Imagine travelling at the speed of 1 kilometre every 3 seconds, or  Sydney to Melbourne in 47 minutes, according to Hyperloop it’s not a dream, it’s a near future reality and it’s where Hong Kong Radio 3’s Phil Whelan and then later on Anthony Tilli of Austereo and I started our on air journey’s this week.

This new vacuum tube transport system was floated by Elon Musk a couple of years ago and was taken up by Jump Start Fund who is seriously touting this tech to the governments and infrastructure builders around the world, with the first installation due in Quay Valley California within the next 3 years and other major announcement imminent.

From the ground into the skies, with the stat that every 15 years our airline passenger numbers double taking us from a current 3.3 billion annual passengers to 6.7 billion in 2032 and most of that driven by the rising middle class in the Asia Pacific region, especially China and India. With this kind of growing demand, air travel still remains the dominant long haul transport method, but will it be done on the planes we know and use today?

Richard Branson, Jeff Bazos and lots of others, hope not and they’re working on vertical sub orbit travel promising flights between Australia and London of around 2 hours, it seems as if they may have something, but even if they do, it’s some decades away before we get to regularly fly in it.

Two great chats and a solid look at transport past, present and future, so have a listen and let me know what mode of transport you’d most like to see invented.

Hong Kong Radio 3 – Phil Whelan – 23 February 2016 – 12 minutes 46 seconds

Austereo WA – Anthony Tilli – 29 February 2015 – 4 minutes 00 seconds