Track: Senior Design Project / FYP Competition

Abstract

The hyperloop is an upcoming transportation technology promising to revolutionize the way people and cargo are transported, given the shear speed advantage that a hyperloop pod can travel in as compared to that of any other current land-based transportation mode. Using secondary sources to theoretically examine the effects of the hyperloop on existing supply chains, further point estimates are obtained surrounding different variables of the hyperloop such as its speed, carry capacity, and launch rate. A preliminary investigation is then conducted in the context of northern Germany, where 19,360,000 tons of cargo were transported in 2013 using trucks. As such, a mirrored hyperloop-based supply chain is modelled, simulated, and compared to that of the control, using Arena. It is estimated that the hyperloop could have transported 8% more cargo within the same time period, where it is seen that 26% more hyperloop pods are dispatched when compared to trucks, as per the simulation output.