The European Commission recently published a new study on hyperloop with ambitious plans and estimates for 2050, such as a 13% market share in freight transport. However, reality might say otherwise considering the expected high costs and the stagnating situation that the industry has been facing.
According to the study, a hyperloop network in Europe would be used to move goods that traditionally travel on planes and need to be delivered fast. On the other hand, a shift from sea to hyperloop is not foreseen, as freight moved by ships is mostly containerised and travel time is not necessarily a priority.
Moreover, there would be demand for hyperloop services for time-sensitive cargo transported by road. The study claims that 80% of this cargo (19% of the total long-haul trucking demand) could be shifted to hyperloop. “Based on these estimates and the expected freight transport activity (…) a fully operational EU-level hyperloop network could account for 470 Gtkm, translating to 13% of total freight demand in 2050”, the study said.
The ‘eight countries’ scenario
The study, carried out by a consortium led by Ramboll Management Consulting, TIS, CERTH, and SINTEF, also presented a scenario where only eight EU countries would get a hyperloop network. The eight countries would be Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Poland. In this case, the study foresees that the hyperloop market share would set at 7% for 262 Gtkm in 2050.
This option “represents a more realistic network coverage compared to the broader EU-wide scenarios”, the study highlighted. However, a fragmented approach would raise numerous questions. Should it be funded by the EU even if it would not benefit all Member States? Should the eight national governments in question pay for it? What would the impact of leaving countries out be?
Ambitious estimates
The role of hyperloop for freight transport envisioned by the study largely relies on the assumption that the demand to move goods in Europe will continue to increase. Even for rail freight, the study is taking for granted that its market share in Europe will reach 20% of total demand. However, this might not be the case as the sector has grown in only six countries in the old Continent and the average in the EU has decreased from 18.5% to 16.9% over the past two decades.
The infrastructure is not even there yet
All these studies and estimations might paint a positive picture, even for the marginalised role that hyperloop can play for freight movements. But hyperloop needs a whole new infrastructure network which simply does not yet exist. Some of the predictions in the study talk about starting operations in 2035, which is less than 10 years away.
Considering the usual timeframes for similar sized projects in Europe, this is a very ambitious schedule to say the least, especially when considering cross-border sections. International projects always take longer to realise due to the different interests of different Member States, and it is hard to think that things would be better in the context of hyperloop deployment.
The costs
Given the problems the European rail freight industry is already facing, talking about hyperloop seems far-fetched. Many important rail routes are still non-electrified and are in desperate need of being renovated, the construction of alternative routes has been sidelined for years and operators struggle to remain alive. How could implementing a more expensive system help solve these issues?
One of the few certain things about hyperloop is in fact that it will be expensive to build, and thus expensive to use. The Commission’s study highlighted the difficulties of estimating costs in such a volatile environment, but most agree that a hyperloop network will cost around 36 million euros per kilometre. For the same amount of money, for example, the existing railway network could be significantly improved to the benefit of both rail freight and passengers.