4 ms·

Since the capacity of a Hyperloop system is close to zero (less than 1000 passengers per hour, much less than a lane of highway and two orders of magnitude less

Since the capacity of a Hyperloop system is close to zero (less than 1000 passengers per hour, much less than a lane of highway and two orders of magnitude less than an ordinary railroad), it doesn't really matter where you put it.

DenisM 8y ago
Should we be comparing it to trains or planes though?
- ebikelaw 8y ago
  Did you mean should we compare it to airports? LAX will land 54 aircraft in the 60 minutes starting now, and I assure you that amounts to rather more than 1000 pax/hour.
  - Retric 8y ago
    LAX is 3,500 acres and only provides 1/2 the land area need for a flight. Worse you can't build anything tall near by and need all that land close to cities, making high speed trains a surprisingly good trade-off.
- calcifer 8y ago
  Of course, it's just a different form of public transportation. It needs to be competitive on a cost per passenger per hour basis in order to be viable.
golem14 8y ago
Care to back up your statement with sources or data ? I see these claims every now and then and never have seen a decent justification. Would be great to have that to have a more informed debate ...
- ebikelaw 8y ago
  The 2013 Hyperloop paper claims a capacity of 840 pax/hour under some pretty optimistic assumptions. I'm willing to grant them all these assumptions because this number is tiny and pathetic. A highway has a nominal capacity of 1800 vehicles per hour at a 2-second following distance, which works out to a capacity of at least 1800 people/hour and at most, in a dedicated bus lane, something more like 20000 per hour. Railroad capacity is much higher. Even bad railroads like UK National Rail have demonstrated over 200k pax/hour into a single station.
  - golem14 8y ago
    Thanks for the pointer: Here is another one, maybe more recent: https://ggwash.org/view/32078/musks-hyperloop-math-doesnt-add-up https://ggwash.org/view/32078/musks-hyperloop-math-doesnt-ad... Some good points, but I also think that the train system is overhyped here (comparing a single hyperloop v1.0 with a single terminal with a whole train station isn't as useful as it could be.) [Aside: Also, knowing the knots Palo Alto and other cites tie themselves in to deal with the high speed lane up to San Francisco, I'm not sure that HSR there will ever be successful, no matter how much $$$ and time is spent. Drives me nuts] I also don't know how to compare highway costs - dunno what it would cost to increase one lane between SF and LA, plus adding a lane doesn't increase capacity linearly AFAIK.
    - bobthepanda 8y ago
      The problem with CAHSR is that they decided to go whole hog on brand new high speed rail pretty early, and that they specified the top speed and expected travel times as a matter of law. Realistically speaking, it's a lot more cost-effective to bring the slowest sections up to good enough speeds for medium-high speed rail. Each 10MPH increase in max speeds lead to diminishing returns.
  - stale2002 8y ago
    Using highway numbers is the wrong comparison. Hyperloop does not compete with highways. To get a better comparison, how many people fly from SF to LA every hour? That's the use case. 1 flight per hour sounds about right as a ball park estimate. A hyper loop beats that in capacity, and would likely be FASTER (due to not having to go through airport security).
deleted 8y ago
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DenisM 8y ago

Should we be comparing it to trains or planes though?

ebikelaw 8y ago
Did you mean should we compare it to airports? LAX will land 54 aircraft in the 60 minutes starting now, and I assure you that amounts to rather more than 1000 pax/hour.
- Retric 8y ago
  LAX is 3,500 acres and only provides 1/2 the land area need for a flight. Worse you can't build anything tall near by and need all that land close to cities, making high speed trains a surprisingly good trade-off.
calcifer 8y ago
Of course, it's just a different form of public transportation. It needs to be competitive on a cost per passenger per hour basis in order to be viable.

golem14 8y ago

Care to back up your statement with sources or data ? I see these claims every now and then and never have seen a decent justification. Would be great to have that to have a more informed debate ...

ebikelaw 8y ago
The 2013 Hyperloop paper claims a capacity of 840 pax/hour under some pretty optimistic assumptions. I'm willing to grant them all these assumptions because this number is tiny and pathetic. A highway has a nominal capacity of 1800 vehicles per hour at a 2-second following distance, which works out to a capacity of at least 1800 people/hour and at most, in a dedicated bus lane, something more like 20000 per hour. Railroad capacity is much higher. Even bad railroads like UK National Rail have demonstrated over 200k pax/hour into a single station.
- golem14 8y ago
  Thanks for the pointer: Here is another one, maybe more recent: https://ggwash.org/view/32078/musks-hyperloop-math-doesnt-add-up https://ggwash.org/view/32078/musks-hyperloop-math-doesnt-ad... Some good points, but I also think that the train system is overhyped here (comparing a single hyperloop v1.0 with a single terminal with a whole train station isn't as useful as it could be.) [Aside: Also, knowing the knots Palo Alto and other cites tie themselves in to deal with the high speed lane up to San Francisco, I'm not sure that HSR there will ever be successful, no matter how much $$$ and time is spent. Drives me nuts] I also don't know how to compare highway costs - dunno what it would cost to increase one lane between SF and LA, plus adding a lane doesn't increase capacity linearly AFAIK.
  - bobthepanda 8y ago
    The problem with CAHSR is that they decided to go whole hog on brand new high speed rail pretty early, and that they specified the top speed and expected travel times as a matter of law. Realistically speaking, it's a lot more cost-effective to bring the slowest sections up to good enough speeds for medium-high speed rail. Each 10MPH increase in max speeds lead to diminishing returns.
- stale2002 8y ago
  Using highway numbers is the wrong comparison. Hyperloop does not compete with highways. To get a better comparison, how many people fly from SF to LA every hour? That's the use case. 1 flight per hour sounds about right as a ball park estimate. A hyper loop beats that in capacity, and would likely be FASTER (due to not having to go through airport security).

deleted 8y ago

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