Earlier this week there
were several online news articles about Hyperloop firm Arrivo
creating above ground tubes along side an existing highway that would
allow cars to zip along at 200 MPH between downtown Denver and the
Denver International Airport. Cars would travel on trays, with the
trays being magnetically levitated. The system would be powered by
electricity. Unlike competitor Hyperloop One's concept of a
hyperloop which hopes to achieve higher speeds, Arrivo will not attempt to lower the air pressure in the
tubes.
These articles really got
me thinking. Thinking not about what a wonderful idea it is, but
instead thinking about how every article I read about hyperloops is
lacking in details and fails to address any of the possible problems
they may encounter in building and maintaining said hyperloop. For example, Arrivo co-founder Brogan
BramBrogan stated that the tubes could transport 20,000 vehicles an
hour. Sounds wonderful, but I have trouble figuring out how this
could possibly be implemented. Let's take a look at what it takes to
get cars into and out of the tube. Remember that the cars are going
to travel on trays. Therefore every car that enters the tube has to
drive onto a tray which is then accelerated up to 200 MPH. At the end
of the journey the tray has to be decelerated and when it has come to
a complete stop the car can drive off of the tray and go on its merry
way.
Let's investigate what it will
take to achieve the stated goal of 20,000 cars an hour. Dividing 20,000
by 3,600 (the number of seconds in an hour) we need to feed a smidgen
over 5.5 cars a second into the tube. Assume the the following steps
are required to get cars into the tube using a single loading lane:
A car
drives onto a tray
The
tray heads down the mag lev track and merges onto the 200 MPH main
tube track.
Another
tray is moved into position so that the next car can drive onto it.
If the above process takes
15 seconds, which all things considered is probably a low estimate,
there would have to be over 80 such lanes to feed 5.5 cars a second
into the tube. 80 plus lanes! This would require a football size plot
of land on each end of the tube just to handle the incoming cars. As
if that is not enough of a a formidable challenge, how exactly do you
get 22,000 cars an hour into the loading area without creating
gridlock in all of the surrounding roads? Remember, the whole idea of
spending a zillion dollars on the hyperloop is to reduce traffic on
the highway between downtown Denver and the airport. Wouldn't this just
create a bigger mess?
As if figuring out how to
load cars into the tube isn't bad enough, the problems at the other
end of the tube are worse where you have to get 5.5 cars a second off of
their trays and onto the roads leading away from the tube. Needless
to say, traffic on the roads leading away cannot back up or the
unloading process will grind to a halt requiring all trays in the
tube to slow down or stop.
There is one last
challenge at the end of the tube and I view it as the toughest one to
deal with. All trays have to decelerate from 200 MPH to a stop so
that the cars can drive off of their trays. The trays however cannot decelerate on
the main track in the tube or there will be a ripple effect back down
the track and every tray behind it will have to slow down. Therefore
trays will have to be “switched” onto multiple deceleration lanes
which will then feed the unloading lanes. This switching will have to
be done at 200 MPH! Good luck with that.
Considering all of the
above I highly doubt that a rate of 20,000 cars an hour can be
achieved. I'm not even so sure that 10,000 cars an hour is doable.
Get much lower than 10,000 cars and hour and it would be a heck of a
lot cheaper to simply add a lane in each direction. I can't wait to
see updates on this project.
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