Overview
Whether you're travelling from Sydney to Canberra or Parramatta, Melbourne to Geelong, or Brisbane to the Sunshine Coast, you'll soon be able to get there a whole lot quicker — or that's the plan, at least. Various government bodies have announced various high-speed transport proposals throughout 2018, all focused on journeying relatively short distances in as short a time as possible. But if a potential new transit network comes to fruition, Australians would be able to zip between many capital cities in less than an hour.
One of several companies trying to build Elon Musk's Hyperloop vacuum-tube transport system, Hyperloop Transportation Technologies has lodged a submission to the federal government's current parliamentary inquiry into automated mass transit. Its key feature: travelling at a top speed of 1223 kilometres per hour. At speeds that fast, you'd be able to zoom from Brisbane to Sydney in 37 minutes, and from Sydney to Melbourne in the same amount of time. Melbourne to Adelaide would take just 33 minutes, while a jaunt down from Sydney to Canberra would need a mere 14 minutes, and venturing from Canberra to Melbourne would be over in 23 minutes.
The timings are just estimates for now; however each potential leg proves considerably quicker than the equivalent plane journey — and the longest outlined route, from Brisbane to Adelaide, would take one hour and 47 minutes. Zipping between the northern and southern ends of the country faster than you can watch a movie sounds incredibly enticing, as does simply popping over to another city for a day trip.
Billed as "bringing aeroplane speeds to ground level", Hyperloop sends capsules along low-pressure tubes, with each capsule seating 38 passengers. That said, the system is still well and truly in the testing phase. In October, Hyperloop TT's first full-scale passenger capsule was revealed in Spain, with the company also building a 320-metre system in France. By next year, it intends to construct a one-kilometre system for further pilots.
If Hyperloop does become a reality, Hyperloop TT's Aussie submission also suggests incorporating the Gold Coast, the Southern Highlands, Newcastle, Wollongong, Nowra, Port Macquarie and Orange into routes — further broadening the network's reach, reducing road congestion and decentralising the country away from major cities, all while using solar panels to power the system.
There's no proposed timeframe in Hyperloop TT's proposal, so don't go dreaming about zooming across the country just yet. Also, this isn't the first time that Hyperloop has been proposed for Australia, with rival outfit Hyperloop One outlining plans for a Sydney to Melbourne route back in 2016.
Via news.com.au. Images: Hyperloop TT.