[pi-err]

There's a palpable excitement around Hyperloop and I can't wait to know if this will reshape our world or not.

One of the largest problem I can see is not technical. The consensus is that a "standard" Hyperloop track (between 2 cities, 300 to 800km apart) would have a ~1,500 passengers/hour max capacity. High speed rail, such as Eurostar, would be around 10,000 passengers/hour.

Even if Hyperloop managed to get built at half the price of HSR (which would already be a feat, there's zero chance they'll do it at 10% of HSR price), this makes a very thin passenger flux to deliver reasonable amounts of operational cash.

Where HSR can deliver $7M to $14M daily with $150 ticket price at peak time, Hyperloop would max out at $2M daily with $300 tickets during peak hour. And those prices would probably kill their market anyway.

And that's with an entirely new transport platform to fund with many unknowns such as metal fatigue for pods in near-vacuum at those speeds, passenger tolerance for accelerations and lateral movements etc.

Maybe the business plan for passenger planes and trains was also that hazy back then?

[samcheng]

The world's busiest high-speed rail is the Japanese Shinkansen between Tokyo and Osaka. It was doing 23,000 passengers per hour way back in 1992.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinkansen

The newest trains have capacity for 1323 seated passengers each, plus plenty of room for standing passengers, and run 13 times an hour in each direction. These things do regularly fill to capacity, too; I've ridden them standing in the door vestibule.

https://www.japanrailpass24.com/about-japan/shinkansen/

I'm sure the Chinese system, such as the line between Shanghai and Nanjing, also has really high ridership, particularly during Chinese New Year.

To me, Hyperloop is a distraction from high speed rail... I'd love to be able to ride an efficient train from SF to LA.

[Grishnakh]

It's not a distraction, it's a better alternative. HSR is too slow and too expensive.

As for passenger capacity, who cares? This is not Japan, where density is very high and lots of people don't have cars. What's important is demand: how many passengers are actually flying between LA and SF right now? And how does that compare to the capacity of Hyperloop? Hyperloop is being positioned as an alternative to regional air travel (and maybe later for cross-continent air travel). I'm sorry, but I seriously doubt 23,000 passengers are flying in jets from LA to SF every hour right now.

[dragonwriter]

It's funny that hyperloop proponents both argue that it is better for HSRs role, but that it's main purpose is to replace airline flights.

HSRs main justification is reducing the increase in long-range intrastate auto trips.

Also, whether an air travel or auto trip replacement, the hyperloop paper relied for its low cost on a route that doesn't have the transit connections to either where people are from or where they are trying to go be useful, whereas HSR both connects population centers and includes investments in improving connecting regional transit around the termini (and other stations). Hyperloop aims for a much smaller goal than HSR, and even at that has an alignment which makes it useless for the goal.

[aptwebapps]

how many passengers are actually flying between LA and SF right now?

Good question. About 3.4 million per year (I think that's both ways based on other sources) according to this:

http://www.statista.com/statistics/536977/domestic-air-route...

[vladd]

Subway line 14 in Paris is fully automated, has trains arriving every 85 seconds during peak hours, and has an hourly capacity of 30'000 - 40'000 seats/hour.

https://www.systra.com/IMG/pdf/metro_meteor_en-3.pdf

[samcheng]

Subway is complementary to high speed rail (or hyperloop).

The trains travel (on average) about 1/10th the speed, and the distances covered are much smaller.

The Hong Kong MTR (the worst commuter crush I've personally experienced) handles an eye-popping 75,000 commuters per hour per direction: https://www.mtr.com.hk/en/corporate/operations/detail_worldc...

[lj3]

It's $130 one way. Surely, people don't use that to commute on a daily basis? A round trip flight is faster and cheaper ($80-$300 vs $260).

[jaredklewis]

Having done both, I'd say door to door total travel time of Tokyo -> Osaka is shorter by train. But I like to get to airports two hours early to deal with security non sense. YMMV.

Also, a standard Shinkansen seat is far more spacious and comfortable than any economy plane seat.

[S4M]

> High speed rail, such as Eurostar, would be around 10,000 passengers/hour.

How is that remotely true? There is one Eurostar approximately every 30 minutes (looking at the departures from London [0], it seems that there are 32 Eurostar leaving London every day), and I seriously doubt one train can carry 5000 passengers (I would say about 500 passengers), so your approximation is completely off (even taking into account the fact that Eurostar can go from London, Paris and Brussels) and 1500 passengers/hour is comparable to the number of passengers the Eurostar carries in an hour.

