The design of the Hyperloop — a transport system that will take commuters to Dubai from Abu Dhabi in less than 15 minutes — was revealed recently. Then on Monday, Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) Ideas released a video featuring snippets of the project’s design, says Gulf News. The project’s official launch will be in Dubai on November 7.
Hyperloop to change the way people live
The high-speed system, which has been code-named “the Hyperloop One,” will connect Dubai with the UAE capital and reduce the travel time between the two major cities drastically. This system will revolutionize the way people travel in the future, enabling UAE passengers to travel a 150-kilometer distance through air-cushioned pods speeding through a semi-vacuumed tube in a few minutes.
Jacob Lange, director of BIG Ideas, the team working on the project’s design, said, “They are in a new time now where you can develop a new transportation system in very few years and change the world.”
The video released by BIG shows a network of tubes on Y-shaped tilts and a sneak peek of one of the pods which will pass through it, says Gulf News.
Lange further said that they are not waiting for a new tech such as carbon nanofiber or anything else to do this. They have everything they need to do it, and it is just a matter of doing it in the best possible way, he said.
“Making the Hyperloop here would be sort of a natural step in the evolution of this place, the city and the region.”
Lange also talked about how their plans for a Hyperloop high-speed transportation system between Dubai and Abu Dhabi will change the way people live.
“Suddenly you can live in a forest, take the Hyperloop into work everyday and its only going to take 10 minutes,” he said. “You spread out the possibilities for everybody to live where they want: by the sea, by the water, in the forest, wherever.”
Map showing the future route also available
In the video, viewers can check out a map that shows the future route of the Hyperloop. The link will pass from the UAE capital through Abu Dhabi Airport, Dubai Airport and Al Maktoum Airport. In addition, there will be connections for Jebel Ali Port and Khalifa Port as well, notes Gulf News.
BIG Ideas is a unit at the Danish firm which focuses on experimental and technically demanding projects, including the big vision for Hyperloop One. This transport system is actually the vision of Elon Musk, chief executive of Tesla and space exploration company SpaceX. Musk also cofounded PayPal. In 2013, Musk revealed the concept for a Hyperloop. Later, he open-sourced the tech, and he is no longer involved in its development.
Hyperloop One is one of the many companies pushing to build this transport system. The company appointed BIG alongside engineering and architecture firm Arup and AECOM to convert the tech into infrastructure. Earlier this year, Hyperloop One started testing its propulsion tech for the Hyperloop in the desert outside Las Vegas. It achieved speeds of 187 km/h in 1.1 seconds.
The main competitor of the company is Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, which is building a test track in California currently and is in talks to build a Hyperloop between the European cities of Bratislava, Budapest, and Vienna, notes dezeen.
