International and Global

Transportation of the future is being developed today: autonomous electric vehicles, flying cars, and the futuristic pods that make up the Hyperloop are just a few notable examples. There’s another idea vying to be the next generation of public transportation, and while it might look something like the Hyperloop, this tube transport company’s CEO Daryl Oster explains why it’s different:

“ET3: we call it a mag-lev limo, where it’s a car-sized vehicle that operates in a network of tubes much [like] cars on a freeway,” Oster told TechRepublic at the 2017 Smart Cincy Summit. “But, it would be international and global in scope.”

“Our vision is being able to travel from, say, here in Cincinnati to the Taj Mahal in under three hours for 50 bucks,” Oster added. Essentially, it’s a network of tubes that serve as a “freeway” which can be accessed via various points along its many routes.

The Future of (Tube) Transportation

While the ET3 is still in the concept phase, the Hyperloop has already moved further along the innovation highway. Since the idea was first pitched by serial entrepreneur and innovator Elon Musk in 2012, there are now two notable companies developing their own Hyperloop in the United States to Dubai.

One of these is Hyperloop One, which has already finished its test track in Nevada, as well as established plans for its future transport system in the U.S. Hyperloop One also hopes to develop a Hyperloop network in Dubai, with pods capable of traveling on roads. Meanwhile, Hyperloop Technologies Inc. (HTI) plans to connect all of Europe by way of a tube transportation network.

All of these move us closer to what Transit X CEO Mike Stanley called “the impossible dream” of “making car-free cities within five years”, as he told TechRepublic. Maybe not exactly car-free: it’ll be more like a future with flying cars, autonomous cars, and “tube cars” — but that’s still pretty cool.