Environmentally Inefficient travel options such as buses, trains, and airplanes not only end up leaving a large environmental footprint but are not doing enough to address the problem of sustainability. For a city, such as Dubai, the daily turnover of aircraft is over 1,000, which means over 1,000 aircraft are burning fossil fuel to move passengers and cargo from one place to another. A more environmentally sustainable solution to this problem needs to be found, that addresses the use of fossil fuel, the emissions, all the while maintaining the benefit of traveling long distances in a brief time.

#Energy #Transport

Using the concept similar to that of the Hyperloop; using frictionless technology to achieve fast speeds over a long distance, the Chinese concept of T-Flight achieves speeds of over 2,300 mph, overshadowing the “mediocre” speeds of 745 mph of the Hyperloop. It proposes to make travel more convenient, affordable, and accessible to a larger audience. One of the future problems that scientist predict that aircraft will face is increased turbulence due to global warming. T-Flight hopes to eradicate most of these issues.

Being powered by renewables, T-Flight promises to bring a cleaner and more efficient solution to long-distance travel compared to the traditional air travel.

The stakeholders that will be using the technology would be the intercity transit, national transit, and cross-country transit departments.

T-Flight is a project of CASIC which has 150,000 employees, support of the Chinese Government, and some deep pockets.

The deployment of this technology will begin with research. Already 200 patents for T-Flight have been registered, and the final research is said to complete by 2020. This will be followed by the construction of a national network of tunnels where speeds of 1200 mph can be achieved starting 2027, connecting major cities within China, followed by Stage 3 of constructing 2300 mph tunnels for cross-country travel.

The next stage is to build a national network of 1,200-miles-per-hour hyper loops across China beginning in 2027. This Phase 2 network would in theory link cities like Shanghai, Chengdu, and Beijing. The final stage: Mach-3 flying trains around the world.

The interconnection of cities is vital. However, the fact that the technology can be small-sized to intercity at relatively slower speeds (Much lower: 50 mph), shows that the future towards sustainable transport not just cross cities or across countries, but within cities is taking a huge leap forward. Underground inter-city and cross cities connection is the final goal of the T-flight. Something every commuter can look forward to.

China’s looking to one-up Elon Musk’s hyperloop
http://www.popsci.com/china-hyperloop
#china #technology #transit #transportation #innovation #hyperloop #hypersonic