Certifer, an independent safety assessor, announced they are working with Virgin Hyperloop One (VHO) to meet their goal of surpassing the safety of all existing transport systems. The Independent Safety Assessors at Certifer validated the readiness of Virgin Hyperloop One’s technology and organization to be assessed in terms of safety and confirmed the company is ready to take this historic first step — the first of its kind in the hyperloop space.

In building the world’s first hyperloop system, VHO, is creating a disruption in the traditional approach to transportation, according to the company. Just like all railway and urban transportation projects, such as high-speed trains, light rail transportation systems, and metro rolling stocks, the VHO technology is subject to the same process and constraints as those reviewed on “traditional” mode of transportation.

VHO has chosen Certifer to perform a third party evaluation of the company's engineering and safety process. Additionally, Certifer will serve as an independent assessor to ensure VHO is in compliance with relevant transportation guidelines. Certifer will support VHO across all of the railway disciplines and subdisciplines as well as from several different domains such as system safety, hardware development, software development, civil and mechanical works, guideways, control command and signaling, magnetic propulsion, etc.

The company 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 guideway structures, vacuum and guideway mechanisms, docks, controls and communication, maintenance and systems.