[0] http://www.eurostar.com/uk-en/travel-information/service-inf...

[hengheng]

Europe's busiest express train line seems to be LGV Paris-Lyon, with a peak scheduled capacity of 13 TGV trains per hour. Given that a TGV duplex fits 545 passengers, we are above 7000 per hour. Now couple two TGVs together, and you'll be well above.

Weirdly enough, the only source I found was German wikipedia on the train track (LGV Sud-Est[1]). Neither English nor French wikipedia have capacity information, and neither of the respective articles on the train itself have capacity information, even though the TGV duplex was introduced for this very reason.

[1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGV_Sud-Est

[kuschku]

In Germany there are some tracks with higher usages, but those are not the same line – they just share part of the line (imagine on the track A -- B -- C -- D, a train going from A to C, and from B to D, both every half hour – between B and C now you have 15min frequencies).

But the point is the same, regardless of if we use Japan, Germany, France, Spain, etc: 10k people per hour, or more, is easily possible.

Hyperloop transports less people than a single lane of highway. And with the cost you could maintain teslas for rental on a dedicated highway for many decades.

[Grishnakh]

>Hyperloop transports less people than a single lane of highway

So what? Airplanes also transport fewer people than a highway. How many people travel by air between LA and SF right now per hour? Probably no more than the capacity of Hyperloop.

>But the point is the same, regardless of if we use Japan, Germany, France, Spain, etc: 10k people per hour, or more, is easily possible.

What makes you think 10k people per hour actually want slow train service between LA and SF, when they can just use their car, get there in about the same time, and then not have to rent a car at their destination?

>And with the cost you could maintain teslas for rental on a dedicated highway for many decades.

You're placing passenger capacity above speed. The whole point of Hyperloop is speed: it's faster than an airplane, without all the downsides of the airplane (terrorism, TSA, crashing, etc.) HSR is not, it's slow (esp. the way they'll build it in this country). Of course, Hyperloop doesn't have the advantage of not having to rent a car like driving yourself does, but it makes up for it with very high speed.

[kuschku]

> when they can just use their car, get there in about the same time

> HSR is not, it's slow

Have you ever seen an actual HSR system?

We’re talking about 220mph minimum. That’s quite a bit faster than per car.

And, due to TSA, it’s faster than an airplane, and without the annoying stuff. And cheaper.

Hyperloops only differences over HSR is that it’s 15min faster, is a lot more uncomfortable, a lot more expensive to build, a lot more expensive to use (due to few people per capsule), etc.

[Grishnakh]

>Have you ever seen an actual HSR system? >We’re talking about 220mph minimum. That’s quite a bit faster than per car.

Sorry, that's complete bullshit.

We're not talking about HSR in Japan, China, or Germany here. We're talking about "HSR" in California, USA.

The California system will be very, very lucky if it manages to ever hit 200mph in a short stretch. Realistically, it might be about the speed of the Amtrak Acela Express, which is basically no faster than any regular train, except that it manages to hit 150mph once or twice, briefly.

You seem to be making the ridiculous assumption that HSR in America will resemble HSR in other countries somehow, in both speed and cost. Nothing could be farther from the truth. HSR here is a horribly expensive boondoggle. It'll be worse than the F-35.

[adamt]

From: http://www.eurostar.com/uk-en/about-eurostar/press-office/pr...

"Eurostar, the high-speed passenger rail service between the UK and mainland Europe, today reported the highest ever number of passengers transported on Eurostar in one quarter with over 2.8m customers travelling between the UK and the continent in Q2 2015. This represents a year-on-year increase of 3% in passengers compared with the same period last year (2.8m 2015: 2.7m 2014)."

2.8m in a quarter = 31,000 a day. Given the trains only run for just over 14 hours a day (London departure board for tomorrow) - then that's a mean passengers per hour over the quarter during operating hours over all days in the quarter of 2,214. Note this actual passengers not capacity. If you assumed say an average load ration of perhaps 70% (over all times of day all over the quarter) then the mean capacity per hour would be 3,100. Then at some times there are more trains than others, so the peak capacity per hour is probably at least 4,000.

[ycitm]

Perhaps Tōkaidō Shinkansen would be a better example? 331 trains / day, 391 thousand passengers / day according to: http://english.jr-central.co.jp/company/ir/annualreport/_pdf... (pdf)

[azurezyq]

And Beijing-Shanghai highspeed railway? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing%E2%80%93Shanghai_High-... 100M rides/year in 2014, similar to the number of Shinkansen, far larger than eurostar.

