Hyperloop One for answers to all these questions, and will update this story if and when we get answers.)
And yet there are reasons to think this might be different. Governments can be easily wooed by grand promises made by big businessmen, but few will put their prime minister forward to endorse such a project if there’s not a real chance of success.
Only time will tell as to whether this is another false start in the illusory and strange race to build the world’s first fully-functioning passenger hyperloop system – but it seems like the realest, firmest plans yet.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
