Somewhere in the near future, there’s a good chance that travelling from Chennai to Bengaluru could take you the same time as going to your neighbourhood grocery store and back. And Bengaluru to Mumbai could be covered in about another hour or so. All this sounds a bit like Elon Musk’s wild visions, right?
In fact, a US-based tech start-up called Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) has already approached the Indian government for building a super-high-speed transport line between Chennai and Bengaluru. The project, of course, takes inspiration from the ‘Hyperloop’ concept that Musk shared with the world in 2013. The concept is a cross between a Concorde, a railgun and an air hockey table, all put into one; at least that’s how Elon Musk describes his ambitious dream project.
The idea is to connect distant locations via tubes that can transport pods carrying people. The tubes are maintained at extremely low pressures to minimise air resistance for the pods. Not only does this make it an energy-efficient mode of transport, it should also allow the pods to reach near-sonic speeds.
HTT has proposed hoisting prefabricated tubes on top of earthquake-proof pylons, which will ideally make them immune to weather and ground conditions. Plus, it will make them more economical to construct, as there won’t be a need to build underground tunnels.
The pods will be propelled by a system of solar-powered magnets which should also reduce energy requirements once the infrastructure is in place.
The project surely sounds simple on paper. However, it could be about a decade before the plan actually gathers serious steam, given the tentative procedural delays in paperwork and government sanctions.
The pricing of the tickets, however, could be a subject of contention. That’s because the government would want to keep fares as low as possible (close to that of a bus ticket), which could render the project unviable. That said, if the Hyperloop project does get up and running, it is sure to revolutionise long-distance transportation in India.