First Human Passengers Test Historic Hyperloop Pod

The first human passengers traveled in the Virgin Hyperloop historic pod yesterday Monday, November 9th in Las Vegas, Nevada to test the advanced transportation technology.

The Virgin Hyperloop project also know as the Hyperloop Dubai is a multi-billion-dollar project that it is set to reduce the transportation time between Dubai and Abu Dhabi from one hour to 12 minutes. The historic project is sponsored by the global leading provider of smart logistics solutions and research DP World.

The Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer in Virgin Hyperloop Josh Giegel and the Director of Passenger Experience in Virgin Hyperloop Sara Luchian were the first two humans to travel in the XP-2 vehicle designed by Bjarke Ingels Group to provide both the safety and comfort to the passengers. The test pod was a 2-seater XP vehicle to ensure that it is in fact safe to travel in the Hyperloop pod. However, the actual production pod is set to be a large 28-seater vehicle.

All of the Hyperloop pod 400 unoccupied tests, yesterday’s occupied test, and its entire testing campaign are under the supervision of the Independent Safety Assessor (ISA) Certifier. Thus, the XP vehicle contains many safety systems as well as a state-of-the-art control system that will detect any program abnormalities and immediately trigger the required emergency response.

It is noteworthy that Saudi Arabia is currently conducting a Hyperloop study to research how beneficial is the Hyperloop carrying passengers and cargo to the country’s economy and to the high tech development. This study will lay the work basis for the future Saudi Hyperloop routes network.

Also, a partnership between the Virgin Hyperloop and the Mohamed Bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence was announced to support the development of the Hyperloop technology and the sustainable transportation.