Virgin Hyperloop has unveiled its vision for the future of high-speed travel. The company has released a concept video of the hyperloop experience, taking viewers step-by-step through a hyperloop journey, from arriving at the portal to boarding the pod.
It comes just months after Virgin Hyperloop started its first passenger testing.
“Designing a new mode of transportation from scratch is both an opportunity and a responsibility,” said Sara Luchian, Virgin Hyperloop’s Director of Passenger Experience and one of the first people to ride the hyperloop in November. “Hyperloop technology – and what it enables – is paradigm-shifting. It follows that the passenger experience should be nothing short of extraordinary.”
Virgin Hyperloop has worked with world-class partners across disparate industries – including Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) for the portal designs, Teague for the pod designs, SeeThree for the video and animation and Man Made Music for the score and sonic identity – to design a comprehensive, multi-sensory passenger experience that surpasses that of any other form of mass transit.
“Virgin Hyperloop can accelerate the future of mobility on land. The new mode of travel at supersonic speed rethinks transportation and the perception of space, landscape, time, and distance,” said Bjarke Ingels, Founder & Creative Director, BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group. “In this day and age, Virgin Hyperloop taking off from our portals provides holistic, intelligent transportation for a globalized community to travel across vast distances in a safer, cleaner, easier, and faster way than airlines.”
Key to the Virgin Hyperloop passenger experience is accessibility, ensuring this new form of transportation will expand opportunities for the masses. While ticket prices will vary depending on the exact route, a recent study in Ohio found that hyperloop fares would be more akin to the cost of driving, rather than flying.
On demand and direct to destination, the hyperloop system would be able to transport thousands of passengers per hour, despite the fact that each vehicle carries around 28 passengers. This high throughput is achieved by convoying, where vehicles are able to travel behind one another in the tube within milliseconds, controlled by Virgin Hyperloop’s machine intelligence software.
Following its successful passenger testing, Virgin Hyperloop is currently paving the way for the regulation and certification of hyperloop systems around the world. The company aims to achieve safety certification by 2025, with commercial operations – such as those depicted in the video – beginning in 2030.
For more information, see the new passenger experience page on the Virgin Hyperloop website: www.virginhyperloop.com/experience, launched today.
