Foodtubes Proposes Underground, Physical Internet 431
geek4 writes "Automatically routed canisters could replace trucks with an Internet of things, says Foodtubes. A group of academics is proposing a system of underground tunnels which could deliver food and other goods in all weathers with massive energy savings. The Foodtubes group wants to put goods in metal capsules two meters long, which are shifted through underground polyethylene tubes at speeds of up to 60 miles per hour, directed by linear induction motors and routed by intelligent software to their destinations. The group, which includes an Oxford physics professor and logistics experts, wants £15 million to build a five-mile test circuit, and believes the scheme could fund itself if used by large supermarkets and local councils, and could expand because it uses an open architecture."
Re:Sounds likes Denver airports luggage system (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, you have a good idea.
We have a nationwide electricity grid, sending much-needed electrons everywhere.
Why don't we do the same for water? It can be even not-so-clean water & the treatment can be left to the last mile to deal with. Floods in one area? Drought in another? Let them work together to solve the problem. A nationwide water grid would be interesting. Surely it's already implemented to lesser extents somewhere in the world.
Re:Chicago had a freight tube system for decades (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Sounds likes Denver airports luggage system (Score:3, Interesting)
Same thing as what happens today when a truck hits a large bump and smashes a few cases of corn syrup, or someone at a factory or distribution center drops a couple of cases, or they slide off a conveyor, etc etc. Shipping damage happens no matter what the transport method.
The containers would no doubt be sealed, so any sticky gooeyness would be discovered after the tube is removed from the system.
Collisions are less likely than with a truck, because the cargo tubes are not independently powered and independently operated, there's a central computer managing traffic routing. Trains don't collide all that often any more, and most train accidents are some asshole in a car who tried to beat the gate so he didn't have to wait 5 minutes for the train to pass. A tube network would not have that problem - all traffic anywhere in or around the network would be under the control of the computer grid running it.
Re:Sounds likes Denver airports luggage system (Score:4, Interesting)
Ugh this has been discussed to death, it's called Personal Rapid Transit. The only potentially cost-effective way to build it is as a monorail. Replacing roads with it is expensive, but it's actually cheaper for a given capacity than a road on basically any terrain but salt flats (where you just dump some gravel along the borders and call it a road.)
It would be great to do the whole thing as a vac/pneumatic system, but then you have to massively increase the price of the track. The most credible solutions suggested so far involve an electric car which is powerful enough to push another car so that if one should break down, the next one can shove it along to a siding.