HyperLoop design coming

[ERD50]

Compare it to a six lane freeway that might cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $15-30 billion (for a 300 mile segment) and be able to carry 120-130k vehicles per day (~15000 peak hour). And provide intermediate access points every 3-5 miles. 2-4x the cost, almost 20 times the capacity, albeit at lower average speeds. ...

Still, a very novel concept and an interesting read.

I like that comparison. It makes me think about a combo of these ideas, more along the lines of other 'personal transport' plans that are out there.

Instead of high speed rail, which takes big heavy cars that need very large, wide, stable track - Imagine even smaller capsules than Hyperloop. Maybe 5-10 passengers, just 1-2 seats wide, so a narrow rail, running along the median of HWY 5. They could be very aerodynamic, and be powered electricity from the rail. Maybe apply the Hyperloop concept to a degree - have batteries on board and only some sections of the track need power?

If they could travel @ 100 mph, and never deal with traffic, and be auto-piloted enough so that capsules could be run close together, they could depart every 30 seconds like the Hyperloop. Maybe even dynamic couple-decoupling, so they could link together and draft each other like a train? With just a rail, adding sidings and stations along the way would be easy. Maybe the normal cars are 'express cars', and a program schedules cars for stops along the way. So if you want to stop, you might have to wait a while for other passengers who want to stop also - ans also non-express would run on a minimum schedule, like every 20 minutes. Sooner if there is demand.

Going small/flexible provides so many options. We take the train into Chicago for many trips, but the size of the train creates so many limits. They only leave ~ once per hour on off-peak times. They stop at just about every station, so not so much faster than driving. And they stop other traffic, which is a safety issue and annoyance for drivers. Currently, some rapid transit runs along the expressways in Chicago, but I think even smaller cars could improve this system.

Certainly, that technology isn't far out, you don't get the advantages of super high speeds, protection from weather, etc, but considering the 'competition' (air, car, HS Rail), it would seem to be a winner. The competition (from the h-loop pdf):

Travel time of 2 hours and 38 minutes between San Francisco and Los Angeles by proposed high-speed rail. Average one-way ticket price of $105 one-way.

Compare with 1 hour and 15 minutes by air. Compare with $158 round trip by air for September 2013.

Compare with 5 hours and 30 minutes by car. Compare with $115 round trip by road ($4/gallon with 30 mpg vehicle)

Air and HS-Rail might be faster that small capsules, but when you factor in that they probably only run one or twice an hour (for rail), and hours apart for air - that isn't always so great. Small, on-demand departure times are much better. I think the small capsules could be close to the speed of HSR, but more flexible, and certainly faster than car - and you can rest/work instead of drive.


-ERD50

 

[samclem]

I like that comparison. It makes me think about a combo of these ideas, more along the lines of other 'personal transport' plans that are out there.

Instead of high speed rail, which takes big heavy cars that need very large, wide, stable track - Imagine even smaller capsules than Hyperloop.
. . .

If they could travel @ 100 mph, and never deal with traffic, and be auto-piloted enough so that capsules could be run close together, they could depart every 30 seconds like the Hyperloop.
. . .

Air and HS-Rail might be faster that small capsules, but when you factor in that they probably only run one or twice an hour (for rail), and hours apart for air - that isn't always so great. Small, on-demand departure times are much better. I think the small capsules could be close to the speed of HSR, but more flexible, and certainly faster than car - and you can rest/work instead of drive.

There have been some really interesting ideas that employ small pods big enough to hold an automobile. The pods are autonomous--you drive your car to one of the small siding tracks, input where you want to go, a pod shows up and you drive your car onto the pod platform, the car gets secured and the pod takes you to your destination--probably another small mini-station off the main line. No waiting for a big train, no stopping a bunch of times so people can get on and off. If you have no car, a smaller "personal pod" shows up instead, so the same infrastructure serves urban and suburban/hinterlands travelers. 100 MPH and all control is automated, so the pods can be very close together. Everything is electric and more efficient energy-wise than a lot of individual IC engines running, the traffic density is amazing (a single line each way over the highway median can carry as many cars as 5 lanes of highway). And when you arrive where you are going you've got a car to take you the final distance off the main line to your ultimate destination. The railway is less expensive to construct than that needed for a larger train, and adding new branches/mini-stations incrementally is much simpler.
That's the kind of public transportation that I'd favor.
Given the present airport security delays, lack of flexible departure times for some routes, parking time, ticketing, getting everyone strapped into the plane, getting everyone off the plane, bag retrieval, car rental, etc a 100 MPH enroute speed and drive-off-in-your-car convenience could easily beat 400 MPH air transportation in all-inclusive travel time for distances of 500 miles or so.

The Ohio government mercifully cancelled our own "high-speed" train boondoggle. With stops, the real speed would have been about 60 MPH, and it would have covered just a few cities with very few departure times. California, you are more than welcome to Ohio's share of that very expensive "free" federal money for high-speed rail. Good luck!

