Virgin Hyperloop One signed an agreement with the Indian state of Maharashtra to conduct a feasibility study and build a demonstration track that could lead to the construction of a hyperloop system between two of the state's major city centers: Mumbai and Pune.

Ryan Kelly, director of marketing for the startup formerly known simply as Hyperloop One, said that the pact between Virgin Hyperloop One and Maharashtra represents "the strongest language we’ve seen from a government to date." The company, which recently received a sizable investment from the Virgin Group and counts billionaire founder Richard Branson among its board members, intends to complete a feasibility study within the next six months and complete a demonstration track in two to three years.

Kelly told Ars in an email that "the plan is that this track will go from use as a demonstration to part of the live track." He added that the track from Mumbai to Pune could be completed in three to five years.

No doubt those numbers are ambitious. The company has posted regular speed milestones but has yet to break a rail speed record, at least according to the latest speed data. Virgin Hyperloop One has a 1/3-mile test track outside of Las Vegas, where it can create a near-vacuum atmosphere for its 8.7m (28.5ft) carbon-fiber prototype pod. While laying a track between Mumbai and Pune might be feasible (especially if it's above ground, as Kelly said it would likely be, barring any feasibility study results to the contrary), it will be much harder to create a hyperloop as creator Elon Musk envisioned it: running humans and cargo between cities at 760mph.

For now, though, it's a dazzling idea. Pune and Mumbai are about three hours apart by car, and more than 100,000 automobiles make the journey between the two cities every day. The two cities are projected to have continued population growth, so congestion and driving-related pollution will only get worse without a solution. "The hyperloop route developed would link central Pune, Navi Mumbai International Airport, and Mumbai in 25-minutes eventually enabling 150 million journeys and reducing greenhouse gases by 150,000 tons annually," Virgin Hyperloop One wrote in a blog post. "The system would also have the potential for the rapid movement of palletized freight and light cargo between the Port of Mumbai and Pune, creating a robust freight backbone in the region."

The Mumbai-Pune route is a smaller version of what Virgin Hyperloop one announced last September. At the time, the startup detailed ten routes around the world that had hyperloop potential, and a much longer Mumbai-Chennai route was proposed (above). Although a Mumbai-Pune route is shorter, it still connects two cities with an aggregate population of about 25 million.