4 ms·
The projections of capacity seem way too low. It says it can do 840passengers/hour. In the UK each 11 car train on the West Coast Mainline can take about 600 p
by martinald 11y ago
The projections of capacity seem way too low. It says it can do 840passengers/hour.
In the UK each 11 car train on the West Coast Mainline can take about 600 passengers seated + maybe slightly over 100 more standing. So around 700. We have 3 trains per hour between London and Birmingham, which adds up to a rough capacity of 2200 per hour.
This doesn't even take into account the multitude of slower trains that go between the two cities.
All these trains are generally congested as hell at peak (and increasingly off peak).
How is 840 passengers/hour enough for two big cities? I would assume making each pod bigger and heavier would require a greater stopping distance between them so the only way I can see to add more capacity is to build parallel hyperloops. At that point you've got the land take and the expense that comes with it.
- DuskStar 11y agoTo be fair, Birmingham <-> London is 125 miles, while Los Angeles <-> San Francisco is 380 miles. A better comparison would be Edinburgh <-> London, at 410 miles or so. At those distances, required capacity probably drops off.
- martinald 11y agoWell, there's between one and two trains per hour between London and Edinburgh, each holding about 600 people. So that's more just on train capacity, and there's up to 53 flights a day between London and Edinburgh. So that's another 6000ish seats per day. Just doesn't add up.
- frankus 11y agoI had the same thought. The waitbutwhy article cites 840 per hour being slightly less than the current traffic for that city pair, but that's assuming quite non-peaky traffic (7+ million if run 24/7). It's also assuming that the demand at a cost of $20 and 35 minutes will be roughly the same as it is now.
- Gustomaximus 11y agoRather than 2 parallel hyperloops would it be more efficient to make passing points? Orgainse timings so pods pull off at a platform and then car traveling in the opposite direction or overtaking can go past.
- peterbraden 11y agobut that would prevent using the pressure in the loop?
- Gustomaximus 11y agoNot if the pod itself is creating the pressures needed. I believe this is the current thinking as a true evacuated tunnel was deemed not feasible.That said they do envisage 2 tracks. Interesting read linked; http://www.spacex.com/sites/spacex/files/hyperloop_alpha-20130812.pdf http://www.spacex.com/sites/spacex/files/hyperloop_alpha-201...