12 Dec December 12, 2016 Network of the ultrafast transport system that runs at speeds of around 1,200 km/h will include 20 km of main corridor running parallel to Shaikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Road. Capable of running a pod every 10 seconds, the hyperloop is expected to carry 15,000 passengers per hour per direction. “We would like to see people riding on a hyperloop to Expo 2020. We are ready to deliver well before 2020. The technology is ready and all we need to do is put things together. Though we still haven’t finalised the exact route, we will most certainly serve the Expo,” said Colin Rhys, creative director of Hyperloop One, that is doing a feasibility of study for the superfast transit system in Dubai. Last month, the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) signed an agreement with Hyperloop One, the US-based firm that is developing the high-speed technology. “We are glad to have partners like RTA who are supporting us with regulations and standards. We are working together on the field to identify the possible route alignments and hopefully we will finalise the corridor by the end of this month. We are studying a route between Dubai and Abu Dhabi, but in the first phase we are working on an intra-Dubai route that is likely to run parallel to E311 (Shaikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Road),” he added. Rhys, who is leading the project in Dubai, said: ““The idea is to have a main line running along the Shaikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Road all the time at 1,100 km/h, which is eventually going to run down to Abu Dhabi. And then we will have these acceleration and de-acceleration loops that would go into the city and connect with areas like Dubai South, Downtown Dubai and other areas. These loops will run at lesser speeds and connect people to their final destinations or to the connecting metro stations, a tram or a bus.” It will take only between two to four minutes to travel on the corridor as against 30 to 40 minutes it takes to travel the same distance on the current transport system. Apart from providing the internal connectivity Hyperloop One plans to connect with Abu Dhabi and then eventually stretch it further to Doha by 2022 FIFA World Cup and onwards into Saudi Arabia and finally into India as well. “This whole GCC and India relationship is incredibly important to us, we want to tap into this traffic and provide this much safer equally fast alternative to aeroplanes. We are in talks with different entities and we believe we can provide the alternative,” he added. “We believe that hyperloop is the solution to the GCC rail, it can be built much faster and almost 30 to 40 per cent cheaper than building a high speed rail system,” Rhys said. A similar study is also underway at Jebel Ali Port, where Hyperloop One is exploring to put in place the high-speed system to transport cargo containers with in the sprawling port. Hyperloop One will be doing their first full scale system test in Las Vegas in February 2017, giving the world the first glimpse what can be a possibility. Source: GN