[martinald]

Yes, but you also have loads of Eurotunnel (car and truck carrying trains) and Southeastern High Speed (non-international) trains on those tracks.

Add the capacity of those in.

Say 3x Eurostar, 5x southeastern hsr and 4x eurotunnel.

The new e320 trains have 900 passenger capacity (could be more with less first class, so let's call it 1000). With 12x departures per hour that's 12,000, and there would be more spare capacity left over because there wouldn't be local and express trains mixed together which kills capacity.

I think you could easily do 15k p/h on Eurostar + related infrastructure. Maybe more if you used TGV Duplex double decker trains.

[notahacker]

Eurostar capacity is driven by demand though. There's no practical limit that forces trains to be 30 minutes apart.

[kuschku]

Simply, because you don’t have to run them every 30 minutes.

In Germany and Japan on select few HSR lines trains are operating with a frequency of 2 minutes, and 800 passengers per train.

That’s 24'000 per hour.

[Animats]

The record is probably the Yamanote Line in Tokyo, with about 165,000 passengers per hour at peak. That's effectively a conveyor belt made out of trains; there's a loop in each direction with trains every 2 minutes in each direction during peak periods. Each train carries up to 1600 people, and there are 50 trains on the loops during peak periods.

[chockablock]

Gp is referring to 'max capacity'. As others have noted 10k/hr is conservative.

[nickparker]

I'm not sure where your consensus is coming from, but it's not what I've seen/heard working on this stuff.

Hyperloop One (formerly Hyperloop Tech) said in an info session last Fall that they were targeting launch intervals below 15 seconds. They also want a pod to comfortably carry a single intermodal container - 8'x8'x40'.

That space can seat around 40, which works out to 9600 passengers/hr capacity at 15 second intervals, on a single track.

The other angle to consider is that tracks very likely won't be singular. The tubes are light by infrastructure standards, you could pack two for each direction onto a route without dramatically increasing pylon costs. Add in the relatively low trip times, and in route segments with varying asymmetric demand it's feasible to switch one in four tracks' direction at midday. Eg a route into the city could easily run 3 in 1 out for mornings and 1 in 3 out for evenings.

[pi-err]

> That space can seat around 40, which works out to 9600 passengers/hr capacity at 15 second intervals, on a single track.

Thanks, didn't have those figures. I used a study from a Hyperloop study group (can't find the URL) who found that the most efficient setup would be to assemble 5 pods together (total ~100-150 pax) , with 1 departure every 5 minutes so ~1500pax/hour.

Now a realistic turnover time (unload, clean+inspect, load, launch and contingency) would be 10' per pod - and this would already be pretty agressive.

So if you launch a pod at 15 seconds intervals, a station would need capacity for >40 pods. Inbound and outbound pods would need to station 3' upon arrival and pre-launch - again, super aggressive figure. Imagining we keep the whole setup on 6 tracks with a swapping device at the end of the tracks and relatively narrow 3m wide platforms, a station would be >40m wide and long, not accounting for circulations etc. Realistic figures would be 100x50m stations - or an equivalent volume if tracks are stacked instead of juxtaposed.

This amount of underground real estate would just not be found in most Europe cities, or at punitive prices, not even mentioning NYMBYism. HSR managed to take off thanks to heavy direct or indirect subsidies and by leveraging existing infrastructure (stations and many rail connections). Hyperloop won't get the same sweet deals.

I'm a Hyperloop supporter for the scifi potential in it, though I just don't get how and where it can get built in this world.

[bubuga]

> The other angle to consider is that tracks very likely won't be singular. The tubes are light by infrastructure standards, you could pack two for each direction onto a route without dramatically increasing pylon costs.

This observation fails to take into account real-world requirements of building this sort of infrastructure. Pylon costs (queue the starcraft references) are irrelevant. The relevant bit is building all the tunnels, bridges, and earthworks required to get a smooth-enough train route that is able to safely support the track, provide a safe ride at Hyperloop's projected speeds, provide a conformable ride, and do it all in cost-effective an easy to maintain technology.

In high-speed railway, track defects are measured in wavelengths of fractions of a milimeter in amplitude and periods of 6 to 10 to 50 meters. If you increase the speed, either the limit for the wavelength period increases or the amplitude limits need to be further reduced. Setting up a 200-meter track segment with a sub-milimeter tolerance limit isn't cheap.

