Radical technology innovations for high‐speed transport; ePlanes to replace rail?

Abstract

Abstract This paper evaluates various modes of transport against the dual requirements of Net‐Zero carbon emissions and user convenience, in particular, speed of travel and cost of transportation. Results show that when operated across a whole country, battery‐powered ePlanes have the lowest energy use as measured by well‐to‐wing efficiency of other high‐speed transport systems such as the UKs HS2 and conventional diesel rail systems. This condition may not hold for extremely high passenger numbers per hour as seen in metropolitan areas with high density populations. Various proposed disruptive technologies lower cost of ownership when combined with changes in the transport paradigm that has rarely been explored in other papers.

Keywords

• ePlane
• high‐speed transport
• hPlane
• Net‐Zero transport
• well‐to‐wing energy efficiency