Hyperloop One has announced plans to launch an assault on the GCC’s cargo industry, with the company aiming to steal as much as a third of total market share.
Traveling at speeds of 1080 km per hour, Hyperloop aims to enable travel between cities in the GCC in under an hour. A Hyperloop One route between Dubai and Abu Dhabi was announced in November.
In the GCC, the cargo transportation market was worth approximately $35 billion in 2016, according to McKinsey & Co. Of this, Hyperloop One believes it has an addressable share of around $12 billion, excluding short-haul, intra-city shipping and low-value commodity freight such as oil and chemicals, metals and minerals and agriculture and food products.
Hyperloop One would compete for 100 percent of air freight in the GCC, which is a $7 billion market, 22 percent of the surface freight – which is approximately $3 billion in road and rail freight – and 13 percent of the maritime freight, equating to roughly $2 billion.
Speaking at the Global Manufacturing and Industrialisation Summit in in Abu Dhabi, the firm’s senior vice president of global operations, Nick Earle, discussed the plans.
“As the only company in the world building an operational Hyperloop system, Hyperloop One is focused on creating a new mode of transportation to move people and cargo,” Earle said. “Hyperloop One changes everything. We’re committed to enabling disruption to create new opportunities in manufacturing, warehousing and supply chain distribution. Hyperloop will drive significant value for a wide range of businesses and reinvent transportation as we know it.”
During GMIS, Hyperloop One also announced the launch of its Partner Program.
Shervin Pishevar, executive chairman and co-founder of Hyperloop One, said, “The UAE has a progressive vision for transforming its economy, and Hyperloop One plays right into that by increasing access to the region and beyond. We’re thinking beyond the benefits that Hyperloop will offer companies; connecting the GCC with Hyperloop will enable governments to address the region’s youth bulge, by providing young jobseekers with the opportunity to explore new, exciting job prospects.”
