Hyperloop One Challenge: Denver, Columbus And Mumbai Among Top 10 Routes

Hyperloop One released a list of the best new routes for its high-speed transportation based on 10 winning submissions from its worldwide contest. The final routes include locations in the U.S., Mexico, Canada U.K. and India.

The 10 routes are:

1. U.S.: Cheyenne-Denver-Pueblo

2. U.S.: Chicago-Columbus-Pittsburgh

3. U.S.: Miami-Orlando

4. U.S.: Dallas-Houston

5. U.K.: Edinburgh-London

6. U.K.: Glasgow-Liverpool

7. Mexico: Mexico City-Guadalajara

8. India: Bengaluru-Chennai

9. India: Mumbai-Chennai

10. Canada: Toronto-Montreal

The 10 picks connect 53 urban centers and nearly 150 million people. The routes’ combined distance stretches 4,121 miles. The winners were picked from hundreds of applicants by a panel of experts in infrastructure, technology and transportation. The contest, called the Hyperloop One Global Challenge, launched in May 2016 and allowed universities, companies and governments to submit their proposals.

"The Global Challenge became a movement of thousands of people from more than 100 countries over six continents,” Shervin Pishevar, co-founder and Executive Chairman of Hyperloop One, said in a statement. “Like us, they believe that Hyperloop will not only solve transportation and urban development challenges within communities, it will unlock vast economic potential and transform how our cities operate and how we live. Our successful test this summer made Hyperloop a reality, and now we're ready to bring our Hyperloop system to the world."

The company said it will work with the winning teams to continue analyzing the proposals and will provide ridership forecasts, business case and preliminary technical analysis of the route and corridor, based on the needs of each route. Besides the 10 winners, Hyperloop One will work with 11 other finalist teams on their proposals.

Hyperloop One also announced it has launched a feasibility study with the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) with support from the company AECOM. The three will examine “transportation demand, economic benefits, proposed routes and potential strategies, regulatory environments and alignment with overall CDOT high-speed travel, rail and freight plans,” Hyperloop One said. The partnership with CDOT and AECOM directly derived from the Global Challenge.

“This is unprecedented and demonstrates how quickly the public-private sectors can partner to make Hyperloop systems a reality around the world,” Rob Lloyd, CEO of Hyperloop One, said in a statement. “Studies like this bring us closer to our goal of implementing three full-scale systems operating by 2021."

Traveling With The Hyperloop One

The Hyperloop One will carry passengers and cargo in a pod that travels via a low-pressure tube. The pod accelerates gradually then quickly levitates above the track using magnetic levitation and glides at airline speeds for long distances.

Last month, the company announced the completion of its second successful test of its pod. It ran 192 miles per hour (310 kph) on the DevLoop track site in Nevada, just 30 minutes away from Las Vegas on July 29. The pod accelerated for 300 meters then lifted above the track using magnetic levitation before coming to a slow stop. Hyperloop One said the test run achieved “historic test speeds” traveling nearly the full distance of the 500-meter test track.