Hyperloop stations and the future of travel

Hyperloop travel is the future of train commutes. While South Africa is far away from any infrastructure of the sort, elsewhere, the high-speed, futuristic technology is coming along in quantum leaps and bounds.

Tesla and SpaceX tech entrepreneur Elon Musk is mostly credited with the concept of the hyperloop, a mode of high-speed transport. SpaceX is currently tapping into younger, enquiring minds, and has been hosting the Hyperloop Pod Competition since 2015, challenging and inviting universities to create the fastest hyperloop vessel to be tested and raced at the SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California on the company’s partial-vacuum hyperloop track, known as the ‘Hypertube’. The Hypertube is just over a kilometre in length and all competitors need to do to win is be the fastest and not crash their pods, which need to be able to propel themselves.

One team, from the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, has even conceptualised the future of this new hyperloop lifestyle, down to the hyperloop station infrastructures. It’s very much like an ordinary train station, but with a hyperloop pod to zip you from A to B in speedy, futuristic style.

‘Flying pollutes, especially short distances,’ a Delft spokesperson said. ‘A recent study by the TU Delft shows that tourism in the aviation industry alone will make reaching the Paris accord goals impossible. That is why it is so important to think of sustainable transportation solutions, like hyperloop, that could replace these flights.’

Hyperloop travel is expected to enable travellers to shave hours off of their commuting between different cities too. At present, the other big contender in the hyperloop race is Virgin’s Hyperloop One, which is expected to become a reality in India.

The SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition 2019 is taking place on 21 July at the SpaceX headquarters, where Delft’s Atlas 02 hyperloop will compete against other top institutions to win and break the world speed record of 467 km/h.