Above and beyond: Virgin Hyperloop’s vision for passenger experience

Over the last few decades, we have seen innovation transform myriad fields: medicine, computing, entertainment, mobility. Yet even as technology brings the promise of safer, autonomous transportation, one important dimension has seemed to stagnate, its improvements incremental at best: the passenger experience.

Inconsistent WiFi, cramped seats, and service interruptions have become the expectation on mass transit, rather than the exception. Meanwhile, as more people move to cities and remain dismayingly reliant on their cars, we all spend more time idling on congested freeways, belching pollution and wasting time.

Virgin Hyperloop aims to change all of that. A new mode of super-fast mass transportation, hyperloop uses electric propulsion and magnetic levitation to move passenger vehicles (called “pods”) through low-pressure tubes. With no vehicle-to-track friction and ultra-low aerodynamic drag, these fully autonomous pods can glide at speeds of over 1,000km/h – connecting cities in minutes. But speed alone does not make travel a good experience; it merely gets us to the good experiences sooner.