LOS ANGELES, September 21, 2017. Hyperloop One is partnering with the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDoT) to determine the feasibility of building a Hyperloop link from Cheyenne, the capital of Wyoming to Pueblo, Colorado via Denver, a distance of 360 miles.
The public/private partnership will also include Fortune 500 company AECOM, a designer and builder of infrastructure for governments, businesses and organizations in more than 150 countries.
"We are excited to partner with Hyperloop One in exploring the next step of feasibility of this innovative technology, potentially transforming how Colorado moves," said Shailen Bhatt, CDoT executive director. "The Hyperloop technology could directly align with our goals of improving mobility and safety in Colorado, and we have been encouraged by the continued progress the technology is taking."
The Colorado study is one of 10 initiatives announced by Hyperloop One following a competition to determine the best routes for the technology.
Winning teams from Canada, India, Mexico, the UK and U.S. have proposed the following links in addition to Cheyenne/ Pueblo: Chicago-Columbus-Pittsburgh; Miami-Orlando; Dallas-Houston; Edinburgh-London; Glasgow-Liverpool; Mexico City-Guadalajara; Bengaluru-Chennai; Mumbai-Chennai and Toronto-Montreal.
The routes would connect 53 urban centers and 150 million people over a total distance of more than 4,100 miles.
Hyperloop said it would now commit "meaningful business and engineering resources" to validate and analyze the proposals and provide initial ridership forecasts, a business case and preliminary technical analysis of each route.
In a separate announcement, the company has closed another round of financing, bringing the total to US$245 million since its founding in 2014.
"We are so fortunate that our new and existing investors share our vision of making Hyperloop the world's first new mode of transportation in over a century. We initially targeted US$50 million and ended up raising US$85 million instead," said Shervin Pishevar, executive chairman and co-founder.
"As we move towards the commercialization of our technology, we'll continue to work with governments and embrace public- private partnerships to reimagine transportation as we know it," he added.
