How would you like to be able to take a train from Jakarta to Yogyakarta in less than the time it takes to drive from Blok M to Monas when there’s heavy macet?
Such a feat is not as impossible as it may seem. In fact, a company is ready to spend up to $2.5 million into studying whether it’s truly feasible.
So what kind of train could get you the 264 miles between Jakarta and Yogyakarta in just 25 minutes? The world’s current fastest train, the Shanghai Maglev, would still take about an hour to traverse that distance even at top speed.
In 2012, Elon Musk (billionaire inventor genius behind Tesla and Space X, basically the real-life Tony Stark) proposed the concept of the Hyperloop, a train system that would allow people and goods to travel at ultrahigh speeds by propelling them (in specially designed pods) through a near-vacuum tube at speeds of up to 760 miles per hour.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6x_IB45ySAQ
While it’s still considered a literal pipe dream by some, the Hyperloop concept is looking more real by the day, with the first real-world test track currently being built in the Nevada dessert.
Already companies are looking at not just how but where the sci-fi train system could be implemented. Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT), one of the companies looking to turn Musk’s vision into reality, recently announced it would invest up to $2.5 million into studying the possibility of implementing the system in Indonesia.
“The feasibility study will take between three to six months. We have set aside $1-2.5 million for this. For the first phase, we are looking at Tangerang, [Soekarno-Hatta airport] to the center of Jakarta. Then we are looking at the rest of Java. The target is 2,000 km. We will also be looking into Sumatra, also from the airport, ” said Bibop Gresta, HTT co-founder, on Wednesday as quoted by CNN Indonesia.
HTT has also teamed up with Indonesian partners to form a local company, Hyperloop Transtek Indonesia, to help further its plans within the country.
Bibop said that Indonesia’s dense population centers and lack of transportation infrastructure (a kind understatement) would make it an ideal place for the transformative effects of the hyperloop.
Even if they do decide to build the Hyperloop in Indonesia, it will probably be quite a long time before we’ll actually be riding in one. But we’ll definitely be dreaming of cruising through vacuumized tubes the next time we’re stuck in insufferable morning macet.
