Fancy doing the Abu Dhabi-Dubai commute in 15 minutes?

'I want you to imagine going from Dubai to Abu Dhabi in less than 15 minutes on the ground next to a motorway,' says Peter Diamandis, co-founder of Planetary Resources.

The Abu Dhabi-Dubai commute could take less than 15 minutes if Peter Diamandis has his way.

The co-founder of the United States-based Planetary Resources has landed in the UAE to bang the drum for a futuristic form of travel known as the “hyperloop” – where people are catapulted through a near-frictionless vacuum tube at speeds of up to 1,220kph.

“I want you to imagine going from Dubai to Abu Dhabi in less than 15 minutes on the ground next to a motorway,” Mr Diamandis said in Dubai.

Accompanying him on his UAE trip is Brogan Bambrogan, the former rocket engineer of aerospace firm SpaceX.

He is currently the chief technology officer and co-founder of Hyperloop Technologies.

By next year his company aims to have completed a full speed track test of between three and four kilometres. Then the plan is to pick a site for the real thing.

The company is in talks with a number of locations across the world, according to Mr Diamandis.

“I brought Brogan here on this trip to introduce him to some leadership here in the Emirates,” he said. “If the UAE wants it, it could be operational before 2020,” he added.

The hyperloop is the brainchild of Elon Musk, the entrepreneur behind Tesla electric cars and SpaceX aerospace manufacturer fame.

“Hyperloop is about reinventing transportation,” said Mr Diamandis. “This is about the future. This is like how mobile telephony reinvented the world many times over.”

In the meantime commuters braving the traffic between Dubai and Abu Dhabi may have to make do with four wheels, an engine and a salik tag.

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