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Urban Transport

Helsinki to Stockholm by Hyperloop – in less than half an hour?

By Antonio Pasolini
July 06, 2016
Helsinki to Stockholm by Hyperloop – in less than half an hour?
Hyperloop One is proposing a line running between Finland and Sweden
Hyperloop One is proposing a line running between Finland and Sweden
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Hyperloop One is proposing a line running between Finland and Sweden
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Hyperloop One is proposing a line running between Finland and Sweden

Hyperloop One, the proposed faster-than-airplane transport system, has presented a study highlighting the economic feasibility and benefits of creating a route between the Finnish capital, Helsinki, and the Swedish capital, Stockholm. The new network would move commuters between the two cities in less than half an hour as they travel in pilot-free capsules that use electric propulsion for acceleration and levitate slightly above the track.

Hyperloop One and its partner FS Links, along with global accounting firm KPMG, presented the data during the recent Northern Light business summit in Helsinki. A trip between the cities would reportedly take only 28 minutes, which is half the time it takes to go by air and much shorter than an overnight ferry.

Passengers would be better off €321 million (about US$356.5 million) per year in saved time while the operating profit would be €800 million ($888.4 million) based on a forecast of 43 million passenger trips per year, the study shows.

The cost of building the 500-kilometer (310.6-mile) network is estimated to be €19 billion ($21 billion). The proponents say that, at €38 million per kilometer ($67 million per mile), it works out cheaper than a high-speed train. For instance, the London-Birmingham (UK) fast rail project is estimated to cost €100 million per kilometer ($180 million per mile) and another high-speed rail project in California is projected to cost between $124 to $143 million per mile, they say.

The study also shows that the network would foster new economic development, and highlights the property market in Stockholm as a case study. The Swedish capital has a 13-year waiting list for new rental apartments and there are official plans to build 210,000 new commuter homes. These housing plans could be incorporated into the route with properties being build near Hyperloop One stations, from where passengers could reach the center of the city in less than 10 minutes.

The findings of the study have prompted the Finnish city of Salo, a tech hub in the country, to sign a Letter of Intent with Hyperloop One to become the first city along the route between the two capitals. Initially, a 50-kilometer (31-mile) route will run west from Salo to the coastal city of Turku. That would be followed by a 140-km (87-mile) extension to Helsinki.

The full report can be downloaded free of charge.

Source: Hyperloop One

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Urban TransportTransportHigh speed trainHyperloopHyperloop One
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bobflint
So either the development costs are way off or my calculated price of the trip of $488 is wrong since the ROI is one year based on 43 million passengers per year, and the stated operating profit of 888 million based on those 43 million passengers then works out to $20.65 per trip? (not counting operating costs)
Nothing stating the actual trip price in the downloaded report...just imaginary profits..
Either way most people (99%) wouldn't pay hundreds of dollars to save 1/2 an hour flying. Unless they are factoring in those 1% that could make hundreds of dollars in thirty minutes...
habakak
Yeah no. These things always end up costing two to three times more than projected. Also, having to stop every minute for 2 minutes to pick up passengers and drop others off, they will not reach the city in 10 minutes. It will be slowed down a lot due to the constant speeding up and slowing down to accommodate passengers.
mahak
How will this 500-kilometer (310.6-mile) Hyperloop network follow the curvature of earth? It shall encounter 60,000 feet of drop and an arc midpoint height of 30,000 feet.
StWils
Early in New York States history Governor DeWitt Clinton was ridiculed for pushing his foolish barge canal linking the western most navigable part of the Hudson river to Erie Pennsylvania. The cost projections were though to be astronomical and the pay back period would be "Never". The canal was built anyway and literally opened the interior of the US to development. Other people, at later times, laughed at the telegraph, telephone, trains, and cars, as well as packaged, preserved food, hardware & clothing from a mail order catalog, (Sears & Roebuck), and the list goes on. Not so long ago a young man said that "who is ever going to need more than 64K BYTES of memory?". An older Bill Gates has had plenty of time to reconsider the observations of Bill at age 23. Building a fast lightweight transport system that will be electrically powered is an innovation that will pay for itself and pay for the buildout of other lines as the technology is made to work well and at scale size. And also, whomever works these details out first & best, gets to own that new industry pretty much for as long as they want. Just like canals, trains, the telephone, personal computer, vcr, etc.etc.list continues...
White Druid
@Bobflint, Your ROI calculations are way off. Any project like this would not have an ROI time of a single year. You would expect to make your ROI back over a period of years... minimum of 10 years for something like commercial rental property and up to 50 years for something like rail or public infrastructure.
Even a 10 year ROI would show a per ride cost of circa 45-65 to cover the initial investment. A 25 or longer year ROI period would reduce that expectation significantly.
What I find interesting is that with this as an option, there are still plans afoot for high speed rail projects. One proposed from Houston, TX to Dallas, TX would seem like a perfect opportunity for a hyperloop. The cost per mile/km of hyperloop facility versus high speed rail facility seems to obsolete high speed rail, yet those projects are getting the go ahead today.
To address another comment, why would the entire thing stop simply because one capsule is routed to a local loop? The whole point is that much like a packet switched network, packets that don't need to go to that port keep on at full speed. So yes, I would expect to see full speed from point to point. Contrast that with traditional high speed rail, which requires starting and stopping the whole thing for every stop. The hyperloop alternative is significantly more efficient as it accelerates each capsule twice, once to start and once again to stop and otherwise would only need to offset any local losses.