Hyperloop or ultra speed
You can't stop progress. Especially when it's hurtling along at over 1,000 km/h. In a decade or two, business travellers will no doubt be thinking of their predecessors, who were obliged to drag themselves along in high-speed trains (tortillards) travelling at just over 300 kph... real snails compared with the Hyperloop, which takes less than an hour to travel from Paris to Berlin, Los Angeles to San Francisco or Toronto-Montreal, all in futuristic capsules propelled in compressed air tubes.
This dream, born in the imaginative mind of Elon Musk - the man behind PayPal, the Telsa electric car and the Space X rocket, among other things - started with one observation: the high-speed rail project between San Diego and Sacramento, estimated at 70 billion dollars, is too expensive. Too slow too. In short, outdated. In his white paper "Hyperloop Alpha", published in 2013, Elon Musk argued for a complete change of scale through a supersonic train, "Hyperloop Alpha".the ideal solution for very dense connections between major cities less than 1,500 km apart"he says. For this solar-powered train, the billionaire is counting on a more modest construction cost of six billion dollars, thanks to a reduced land footprint, with the tubes running some fifty metres above the ground.
At first, the project was greeted with scepticism by some. But for others, the Hyperloop is anything but a pipe dream, especially for the thousands of students taking part in the competition launched by Elon Musk. Too busy with his job - to get back into the game once the project is completed? -The Space X founder left it to others to sketch out his dream. After a selection process, around twenty teams from prestigious universities such as MIT, Virginia Tech, Munich and Delft in Europe were invited to test them this summer on a track built very close to Space X HQ in California.
The timing seems to be accelerating. At the same time, a number of start-ups have taken up the project. Canadian company TransPod is due to present its own capsule prototype shortly. Another of these companies, Hyperloop One, headed by former Cisco CEO Rob Lloyd, carried out a full-scale test of the propulsion engine on a track built in the Nevada desert in May. Finally, Hyperloop Transportation
Technologies (HTT) is also set to begin construction this year of a ten-kilometre line in California.
Although these two players have chosen different options - compressed air, advocated by Elon Musk, for Hyperloop One; magnetic levitation for HTT - they are already attracting attention, even before their technologies have been tested. Hyperloop One, for example, has formed a partnership with FS Links Ab to assess the feasibility of a Stockholm-Helsinki link that would connect the two cities in half an hour, compared with today's 16-hour boat journey. For its part, HTT has signed an agreement with the Slovakian government to build a line between Bratislava and Vienna. Work could start in 2020, with an eventual journey time of 18 minutes compared with 5 hours by train at present.
Strong support
This means of transport of the future also seems to be of interest to today's rail world. The SNCF recently took part in raising funds for Hyperloop One. According to Bloomberg, the start-up has also received the backing of China Railways Corporation, the world's leading train manufacturer, and will certainly be able to count on the support of Russian Railways to establish itself in Russia and the engineering subsidiary of Deustche Bahn to conquer the Middle East market.
Pure science fiction just three years ago, the involvement of all these players should enable this sweet dream to become reality. There are still a few obstacles to overcome: will all countries adopt the same technology? What about the safety of these capsules whizzing along at dizzying speeds? Won't travellers, particularly those who are claustrophobic, be too frightened by the idea of climbing into these strange machines? Don't worry, they'll be able to enjoy beautiful landscapes projected through virtual windows. But what are the cows going to do?
The tramway steering wheel
Who hasn't dreamt, stuck in a traffic jam, of being able to rise above the scrum of stationary cars and suddenly fly to their meeting place? That's more or less what a revolutionary tram is offering, the design of which was presented at the recent Beijing High-Tech Expo. Gliding on rails more than four metres above the road, it literally flies over two lanes of traffic. While cars can continue on their way by passing between its legs, passengers are seated upstairs in a cabin that can accommodate more than 1,200 people, a capacity equivalent to twenty buses. According to its inventor Song Youzhou, Chairman of Shenzhen Hashi Future Parking Equipment, this innovative solution could reduce traffic congestion by between 20 % and 30%. Other advantages include the cost of infrastructure, estimated at a tenth of the price of a metro, and the environmental benefits of the solar-powered system. While the first test is due to take place this summer in Qinhuangdao, four other Chinese cities - Nanyang, Shenyang, Tianjin and Zhoukou - have expressed an interest in running pilot projects.
Bateau-mouche futuristic
What if major cities made greater use of their waterways? That's the idea put forward by navigator Alain Thiébault with his SeaBubble concept, which carries four people and sails silently and ecologically across the water, powered by electric batteries fed by solar panels. The first test will take place this summer on the Seine. Before offering a new alternative to VTC and Autolib?
