The most torturous part about any holiday is the travel. Even if it’s a quick weekend trip between Mumbai and Pune you could end up spending 8 hours in transit. A new proposal from the government transport ministry may cut that journey down to a mere 25 minutes each way. The US based company Hyperloop Transportation Technologies has created a new form of passenger and freight transport – the Hyperloop – that is promising to reinvent the way we travel.
The system consists of small pod-like vehicle that is propelled though near-vacuum sealed tubes at the same speed as an aeroplane. The Hyperloop should theoretically be able to travel at speeds of 1,200 kilometres per hour with minimal energy and fuel consumption. The company has been backed by Tesla head Elon Musk and is being hailed as the vehicle of the future.
While the proposal was announced last year; on Sunday, Richard Branson of Virgin Hyperloop announced that a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed with the state to build the Mumbai-Pune hyperloop which would serve one of India’s busiest intercity corridors. Branson states on his blog that, “The Hyperloop route would link central Pune, Navi Mumbai International Airport, and Mumbai in 25 minutes and connect 26 million people. Supporting 150 million passenger trips per year, it would help create a thriving, competitive megaregion,” Since a MoU is not an official contract the official timelines and final terms have not been revealed. It would take about three years to construct a test track, which would also be part of the production track. The system would not only make travel convenient and hassle-free but, within 30 years Maharashtra will gain about $55 billion in social-economic benefits, accident reduction, and operational cost savings.
The Pune - Mumbai route is the first corridor of the several other projects planned across the country. Other projects include the Amravati and Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh which would be India’s first hyperloop and a Bengaluru-Chennai hyperloop is also in talks. We might not have reached the stage of flying cars but this system is surely taking modern transportation to the future.