Hyperloop is a new a technology and needs to be assessed and certified for safety. However, the issue is that there are no regulators existing to certify the system. Countries across the globe, including the USA and European Union have woken up to the fact that Hyperloop is going to be means of fast transport in the future. As a result, they have already started forming committees and organisations for setting up and finalising the standards for Hyperloop.
USA has established the Non-Traditional and Emerging Transportation Technology (NETT) Council to explore the regulation and permitting of hyperloop technology to bring this new form of mass transportation to the United States. The European Commission’s Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport (DGMOVE) has also been leading discussions with hyperloop companies to advance regulatory standards. In India, the Principal Scientific Advisor (PSA), Prof. Vijayraghavan, has set up an independent committee called the Consultative Group on Future of Transportation (CGFT) to explore the regulatory path for hyperloop.
Certifier is a leading global player specialized in Railway and urban transportation. The company was founded in France in 1997 and has since provided Inspection, Certification and Test Organization services in more than 40 countries all over the world. Certifer provides independent safety assessment, independent checking engineer, assessment body, independent cybersecurity assessment and test organization services.
Virgin Hyperloop One (VHO) has entered into an agreement with Certifier to to perform a third party evaluation of the company’s engineering and safety process. Certifer will also serve as an independent assessor to ensure VHO is in compliance with relevant transportation guidelines. Certifer will support VHO with its high-level expertise across all of the railway disciplines and sub-disciplines. It will support VHO across several different domains such as system safety, hardware development, software development, civil and mechanical works, guide-ways, control command and signaling, magnetic propulsion, etc. Certifer is working closely with VHO’s dedicated Safety Certification and Quality Assurance team.
For VHO, Certifer is assessing whether the Engineering Safety Management Plan developed by VHO is adequate to achieve the stated goals, and that the identified list of standards and regulations referred to by VHO for this program is sound from safety viewpoint. In this framework, Certifer is considering the whole transport system, including pods (vehicles), civil and guide-way structures, vacuum and guide-way mechanisms, docks, controls and communication, maintenance and systems.
The Transport Journal 