Week Two: Getting Started

We had a great start to the week with a very successful meeting!

The group looked at the existing methods of transport available to the public and identified the key problem - efficiency. We had a look at different options and found that our proposed project takes only 7 minutes 30 seconds to travel to between Glasgow and Edinburgh, going at an average speed of 400 miles per hour. This is a dramatic decrease in time when compared to the alternative modes of transport being: 1 hour 23 minutes by car, 42 minutes by train and 2 hours by bus.

As our team has such a wide range of knowledge and interests, we decided it would be a good idea to conduct some individual research based on what we believed would be most important to an investor and the public during the development of such a large-scale project. We decided that the main issues to consider were:

• Safety

• Cost

• Economy

• Pricing

• Time

• Aesthetic and Design

• Congestion

• Environment

As our main goal with this project is to provide a quicker, safer and more environmentally conscious form of transportation, we decided that passenger safety would be our main priority! We then began assessing risks related to this system and potential design features that fitted the brief.

We began to explore how the system would actually run, discussing: tube design and sizes to allow for a high capacity of passengers, without compromising safety or cost. We worked on how much curvature the tube or passengers could comfortably go through and figured this would be at most 29 degrees at 500 miles per hour and applying a safety factor we designated a maximum change in direction of 5 degrees.

Advantages of the Project:

• Environmentally friendly

• Quiet and not intrusive

• Only major footprint is in construction

• De-congest other modes of transport

• Safe

• Integrates well with other transport methods

Need to Consider:

• Effect of snow on project

• Passenger safety

• Demographic (tourists or upper-middle to upper class commuters)

We also used this time to discuss the Cargo between the cities and how the same pods could potentially be used if we install removable seats in them. We roughly estimated an average cost of £16.80 per ticket (single).

We began exploring possible options for routes and came to realise that different disciplines had very different ideas for possible routes...

#Transportation #Hyperloop #Teamwork #Safety #Efficiency