| > 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? |