 

[ERD50]

...
Given the present airport security delays, parking time, ticketing, bag retrieval, lack of flexible departure times for some air travel routes, etc a 100 MPH enroute speed and drive-off-in-your-car convenience could easily beat 400 MPH air transportation in all-inclusive travel time for distances of 500 miles or so. ...

Security would be another advantage for these small rail systems. Since you only have maybe 10 passengers per capsule, it doesn't seem like a very dramatic target for a terrorist. And a simple rail would be pretty easy to monitor for tampering, and easy to repair.

Compare to an evacuated tube - damage a small section and the system would be down and due for major repairs. I imagine it takes some time to evacuate a tube that size to 1/1000th atm.

Just thinking - 120 mph is 2 miles per minute. So capsules taking off 30 seconds apart would still be a mile apart. Even on rail, that should be plenty of length to stop, for a small capsule. Trains take longer, but I suppose that is due to their large mass.

I could even imagine a very small robot capsule that ran during off-peak times - its sole purpose would be to monitor the track quality. Bad guys couldn't damage a track w/o it first being detected before a manned capsule arrived. And with robots and/or capsules running every few minutes, the bad guys would not have much time to act.

Hey, those robots could be larger to carry freight - good use of off-peak time!


-ERD50

 

[samclem]

Security would be another advantage for these small rail systems. Since you only have maybe 10 passengers per capsule, it doesn't seem like a very dramatic target for a terrorist.

Yes and no. Having 10 people locked into a capsule with no onboard driver/authority figure poses a challenge. Many people now get nervous being in an elevator with strangers for their 30 second ride. Small pods that you board without control of who gets in with you do provide certain "opportunities" to criminals. Maybe this could be addressed with panic buttons, cameras, strapping everyone in in a fairly constrained manner (think of those over-the-shoulders pull-down bars on a roller coaster). But there are just some people I'd rather not share a ride with for 2-3 hours, and they might not want to be with me. Inside my car-in-a-pod I can enjoy the radio, eat a stinky tuna-and-Limburger sandwich, recline the seat and go to sleep knowing my wallet will be in my pocket when I awaken.

 

[RunningBum]

There have been some really interesting ideas that employ small pods big enough to hold an automobile. The pods are autonomous--you drive your car to one of the small siding tracks, input where you want to go, a pod shows up and you drive your car onto the pod platform, the car gets secured and the pod takes you to your destination--probably another small mini-station off the main line. No waiting for a big train, no stopping a bunch of times so people can get on and off. If you have no car, a smaller "personal pod" shows up instead, so the same infrastructure serves urban and suburban/hinterlands travelers. 100 MPH and all control is automated, so the pods can be very close together. Everything is electric and more efficient energy-wise than a lot of individual IC engines running, the traffic density is amazing (a single line each way over the highway median can carry as many cars as 5 lanes of highway). And when you arrive where you are going you've got a car to take you the final distance off the main line to your ultimate destination. The railway is less expensive to construct than that needed for a larger train, and adding new branches/mini-stations incrementally is much simpler.
That's the kind of public transportation that I'd favor.

Given the present airport security delays, lack of flexible departure times for some routes, parking time, ticketing, getting everyone strapped into the plane, getting everyone off the plane, bag retrieval, car rental, etc a 100 MPH enroute speed and drive-off-in-your-car convenience could easily beat 400 MPH air transportation in all-inclusive travel time for distances of 500 miles or so.

I've had this notion for a long time too. Think of the safety of being in a controlled system (tube, rail, whatever) for so much of your drive, with no worries about what happens if you or someone makes a careless move or falls asleep to put everyone around them in danger. Then you'd get off this system and drive the final few miles to your destination, rested and relaxed.

 

[clifp]

Compare it to a six lane freeway that might cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $15-30 billion (for a 300 mile segment) and be able to carry 120-130k vehicles per day (~15000 peak hour). And provide intermediate access points every 3-5 miles. 2-4x the cost, almost 20 times the capacity, albeit at lower average speeds.

Taking a quick look at the hyperloop: assuming the $6 billion project is actually a $10 billion project, and the state and feds can chip in $4 billion. Then you have to finance the other $6 billion, so you call your local Goldman Sachs infrastructure finance group or your local infrastructure concessionaire (hope you are fluent in Spanish or Australian ).

Amortized debt service on the $6B will run around $360 million per year over 30 years if the project is financed with bond debt, more if a concessionaire builds it (they demand higher returns on their equity component of investment). Split up the cost per passenger, assuming 3 million passengers, and you have an additional $120 per passenger to add to the ticket price.

Then you have operations and maintenance expenses, which I find hard to believe $20/pax is all it would be ($60,000,000/yr at 3 million pax). 300 miles of vacuum tube and civil infrastructure located in a very constrained environment (the median of the freeways), pumps, controls, emergency systems and response teams, multiple stations, operations facilities, etc.

