Only for millionaires: a ticket for Hyperloop Moscow-St. Petersburg is priced at 20% of salary

The hypothetical Hyperloop system from Elon Musk Moscow-Petersburg in the minimum configuration will cost 1.18 trillion rubles, which is even cheaper than a conventional high-speed highway (HSR) - 1.5 trillion rubles. But even with large-scale state support, the cheapest one-way ticket will cost 16.1 thousand rubles, or 13-18% of the monthly income of the average resident of the two capitals, and the maximum possible cost will reach 49 thousand rubles, Kommersant . writes In order for the project to pay off, almost 8% of the richest people in Russia must use the system every day.

Since the arguments against Hyperloop apply to high-speed lines, it turns out that Russia cannot afford high-speed traffic even on the most demanded route.

Idea Mask for Russia

• The first proposal to build a Hyperloop appeared in 2016. It was about an experimental cargo system with a length of 65 km Zarubino-Hunchun (China), and the owner of the Summa group Ziyavudin Magomedov was called the investor - since March 2018 he has been under arrest. Since Magomedov left the board of directors of Virgin Hyperloop One, nothing has been heard about the project. Magomedov and his brother Magomed are accused of fraud, embezzlement and the creation of an organized criminal group.
• In April of this year, Vladimir Putin proposed to revive the Moscow-Petersburg high-speed rail project at the request of Oleg Belozerov, General Director of Russian Railways, and Alexander Beglov, Acting Governor of St. Petersburg. The route was going to pass through Novgorod, and Deputy Prime Minister Maxim Akimov estimated the preliminary cost of the project at 1.5 trillion rubles.
• The same route was chosen for the construction of the Hyperloop system, invented by Elon Musk. In 2012, he proposed building a Hyperloop section from Los Angeles to San Francisco. The main advantage of the project is speed: the capsule accelerates along a rail in a vacuum tube to 1,200 km/h. So far, there are no commercial projects implemented, the first ones are expected in 2022.

Project details

• The construction of the project in Russia, excluding the cost of land alienation, will amount to 1.18 trillion rubles , or $18 billion, with a single-pipe version and at least 3.25 trillion rubles , or $36 billion, in a two-pipe version, IPEM calculated.
• In a two-pipe version and capsules for 40 passengers (the most budget option), a one-way ticket will cost at least 16.1 thousand rubles , or almost 13% of the monthly income of an average Muscovite and 18% of an average Petersburger. Without state support, the price for the same ticket will soar to 27.5 thousand rubles. In a single-tube version and with a capsule for 28 passengers (the most expensive option), a ticket will cost 31.6 thousand rubles with state support and 48.9 thousand rubles without it.
• Taking into account acceleration and deceleration, the travel time to St. Petersburg in the capsule will be 33 minutes. It is supposed to send one capsule per hour in both directions from 6:00 to 23:00 on a single-pipe line and three on a two-pipe line, and at night one capsule per hour or one and a half, respectively, should be sent.
• IPEM built into the model a 20-year ROI and 100% capsule occupancy, exploring two funding options - fully private and with 50% government co-funding.
• It will not be easy to ensure 100% capsule filling, IPEM notes. “The main consumer of the Hyperloop transport system, with the calculated ticket price, can only be the business community and the population with a high level of income. Specifically, we are talking about dollar millionaires, or 189 thousand Russians, according to Capgemini. “For the effective operation of the Hyperloop system, it is necessary that 2.4-7.6% of the richest people in Russia use it on a daily basis,” experts add.

Signals. The country is able to develop high-speed traffic on the existing infrastructure. But long distances, high construction costs and sanctions, and most importantly, low incomes of the population do not make it possible to develop high-speed traffic, which requires the construction of expensive infrastructure, concludes Mikhail Burmistrov, head of Infoline-Analytics.