Dubai is set on getting its own hyperloop, and the Los Angeles-based Hyperloop One (formerly Hyperloop Technologies), in collaboration with BIG, is champing at the bit to make that a reality.

The Dubai Roads and Transport Authority has agreed to review Hyperloop One’s feasibility study for a high-speed network throughout the United Arab Emirates, designed to get passengers between Dubai and Abu Dhabi (about an hour and a half apart by bus) in 12 minutes. BIG and consulting firm McKinsey & Co. will work in collaboration with Hyperloop One on the proposal. In a separate agreement formed this past August, Hyperloop One also has plans with Dubai to develop a hyperloop network for cargo.

This step closer to a full-scale, working hyperloop (which Hyperloop One estimates will come to fruition in the next five years) comes after the company’s dry run of its propulsion technology in the Nevada desert—part of SpaceX’s competition to design the pods and run them on a smaller-scale test-track. Now, Hyperloop One has released designs by BIG for the Dubai system, featuring autonomous transportation pods (Hyperloop One Pods) and stations (the so-called Hyperloop One Portals), that could accommodate both passengers and cargo.

The autonomous factor is the big development here—instead of hooking up Hyperloop with other preexisting transportation networks, the autonomous pods themselves can also run on Dubai’s roads, making them vessels that operate both within and outside of the hyperloop infrastructure. According to Hyperloop One, the ultimate goal is “point-to-point” transportation—no matter the origin and destination. The video below imagines how that process would work:

Describing the hyperloop-based transportation ecosystem, Bjarke Ingels said, “We are heading for a future where our mental map of the city is completely reconfigured, as our habitual understanding of distance and proximity—time and space—is warped by this virgin form of travel.” You know, like when cars were new.

More Hyperloop news:

• 'Hyperloop as transportation’s new girlfriend: mysterious, unencumbered, exciting, expensive.'
• Bjarke Ingels Group + AECOM join forces with Hyperloop
• MIT and TU Delft emerge victorious at Hyperloop competition; Elon Musk drops hint about "electric jets"