Not to mention Caltrans not wanting to cede their medians to the hyperloop developer for free. That is some very valuable real estate that is treated as free in the cost model in the alpha design.

High speed rail is very expensive in part because of the very high design standards for railroads generally, and high speed rail specifically. If the Hyperloop had similarly robust standards applied to it, the $6B price tag (or $10B as I assumed) would be a lot higher.

Still, a very novel concept and an interesting read.

The alternative isn't a freeway. LA and SF are already connected by 2 two freeways I-5 and US101. Other than Thanksgiving they are never near capacity for 90% of the route.

The alternative are expensive high speed rail, status quo, or something else.

There are currently at least 6 million people traveling on the SF to LA rail each way. I think having better transportation would increase this to say 7 or 8 million. I think is reasonable that hyperloop would get 3 million round trip passengers or roughly double what you are suggestion so making the ticket cost $140 round trip.

I suspect the 10 billion is too low but I think you could float the bonds at 5% instead of 6 as tax exempt revenue bond anyway that is a minor issue.
The point is if doesn't make economic sense to build hyperloop it makes even less sense to spend $68-90 billion on a high speed train.

However it does make sense from an energy perspective it takes roughly 8-10 gallons of gas/jet fuel per person to go from SF to LA (assume 2 person/car.) or in the neighbor of 100 million gallons a year. The high speed rail consumes much less, and the hyperloop energy is offset by the solar panels.

 

[ERD50]

...
The point is if doesn't make economic sense to build hyperloop it makes even less sense to spend $68-90 billion on a high speed train. ....

It could turn out that Hyperloop accomplished much w/o even being built.

If it draws more questions on this high-speed-rail approach (and I understand people are very skeptical already), then maybe a bad program will be squashed, and many billions saved. And you could bet that the high-speed-rail project will go over on costs (if you can find a sucker to take the bet).

The advantages of HSR just don't seem great enough to justify it. There's a plan for HSR in Illinois, I need to get up-to-date on that.

-ERD50

 

[clifp]

In my search for serious analysis of the proposal.

I seemed have miss this brilliant piece on the Daily Shows

Watch The Daily Show with Jon Stewart: Track to the Future online | Free | Hulu

 

[Chuckanut]

We'll see where this goes:

Hyperloop company forms, plans to demo prototype in 2015 — Tech News and Analysis

 

[imoldernu]

Looking for volunteers for the first test run!

 

[REWahoo]

Looking for volunteers for the first test run!

Nah. Already been done:

Rocket Sled "Sonic Wind No. 1" at White Sands - YouTube

 

[Chuckanut]

Looking for volunteers for the first test run!

Maybe some of the people who don't get picked for the first one-way trip to Mars will volunteer.

 

[Chuckanut]

Perhaps we will see a 1st gen Hyperloop in the not to distant future.

http://fortune.com/2015/02/26/hyper...l&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer


"A company called Hyperloop Transportation Technologies says it’s ready to build a five-mile prototype track for the Hyperloop system first proposed by Musk in a 2013 paper. HTT plans to build the track in California’s Quay"

 

[Peter]

The picture at the top of the linked article gives me the creeps.

 

[harley]

The picture at the top of the linked article gives me the creeps.

The HyperLoop drawing or the Viagra ad?

I can't wait. I think it's great concept. I've always wanted to be able to ride in one of those tubes at the drive in window at the bank. This would be nearly as cool.

 

[ERD50]

The HyperLoop drawing or the Viagra ad?

I can't wait. I think it's great concept. I've always wanted to be able to ride in one of those tubes at the drive in window at the bank. This would be nearly as cool.

So the alternative is that Elon Musk comes up with a "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" machine, so we can all ride in the bank tubes. If anyone can do it, Musk can.


-ERD50

 

[samclem]

Some of the newer tech studies indicate that, for the same capsule/vehicle size, the tubes have to be considerably bigger (approx 4M diameter IIRC) than originally envisioned by Musk. This is to prevent supersonic flow of the remaining air around the train.

Also, some who have looked at the idea question the ride quality. The biggest issue seems to be the alignment of the tubes: even if they are just 1/4" out of true "straight" (often tough/expensive to do in real world CE projects, given settling and seismic issues) that's going to be a very uncomfortable ride at 800 MPH. Jittery, bumpy, supersonic air screaming by, no windows, strong acceleration forces on start up, light/heavy in the seat as the tube varies in elevation over rivers, etc at 800 MPH --"Stand by to board the Vomit Comet Northbound to Frisco! Thirty minutes of fun. Just a few more minutes while we finish hosing out the cars, then we will board."

Maybe passengers aren't the best cargo for this thing. Freight has much lower safety and comfort criteria, can pay just as much on a per-pound basis, and has fewer ancillary issues (luggage handling, medical emergencies, etc.). And a Hyperloop freight terminal with links to surface/air transport would be much cheaper to build than a passenger terminal and could use land well outside of the expensive built-up urban areas. As freight pilots know, the best thing about that job is "boxes don't complain."