The Hyperloop: Discussions in Destination Impact
– By Ben Cober, director of business development and research
Faster than some speeding bullets; unstoppable by rain, sleet, snow, and Earthquake; and virtually un-crashable.
Look, out in Palo Alto! Is it Superman? The Flash? The interwebs?
No, it’s the Hyperloop, Elon Musk’s proposed revolutionary transport. The wonderful cocktail of science fiction and science possibility, the Hyperloop claims it could generate more power than it uses, never stop running, and travel from LA to San Francisco in under 30 minutes aboard the Franken-train that’s a mixture of “a Concorde, a railgun, and an air hockey table.” All for less $$ than your average plane ticket.
On August 12, 2013, Musk shared his plans with the world via Tesla Motors’ blog. Why not hold onto this for himself, revolutionize transportation, and swim in a vault of gold, Ducktales-style? Goodwill of sharing society improvements and knowledge-for-all aside, Musk generally summed it up that he was too busy running one of the world’s most successful electric car companies (Tesla Motors) and the world’s most successful private-enterprise space rocket company (SpaceX) to have the time to develop the system. He’s just that ahead of the game.
So this got my mind churning. If we had a series of air-hockey tubes networked around the country, enabling you to jettison to major metropolitan areas at a fraction of the cost and time of flights, trains, and traditional road trips, what kind of effect would that have on tourism? On tourists? On destination design?
I went to the experts, and lured some of our top destination designers and planners to lunch to pick their brains on the future of destinations were the Hyperloop to succeed.
Feasibility
To my surprise, everyone agreed that it would probably work – that Musk’s designs looked sound, and that it was basically a giant pneumatic tube that you’d see in a bank or old mail room. Some critics think that our bodies couldn’t handle the speed, but the Destinologists said ‘baloney’ – ‘they’ said the same things about shuttle launches, roller coasters, and cars.
They also felt that it sounded safer than rail – its aforementioned invulnerability to weather and potential sensors all along the track mean that it could be heavily monitored, avoiding system tampering and crashes. Lastly, the team jokingly noted that if it worked in SeaQuest’s “Nothing but the Truth” and Total Recall’s “The Fall,” why couldn’t it work in California?
The Set-Up
The lunch squad thought of it as the Eurorail of the US, connecting London to Paris in an hour, and that the economics of it might work like multi-passes, city passes, and cruise ship ports-of-call. Different organizations could buy into the system to help fund it – government, business, or destination-sponsored capsules and lines. While you rode in the near-silent capsule from Denver to Orlando, you might be aboard the Disney capsule, watching commercials about things to do at their parks or the latest Disney feature film. You may even play Disney-themed games on internal screens along with your fellow passengers. Looking at Virgin America might be a strong example of how these lines and capsules could be branded – providing wholly unique experiences – keeping the journey part of the destination.
However, they felt that the merit in the system would not be in a single brand linking all its destinations together, like Universal Studios connecting Orlando to LA; but rather a hub-and-spoke system, where you would arrive in a major metropolitan area, but then take smaller lines to nearby attractions of all kinds, including natural wonders, historic sites, theme parks, and zoos. Being that everything is so spread out in the US, that might be the best bet – and regional destinations or CVBs could team up to sell packages, such as four attractions and a hotel for a weekend getaway.
Lastly, they were guessing that a roller coaster train dispatch system, like a Wild Mouse, might be the best for loading and unloading at the stations. Musk’s design references a departure time of every two minutes; and with 20 people in each of the larger capsules, that’s 840 people a minute.
The Opportunity
This could greatly reduce the travel component of vacations or even short trips, not having to consider parking or driving (ever spend a weekend trying to drive and park around any major city?). What you’re left with is far more time for activities, providing access to the means, and the chance to experience more in short times – like polishing off lunch in St. Louis, catching a capsule to NYC for a Broadway show, and being home by bedtime.
Jim, one of our resident theme park designers, says it’d be “bucket-list” driven; and instead of families wanting to visit a number of theme parks in a weekend, they’d target specific elements – like a single zoo in one city and a roller coaster in another, capitalizing on the most unique attractions at a variety of destinations. And for a weeklong family vacation, your geographical opportunities are exploded – what if the National Parks Service offered a “Best of America” tour for $120 per person? Destinations should love it because the Hyperloop could guarantee traffic and ticket sales since that line is hard-wired to that region.
For the destinologists, they liked the idea of potentially not having to live on site for two years while a project is under construction (commuting quickly each day), but don’t think it would affect construction very much – rail is still the most efficient way to transport materials.
What Changes?
Destinations across the country will continue to technologically evolve, but the pace of evolution may speed up with the Hyperloop. How would today’s destinations change to take advantage of the new system?
The team noted that the dynamics of assumed attendance would change, and parks might have to grow to accommodate more guests for shorter trips. They noted though that some destinations could implement trips that supplemented their attractions – like SeaWorld San Diego offering whale-watching trips along the Pacific Ocean or the Gettysburg National Museum sending guests to Fort Sumter to see where it all began.
They were torn though – would there even still be theme parks with the Hyperloop, or would we see the rise of individual attractions (rides, wave pools, etc)? Whatever the case may be, they thought that cities would become more homogenous – which would demand destinations become more unique and special to drive interest and attendance.
Challenges
There was a lot of Hyperloop love in the air, but that doesn’t mean that they didn’t find a number of roadblocks and challenges along the way.
Of course the $6b price tag is a big hold-up in getting the project underway, and the politics of the railroads and states/counties is so complicated that it may take decades to break through the red tape. In addition, what insurance company is going to cover this system; and while people could be at your destination in a matter of hours, they could leave just as quickly.
And of course there are environmental concerns. The Hyperloop claims to have low-to-no environmental impact, but would it interrupt migration patterns? Would the higher foot traffic it provides to national parks and historic sites accelerate erosion and pollution in these pristine places?
There’s also the consideration of fly-over regions; and just as the implementation of the railroad created hundreds of ghost-towns across the American West, so might the Hyperloop actively grow some cities and kill others in one fell swoop. Lastly, would the “specialness” of things go away? If from anywhere in the country you could be at a live Broadway show, the front gate of Disney World, or the rim of the Grand Canyon in just a couple hours, would these things still be special in our hearts?
It’s an interesting notion to consider, I think. You often hear, “it’s not the destination, it’s the journey that matters.” What happens when our journey is sliced to 1/12th, that it becomes just a blink? Do we lose the weight of the journey, does it become more valuable because it’s so short? Do destinations begin to lose their “specialness” because they become so readily accessible? Or does it give us more time for the things that we care about in life (or as some scholars argue, give us more time to fill with more work and noise)?
At this point, it’s all up in the air. So what do you think the impact of the Hyperloop could be on destinations? Leave your opinions and questions below!
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