On-board the Hyperloop: VR app offers glimpse inside supersonic transport system

A Dutch design agency has created a virtual reality app that gives a glimpse of what it might be like to travel inside the supersonic transport system, the Hyperloop. Hyperloop VR lets Google Cardboard owners look around inside a Hyperloop pod and explore some of the engineering behind the system.

Users of the Hyperloop VR app for iOS and Android can explore the technology by triggering the pod to open up, revealing an exploded view of the mechanical components. They can then navigate between different sections and mechanisms involved in the pod's engineering. The app simulates the duration it would take for the Hyperloop to carry passengers from Amsterdam and Paris, and includes "ambient and interactive sounds to enhance the experience".

Frans Vriesendorp, CEO at INDG, said: "We wanted to create a completely immersive experience for the Delft Team. We know that VR on mobile devices has relatively limited graphical capabilities right now, so our challenge was to make the most out of the devices people have in their pockets today. If you see this, it is impossible not to be curious about what can be done when the next wave of consumer VR devices hit the market."

While there's no guarantee that the highly ambitious Hyperloop system will ever be commercialised, the project is slowly moving from pipe dream to plausibility. US company Hyperloop One carried out its first public tests of its Hyperloop propulsion technology in May this year, in which it successfully propelled an aluminium carriage from zero to 60mph in just over a second.

The promise of being able to carry passengers across great distances at more than 700mph is now piquing the interests of other countries too, with Russia reported to be planning a high-speed transport system of its own, based on Hyperloop tech.

INDG's Hyperloop VR app has been developed in collaboration with the Delft University of Technology, which recently built a half-size Hyperloop test pod as part of a SpaceX design competition. The companies hope the app will represent what it might feel like to travel on the Hyperloop – although presumably without the massive G-Forces involved.