[ashearer]

This assumes that the HSR would operate at full theoretical capacity, which wouldn't be true of all potential lines. If a locality is deciding between HSR and Hyperloop, it would be better to compare costs based on projected passenger load. That measure would presumably benefit Hyperloop on lower-activity lines, where HSR would have difficulty recouping costs, and HSR on higher-activity lines.

[branchless]

I wonder would this reshape our world or just make it a little different.

I don't want to get from Montreal to NY in 40 minutes. Or 10.

I want to be able to live somewhere where I do not have to commute because tech has solved remote working. I don't want them to make me travel further for the same time.

For example were they to build radial hyperloop around NY it's just more of the same drudgery. Only now bigger.

[ebiester]

...but how do we get to remote working without crushing isolation? Can tech solve that problem?

Can tech solve the problem of getting a coffee with a couple of coworkers and feeling connected to them in a way that helps the technical argument two months from now?

Can tech solve the "Do I have my coworker's undivided attention or are they multitasking and ignoring me" problem?

Can tech solve the "I'm in the room with my boss and he can't ignore that I'm a human being" problem?

We are social creatures. A slack conversation isn't the same, and I don't think a VR conversation will be the same, especially with further distances. Do we say that everyone must live within 1,000 miles?

[branchless]

Let me deal with the crushing isolation. Give me the choice.

[odessacubbage]

you already have the choice if you're willing to make some sacrifices.

[bubuga]

> There's a palpable excitement around Hyperloop and I can't wait to know if this will reshape our world or not.

I find it rather doubtful that it will change anything for a number of reasons, including:

- governments don't even care to invest in their existing railway network, and are highly resistant in finding any justification for high-speed networks (not even very-high speed)

- the hyperloop concept is only a concept, it's disastrously expensive, based on untried technology, and highly vulnerable to a disastrous PR campaign. Keep in mind that it took a single accident to ground the whole Concorde fleet, in spite of all its history and having major backers.

- mass transit decision-makers are very conservative and highly risk-adverse. Money is spent only on tried-and-true technology. In the rare cases that it isn't, all hell breaks loose (see BART)

- no one knows what will it cost to maintain it, or its reliability.

- High-speed railway only makes sense in the small window of opportunity sandwiched between cases where air travel and car/roadway travel makes sense. That window of opportunity is located somewhere, IIRC, between travel distances between 200 and 600km. Additionally, for high-speed railway to make sense, it needs to be connected with other mass transit systems through effective multimodal transport hubs. This is very expensive and takes a lot of planning respected throughout centuries of investment in infrastructure and urban planning. The hyperloop concept fails to deliver in any of the requirements while in return bringing nothing to the table.

Let's keep things in perspective: France, Germany, and Japan already have decades of high-speed railway under their belt and are packed with success stories. Yet, the whole world in general, and the US in particular, decided not to follow them in their successful venture. These decisions are made rationally. Why would anyone suddenly invest in a high-risk concept that fails to justify itself?

[drzaiusapelord]

>Maybe the business plan for passenger planes and trains was also that hazy back then?

Except flying is fast, safe, and cheap. Our problem is airport design and airport security. Fix those so we get on a plane in 20 minutes instead of two hours and everyone will be happy.

[martinald]

Ryanair takes about 30 minutes to turn a plane around with say 170 seats. It's also a large object that requires spacing to get in and out of the gate.

There's no real way I can see to improve airport design with those constraints.

You can fit maybe 4 platforms each holding 10 car trains in the space of one gate at a train station.

A380s require even more space and take even longer to deplane and board, so I don't think fewer but larger planes would work either.

EG: Atlanta airport does around 100m pax. So does Waterloo station in London. Look at the land take and size of terminals required in each of those cases.

[JosephRedfern]

What about the massive environmental impact that flying has?

[kgabis]

You also need to get to the airport and from the airport. Airports are usually quite far from city centers.

[drzaiusapelord]

Well, thats what light rail and cars are for. I mean, how are you getting to this proposed hyperloop station? Same way.

[kgabis]

You could build hyperloop stations in city centers. That's why travelling by train is (often) so convenient. No need for 1h trip to/from the airport.

[ksec]

I think that is exactly why I "think" hyperloop doesn't solves the problem we hope it would. But will likely provide another set of transport to complement Air traffic. The amount of passenger / hour is simply... too low, ( Doesn't handle peak traffic )

"May" be it will work in US or EU where it is less populated, but it seems hard to scale in places like China and Japan

[jordank]

These are good points — many have tended to look at just the consumer applications. It may be that the economics lend themselves more to industrial transport or logistics than they do to moving bodies.