03-30-2016, 09:03 PM
Green_Elite_Cab Wrote:I'll be more impressed when they can move more people.
Capacity is the real problem with the hyper loop. According to the sources I've found, it take 1 minute 8 seconds to stop the pods. That means a headway of about 1 minute 20 seconds so that the pod has time to stop in an emergency. The proposed pod carries only 28 people. That means in one hour, it can only move 1,292 passengers per tube.
Its actually not that close of spacing. If the you are operating at 1.3 minute headways then if one car stops ALL the cars have to stop at exactly the same time, which means that all the cars have to start stopping as soon as the first car starts stopping. Look at it this way if the car travels 1 mile in the time it takes to stop, the cars behind it will have traveled 2 miles (assuming they don't stop at the same time). That means that you effectively need to space the cars 3 stopping distances apart.
The next problem is how long does it take to unload/reload the cars? Since this is long distance travel, you have to assume the people have baggage. So lets say you can unload people and baggage in two minutes then reload people in baggage in 2 minutes. So that's 4 minute in addition to the spacing. Now we are up to 7-8 minute headways.