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2017/07/13

India on Hyperloop

 Who doesn't know about Hyperloop, right? Elon Musk's breakthrough super fast transportation system that can help people cover enormous distances in a matter of minutes is finally building its tracks around the world through Hyperloop One. And India's going to get a taste of it very soon!

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HYPERLOOP ONE'S VISION FOR INDIA

In an event in Delhi, earlier today, Hyperloop One put forth its strategy to connect India's biggest cities and largest towns in a phased manner, providing commuters with a state-of-the-art alternative means of transport that's unrivalled in the world. Hyperloop One proposes to slingshot people in travel pods at 1,200 kmph through a tube propped up on concrete pillars. The pod or train is able to achieve the speed because it floats in a vacuum inside the tunnel.

In the presence of India's Railway Minister, Mr Suresh Prabhu, Hyperloop One's CEO Rob Lloyd revealed the fact that the company was accelerating its plan to unveil the system in India very soon, and that the company was conducting initial talks with the central government and other private companies to arrive at some sort of partnership to co-build and operate the Hyperloop One system across different routes in the country.

And there are some exciting routes planned. Take Bengaluru to Chennai, for instance, which is promising a journey time of just 21 minutes through Hyperloop. Similarly, Delhi to Mumbai would take approximately 80 minutes, with stops at Indore and Jaipur along the way -- the fastest available journey option currently is a flight that takes at least 2 hours from takeoff to landing. There are routes being planned from Bengaluru to Trivandrum, and an ambitious 220 min Hyperloop journey from Mumbai to Kolkata from the west coast to the east of India, with a big loop snaking southward along the track.

In a Bloomberg report, Hyperloop's CEO was quoted as saying, "India turns out to be a massive opportunity obviously for the concept of Hyperloop, which is why there's so much interest. We want to align the stakeholders to actually find a route that makes sense, to do the detailed engineering, do the work on financing that route, think about a public-private partnership."

It is no secret that India's growth is arrested by the fact that infrastructure hasn't grown at the same scale at which the country's population has exploded over the last twenty-thirty years, and this year's Annual Budget has tried to fix that by signalling investment in long-pending infrastructure projects, and making it a priority -- a move welcomed by several analysts and industrialists. While Hyperloop One may not solve the country's transportation woes completely, but it will at least alleviate the problem by a small amount -- that itself will be a huge win for not only Hyperloop One to grow in other global markets but also give Indians a state-of-the-art solution to their transportation woes.