Hyperloop, a high-speed mass transportation system for passengers and freight, is likely to be rolled out first in India or Saudi Arabia before in the UAE, said the CEO of Emirati multinational logistics company, DP World, Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem on Sunday.
Speaking at the sideline of the Dubai Expo 2020, a six-month long event which started on October 1, Sulayem said the high-speed transport system will become a reality in many parts of the world within the end of this decade.
“I will see it either in India at first, or in Saudi Arabia at the moment. Our hope is that when we achieve economies of scale and you have long routes and it is popular, probably for the speed of an airplane you will pay with the price of a truck,” Sulayem said when asked about the time scales for the Virgin Hyperloop.
The system is currently being developed by several companies, including Virgin Hyperloop, in which Dubai-based port operator DP World holds a majority stake.
Hyperloop is described as a sealed tube or system of tubes with low air pressure through which a pod may travel substantially free of air resistance or friction.
The company tested human travel in a hyperloop pod for the first-time in November last year.
“It's not decades, it's years," Sulayem told CNN in an interview at the Expo 2020 site, where the company is exhibiting a full-scale Hyperloop pod.
DP World had earlier said that the Hyperloop can shrink inventory movement timescales dramatically, reducing finished goods inventory and cut required warehouse space and cost by 25 percent.
In February 2018, chairman of Virgin Hyperloop One, Richard Branson had announced plans of a hyperloop system between Pune and Navi Mumbai in Maharashtra. Those plans have stalled due to coronavirus outbreak.
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