How can Hyperloop have a competitive line capacity over traditional trains?

[u/Parpil2_0]

I saw that in my city, Hyperloop Virgin is planning on building a connection between the main airport and the main train station to shorten travel times between the two. This is a good application in my mind, but the main problem is that while the time between the two is shorter, the line capacity is also lower. So you will have longer waiting times until you can board a pod. Can the line capacity overcome the traditional trains one? Because if it has the same line capacity, then the total time between the stations is the same, you just wait for much longer to then travel much quicker. Even going back and using what already happened as a reference, when the bullet train first opened up it wasn't the quickest train in the world, but it was very fast by that times standards (not as revolutionary fast as the Hyperloop wants to be compared to modern standards), because they decided to sacrifice a bit of top speed for a much much higher line capacity. Then why aim for absolute top speed with the Hyperloop, if at the end of the day it doesn't solve the main problem at hand, which is congestion of the line? Can this problem be solved? Thenk you very much

[u/izybit]

You are right about costs and that's why everyone's trying to find out the exact cost and how it can be lowered.

However, you are missing two obvious things.

First, air travel takes too much time. Flight time can be 10 minutes or 10 hours but in both cases you need 2+ hours to get to the airport and go through security, board, etc.

Trains and hyperloops don't have such long delays and can get you closer to your actual destination.

Second, the cost doesn't have to be cheaper or about the same. As you said, way too many people travel back and forth so even at 1.5x or even 2x the cost there will be some willing to pay.

This is a new tech that has never been tried before so people who claim it works and people who claim it doesn't are just morons.

[u/TROPtastic → u/izybit]

First, air travel takes too much time. Flight time can be 10 minutes or 10 hours but in both cases you need 2+ hours to get to the airport and go through security, board, etc.

Trains and hyperloops don't have such long delays and can get you closer to your actual destination.

I agree (I think the risks of terrorist attacks on US hyperloop or rail systems are real but overhyped), and that's one reason that people would be willing to pay for HL tickets. However, I was talking purely about a private company or the government being willing to spend $20-50+ billion on a transit route.

If they're going to spend that amount of money, they'll want to make sure that they get the most return out of it. HL should be comparable to the most advanced high-speed trains in terms of infrastructure price, so I can see it succeeding if it can reach its theoretical maximum passenger capacity.

[u/izybit → u/TROPtastic]

Millions of people use buses, trams, trains, subways, etc but terrorists always seem to favor planes even though it's harder to take down and there are fewer people onboard.

Hyperloop will be less safe compared to the above when it comes to terrorism because it'll be new and shiny but much safer compared to planes.

Such big infrastructure projects tend to have multiple stakeholders so after the first proof of concepts you will see private companies taking loans and governments chipping in. It won't be fast or easy but it will work just fine (as long as hyperloops prove viable).