Hyperloop Promises to Cut 3.5 Hour Flight to 30 Minutes Travel

Imagine if you could travel from Delhi to Rajasthan in under half-an-hour. What if you were not even required to board a flight for this travel? Seems like a distant dream that can be fulfilled only in sci-fi movies. However, Los Angeles-based startup Hyperloop One is seeking to realise this dream of fast-travel and has already developed a blueprint for the job.

In its release on Tuesday, the company said that a Hyperloop connecting Stockholm in Sweden, and Helsinki in Finland, could transform a near 500-km trip, that usually takes around 3.5 hours by flight (ostensibly including travel to and from the respective airports and wait times), into a mere 28-minute ride in capsules via low-pressure tubes.

(Also see: Hyperloop One Test Bodes Well for Transit's Fast Future)

The company has put up a proposition that says it would only need EUR19 billion or $21 billion (roughly Rs. 1,40,000 crores) to build it.

The company claims that the travel by Hyperloop will be cheaper compared to typical high-speed rail and is expected to generate somewhere between $969 million (roughly Rs. 6,550 crores) and $1.1 billion (roughly Rs. 7,430 crores) in ticket sales annually.

It also said that it would take 12 years to complete a Hyperloop between Sweden and Finland.

However, Hyperloop One believes that the cost of building the setup will be offset by the hike in property rates in areas where Hyperloop will be available, and even on account of increase in productivity that will come along as a result of this extremely fast transit-system.

According to the study produced by FS Links Ab and put forward by the company, the Hyperloop between Sweden and Finland will start generating surplus after ten years thanks to its economic benefits.

In regards to funding, the study has recommended capturing some part of the value from increased property rates, a method used by several governments to fund transit projects around the world.

Last month, a Russian state fund said that it had invested in Hyperloop One. It made the undisclosed investment during an April fundraiser along with General Electric and the French railway company SNCF in order to implement the project in Russia, the fund's chief Kirill Dmitriyev had said in televised remarks.