Following its recent contract signing for Hyper Transfer, HyperloopTT has moved its European operations to Italy from France.
Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HyperloopTT), the world’s leading company in developing the next generation of sustainable high-speed travel, has announced a company move from the research and development centre in Toulouse, France to Italy. Toulouse laid the groundwork for what was ultimately HyperloopTT’s winning bid for the Italian tender in 2023 and in January 2024 the contract for Hyper Transfer was signed, officially starting the project.
HyperloopTT will open new offices outside Venice with additional operations at HyperloopTT’s longtime research partner the Polytechnic of Turin and alongside Hyperloop Italia’s office in Puglia. The capsules, vacuum pumps, control centre and levitation and propulsion systems will all be transported to Italy. HyperloopTT personnel local to Toulouse will continue to work on Hyper Transfer and other projects.
Since opening the Toulouse facility at the Francazal airport in 2017, HyperloopTT has contributed millions of dollars to the local Toulouse economy, hosted global transportation leaders from the US Department of Transportation, European Commission, and Italy’s Hyper Transfer Consortium and achieved many critical testing milestones, including:
- A 320-metre test track with full-scale tubes and pylons manufactured and assembled.
- Depressurisation of track to pressure lower than 0,1 mbar (10 Pa).
- Repressurisation systems with electropneumatic valves on tube.
- Tube air leakage and energy measurement to adjust and maintain the low pressure.
- Propulsion control test using small-scale embedded magnets with a full-scale linear synchronous motor and associated power electronics.
- Magnetic levitation tests.
- Linear motor heat dissipation test in vacuum test bench.
- Development of an operations control centre with human-machine interfaces to control tests directly linked to a safety-certified controller, for integration with partner systems.
- Integration of traffic management system developed in partnership with Hitachi Rail.
All these milestones were achieved working with over 20 local and regional companies, universities and other organisations. Andrés de León, HyperloopTT CEO, said: “We want to thank the mayor, authorities, and community of Toulouse for their support over the past few years. While our progress has not always been consistent, it has always been forward.
“It became clear to us a few years into our development that the land required to take the next steps with hyperloop certification could not be met at Francazal and so we began searching for a bigger test site that could support the tens of kilometres needed to achieve our goals. We would not be where we are today, including signing the world’s first commercial hyperloop system contract with Italy, without the important groundwork we achieved in Toulouse.”
HyperloopTT began the dismantling of the company’s first track in Toulouse in February and expects to complete the move to Italy within the next six months.
