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Richard Branson's Virgin Hyperloop has completed the world's first passenger ride on a super high-speed levitating pod system, the company said on Sunday, a key safety test for technology it hopes will transform human and cargo transportation.

Virgin Hyperloop executives Josh Giegel, its Chief Technology Officer, and Sara Luchian, Director of Passenger Experience, reached speeds of up to 107 miles per hour (172 km per hour) at the company's DevLoop test site in Las Vegas, Nevada, the company said.

"I had the true pleasure of seeing history made before my very eyes," said Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, Chairman of Virgin Hyperloop and Group Chairman and Chief Executive of DP World.

Los Angeles-based Hyperloop envisions a future where floating pods packed with passengers and cargo hurtle through vacuum tubes at 600 miles an hour (966 kph) or faster.

In a hyperloop system, which uses magnetic levitation to allow near-silent travel, a trip between New York and Washington would take just 30 minutes. That would be twice as fast as a commercial jet flight and four times faster than a high-speed train.

The company has previously run over 400 tests without human passengers at the Nevada site.

The test comes a month after Reuters first reported that Virgin Hyperloop picked the U.S. state of West Virginia to host a $500 million certification center and test track that will serve as a proving ground for its technology.

Virgin Hyperloop

The company is working toward safety certification by 2025 and commercial operations by 2030, it has said.

Canada's Transpod and Spain's Zeleros also aim to upend traditional passenger and freight networks with similar technology they say will slash travel times, congestion and environmental harm linked with petroleum-fueled machines.

At 2 am today, while most of India was fast asleep, Pune-born Tanay Manjrekar was set to be strapped inside a  deep in the , about to become the first Indian to ride the futuristic mode of transport. A power electronics specialist at Virgin Hyperloop, Manjrekar was part of the team that developed the technology and now one of the first humans to have tested it.

Virgin Hyperloop, which plans to connect Mumbai to Pune in 25 minutes, conducted its first successful passenger run on Sunday at a test facility near Las Vegas. Manjrekar was to participate in the second run early this morning India time. It was around 5.30 am on Monday in Nevada when Mumbai Mirror got in touch with Manjrekar and his communications team. With only a few hours to go, he had joined his team at the  and was busy preparing for the big trial. In the test run, Manjrekar was to lead the technical implementation of hyperloop’s power and electronics systems used for propulsion, levitation and guidance.

Manjrekar joined Virgin Hyperloop in 2016 and was instrumental in developing the control system hardware for the world’s first full-system hyperloop. He has been the engineer responsible for medium voltage system operations throughout testing. Having secured his Bachelor’s degree in electronics and telecommunications from the , he completed his Masters in electrical engineering from the University of Southern California.

At present, Maharashtra government has deemed the proposed Mumbai-Pune hyperloop a public infrastructure project and chosen the Virgin Hyperloop-DP World Consortium to build it. Following the release of a regulatory guidance document by the United States Department of Transportation’s Non-Traditional and Emerging Transportation Technology (NETT) Council, Virgin Hyperloop is looking to work with central authorities in India to explore a regulatory path for hyperloop in the country.

Harj Dhaliwal, managing director for Middle East and India, Virgin Hyperloop, said, “Today’s test is a significant step forward towards a commercial hyperloop – perhaps the world’s first – connecting Mumbai with Pune along the existing Expressway. The project would be the largest private infrastructure investment in Maharashtra, creating 1.8 million direct and indirect jobs, and $36 billion in socio-economic benefits.”

Last month, Virgin Hyperloop announced a partnership with Bangalore International Airport Limited (BIAL) to conduct a feasibility study for a proposed hyperloop corridor from Bangalore Airport. The company also signed a contract with the Punjab government last December.