Dubai Embraces The Future Transportation Hyperloop One

Yesterday we saw United Arab Emirates taking a giant leap towards their future transportation systems and opening doors to Hyperloop One. In short Hyperloop is a capsule ride which moves inside reduced-air-pressure tubes at speeds of upto 760 mph (1200 km/h).

Dubai Govt. is always open to innovation and new ideas that can improve their resident’s lifestyle. Since UAE’s economy is stable and the people living there are mostly rich & famous, they can afford new experiments every once in a while.

This open-minded attitude of Dubai/UAE has given a chance to startups like Hyperloop One & Next Future Mobility a chance to prove their concepts can become a reality.

In July ’16 we saw news that Careem and Future Next Mobility partnered to bring driverless pods to Dubai in a quest to bring environment friendly autonomous transportation.

There also have been events where up to 10-seater driverless pods are tested in Dubai earlier this year.

Seems like there is a great business opportunity in this Gulf region for companies like Tesla who are making great progress in autonomous and full driver-less cars.

In october news broke that Hyperloop One has received $50 million in funding from Dubai Ports World Group Of Dubai which shows Government’s seriousness in the Hyperloop transportation project.

BIG, ideas Director Jakob Lange released a teaser video a couple weeks ago in which he describes how super-speed transportation like Hyperloop would transform our lifestyle. Suddenly we can think of living anywhere like a Jungle, City or Sea-Shore and transport ourselves to and back from the destination in a matter of minutes.

He also describes why this region is very feasible to implement such an idea as Hyperloop.

For people who are not much acquainted with the Gulf/UAE region, it’s important to understand the geography and terrain of the country before debating on the possibilities of Hyperloop implementation in this part of the planet.

Later below we will share some statistics from the Road & Transportation Authority, Dubai and evaluate how Hyperloop and driverless transportation would effect the overall situation in the country.

A Little About UAE Geography & Terrain

Above satellite image shows us the immense amount of desert and coastal plain that the 7 Emirates of the UAE are made up of. Abu Dhabi is the capital of the states and spans around of 87% of the whole country’s land which is around 83,600 sq km (32,300 sq miles).

Rolling sand dunes of vast deserts stretch up to 80% of the country’s total land area which further merges into the flat, barren coastal plain. The coastal plain stretches around 650 Km (404 miles approx).

This vast amount of uninhabited land and coastal area makes it a perfect hindrance free corridor for an ultra-speed transportation birthplace such as Hyperloop One.

12 Minute Hyperloop Dubai/Abu Dhabi Route Map

From Capital City Center & Abu Dhabi Airport the Hyperloop tunnel ends at the Dubai Aiport which is one of the world’s busiest. In the middle we can also see a future plan for connecting the hyperloop tube to the cargo terminals called the “Hyper-Go”.

Sub routes also connect to differrent areas and ports through the passenger/cargo pods.

(Proposed not finalized) 

You got bored reading? Watch the following video to understand what is Hyperloop and how it works.

The idea of capsule transport is not new but Tesla CEO, Elon Musk gave it true life, prepared the blue prints and made it open-source.

Some Insights On Dubai Transportation

In order to understand the need and benefits of a futuristic, fast and safe transportation for Dubai we need to analyze some statistical data first.

Source: Dubai RTA Website. You can download the full PDF here.

The above data is from the year 2014 which shows a total of Inter-City travellers is about 12.89 million a year. So if by 2020 only the inter-city travellers are facilitated, the traffic on roads will decrease significantly and most people will surely like to save their travel time to the max.

The below info-graphic shows us the number of fatalities happened in the year 2014 in each category of public and private vehicles. Although private cars have the most accidental fatalities i.e. 92 but the public transport both passenger and cargo combined is around 67 which is also very high for a very well developed region.

Although we’re short of the safety information on the Hyperloop mode of transportation as of now, but considering it’s enclosed form of travelling I am sure we can save those 67 lives a year as well.

Looking at the above statistics 372,305 trips are only for the inter-city travel and reducing that number a minimum with the introduction of hyperloop in the system will make the region and the world a greener healthier place with 0 emissions.

The latest video from Hyperloop One below shows how it will feel like travelling inter-city with the newest 5th generation transport mode. Surely the era of driverless cars is upon us sooner than most expected, some are still thinking hyperloop is an ‘impossibility’.

Hyperloop One Dubai Gallery

These are the latest pictures we got for the Hyperloop Dubai project. We will be updating the gallery as soon as we get updates.

  Click the pictures to zoom in and download.