Ottobrunn (dpa / lby) - A Hyperloop test track is being built near Munich in an adapted size for real passengers. The ground-breaking ceremony in Ottobrunn on Friday marked the start of the construction of a 24-metre-long stretch for the high-speed transport system, which will in future allow passengers to travel in gondolas in a largely airless tube at around 850 kilometers per hour. According to the Technical University of Munich (TUM), a reference route for the Hyperloop system should be created by the end of the decade.
Two years after the start of the Hyperloop research program at TUM, the construction has now raised the project from the model scale to real size. "TUM Hyperloop has set itself the goal of developing the technology to make sustainable high-speed transport a reality," explains Gabriele Semino, project manager at TUM Hyperloop.
"Science fiction becomes reality," commented Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU), who attended the event. "The Hyperloop is the vision of a completely new and emission-free way of moving at over 400 kilometers per hour."
The Bavarian Science Minister Markus Blume (CSU) spoke of a ground-breaking ceremony for "the mobility of the future". The vision is sustainable, ultra-fast and safe locomotion. Europe's first Hyperloop test segment in passenger size is now being built in Ottobrunn.
The TUM Hyperloop program has been part of the High-Tech Agenda Bavaria since 2020 and is therefore co-financed by the Free State of Bavaria.
