Let's Build the third runway 100, 200 or even 300 miles away from Heathrow

Innovate 2016, a global showcase for UK innovation, is being held in Manchester this year so I decided to hop in the car this morning to immerse myself in all that was on offer at Manchester Central. A short drive from Leicester along the A50 soon became a tailback of half an hour due to an accident on the other side of the carriage way. Dropping into Stoke On-Trent a further accident followed by traffic tailbacks and this article needs to rapidly get back on course and away from my 4 hour journey by car.

If only there was a teleportation device that took me from one city to another. Dr Alan James, VP of Development at Hyperloop One delivered some incredibly compelling insight to a room I was last in 26 years ago watching the Happy Mondays. The following is what I managed to scribble down.

With the growth of population expected to jump from 7 billion to 10 billion over the next 20 years, food manufacture and distribution will need to rapidly adapt to meet global needs whilst doing significantly less damage than to the planet that us and our four fathers have.

Elon Musk introduced the idea of Hyperloop alongside the potential blocker that he didn’t have time to develop it.

A team of two people in a garage are now 200 with large corporate backing. Hyperloop is looking to disrupt transport both in terms of technical innovation, large scale transport infrastructure and human advancement.

One aim of Hyperloop is to allow goods brought into port to be delivered 350 miles away in less than 28 minutes. DP World in Dubai have already inked a deal to work on this.

Stockholm has a housing shortage as do many urban areas creating a significant shortage of technology skill. Hyperloop could transport people directly from point A to point B so that a journey from Stockholm to Helsinki, which takes 12 hours by car or an hour by plane with at least an hour either side, could take 30 minutes. Book the pod on your phone and off to work you go.

What if a Hyperloop station (I’m guessing they’ll still be called stations) was built 100, 200, 300 miles from Heathrow and that station was called Terminal 6? What if High Speed Rail (delivered in Japan 60 years ago) was re-looked at in the UK in favour of something a bit more “speedier”, bringing more economical benefits and costing less? Hmm.

There's plenty of derision to be found on the project but if you don't aim for the moon....

A fully operational prototype in QTR1 2017 is promised.