By Ibu Sanjeeb Garg
Beating the Rhetoric
The greatest gift to mankind in the 21st century has undoubtedly been technology. Technology has increased the productivity of mankind. Technology has made life easier for man; technology has made it possible for man to achieve the impossible. One of the areas where technology has changed the perspective of man is the field of transportation. Today man can travel continents in a matter of a few areas. Tunnels have been built under the sea while in other cases bridges have been built over the sea itself. Urban transportation has seen a paradigm shift with the introduction of alternate modes of travel like metro in India or the tube in London. Companies like SpaceX have even commercialised space travel technology, in a few years Space X would take customers to space on a regular basis.
The latest to join the list which promises to change urban transportation is Hyperloop technology. Hyperloop is a proposed mode of transport that seeks to transfer both passengers and freight in pods which travel through near vacuum tubes at almost airline speeds. SpaceX has released the first concept paper on the technology and companies around the world have begun investing and working on the technology. The pods would accelerate in a liner motion and glide through the tubes using magnetic levitation or air bearings. These tubes can be built overground or underground. The pods would travel at almost airline speeds yet it would be easier to control a pod compared to an average aircraft travelling in the similar speed. The concept has been effectively open sourced by SpaceX and its founder Elon Musk so that people around the world can be benefitted.
While Elon Musk involved in other technologies has taken a backseat two consortiums Hyperloop One and Hyperloop Transportation Technologies Inc (TTT) are keen on taking the technology around the world. Hyperloop One was incorporated in 2014 and has built a team of 200 engineers, technicians, welders and machinists to build the world’s first commercial Hyperloop system. It has raised more than US$160 million in capital from investors around the world. On the other hand Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) is a group of 500 part-time engineers located across the United States who collaborate through weekly teleconferences. Rather than being paid directly, members work in exchange for stock options. The company is projecting the completion of a technical feasibility study in 2015, but have said that it is at least ten years away from a commercially operating Hyperloop.
Hyperloop One has marched ahead and is currently completing a prototype in Nevada desert of USA. It had also launched a global competition to look into possible Hyperloop partnerships around the world. And recently these two companies made forays into India looking for possible areas where Hyperloop can explore. As part of a global exercise in the second part of February five teams from India will congregate and demonstrate how Hyperloop can be used to connect Bengaluru to Thiruvananthapuram, Chennai to Bengaluru (two teams), Mumbai to Chennai, and Mumbai to Delhi.
Indeed Hyperloop has made a lot of positive noise in the past two years and in a country like India it can indeed strengthen the sagging public transportation system. Yet questions remain on the technology itself that remains to be answered. While the two major consortiums have been able to collect funding yet it must be kept in mind that no prototype model has been launched yet. One of the technologies that come to one’s mind is solar cells. The idea of harnessing solar energy has been in the active public domain for almost two decades now. Yet solar energy has not seen the push even after two decades. Hence the mere discovery of an exciting technology in itself does not signal much progress. Stem cell research, cancer vaccinations are other technologies that have not taken off completely despite immense work done in this regard. Hence Hyperloop may be a euphoria that may soon be over, despite the mammoth amount of money that is being invested in it today.
The second issue is the question of safety that has been raised frequently while dealing with Hyperloop. Scientists have opined that sitting in confined spaces travelling at such high speed may results in motion sickness and other health hazards. At speeds approaching 900 ft/s (270 m/s), deviations of 0.04 in (1 mm) from a straight path would add considerable buffeting and vibration. With no provisions for passengers to stand, move within the capsule, use a restroom during the trip, or get assistance or relief in case of emergency or motion sickness the threat to the life of a passenger becomes much larger. Hyperloop can also be targeted by something as simple as a power outage. While the same can be true for Metro trains yet the Metro trains travel in far lesser speed compared to the proposed speed of travel for pods in Hyperloop. Hence both these modes of transportation would react differently to a power outage with the chance of damage in Hyperloop much larger compared to a Metro train.
Other have criticised the design system of the Hyperloop module as well. Yet design is one aspect which be improved upon significantly. This brings us to the crucial issue of Hyperloop in the Indian context. Even if Hyperloop does prove to be efficient technology the challenges in the Indian landscape would be different.
The first issue is the question of funds itself. Any foray into the Indian market would require huge investments that would run into billions of dollars. Recently India announced huge investments in its rail networks to achieve the dream of high speed trains. To get another idea of the cost that would be involved one needs to look at the proposed driverless pod taxis that plan to connect Delhi and Sohna in Haryana. The gross investment in the project is pegged at 800 crores. It would be safe to say that the investment in Hyperloop would be much more. Such investments will exert considerable pressure on the Indian fiscal condition. In such scenario to expect that the fiscal environment would be able to provide buoyancy to another round of high investments in transportation remains less likely.
The third issue is the question of character of Indian transportation. India is a country with high population both in density and absolute numbers. The metro trains in New Delhi for example witness lakhs of footfalls in a daily basis. Metro trains had to completely phase out the six coaches train and introduce eight coach trains on almost all networks. In such a scenario Hyperloop which in a single instant would not be able to transport much passenger in such huge scales.
In short while Hyperloop remains an exciting proposition India must not jump headalong into implementation. Instead India should wait and watch how Hyperloop fares globally before making a decision for ourselves.
( Views expressed by the author are entirely personal )