Thoughts re Hyper Loops?

[Green_Elite_Cab]

The price per seat would be up in the sky. There is a lot of science fiction in the transportation technology.

Agreed, but the way the article is written, they make it sound as if they've made great strides with this and that it could become a reality sooner than expected.

I think where it could compete is with regional commuter flights that are beyond the scope of a regional passenger train. Just using some google facts, it claims that a trip between New York City and Washington DC is:

204.11 miles
This distance is equal to 204.11 miles, and 177.25 nautical miles. The distance line on map shows distance from New York to Washington D.C. between two cities. If you travel with an airplane (which has average speed of 560 miles per hour) between New York to Washington D.C., It takes 0.36 hours to arrive.

Meanwhile, the hyper-loop is supposed to have an average speed of 600 MPH (and a 760 MPH top speed), and so it will take around 0.34 hours to arrive. While it is not significantly faster from point A to B, you can only land so many aircraft.

I don't know how many flights there are between New York City and Washington DC, but a quick look on Expedia seems to indicate that they are roughly hourly, with less trips during the non-rush times. Most commuter and short distance aircraft I looked up (like the Bombardier Dash-8 and the Boeing 737) can only handle 50 to 200 passengers respectively, at their greatest capacities (according to YouTube).

If they left at the same time, the hyper-loop would deliver the first few people to Washington DC faster. With 8 trips at a 1.4 minute headway, you could deliver the entire 200 seat capacity of the 737 in 11.4 minutes. During that time, the 737 passengers may still be stuck in the gate getting off the plane.


Depending on how crowded the skies are, it may take time to land the next New York to Washington DC flight, and every 11.4 minutes, another 737's worth of passengers are arriving via the hyper-loop. In theory, this is taking less energy and fuel to do than an airliner. I'm not sure it would be realistic for the airline to keep up with this, especially considering there are other flights from other places trying to land and take off.


In this regard, a hyper loop is competitive.