Japan Plans 310-Mile Conveyor Belt That Can Carry Freight of 25,000 Trucks a Day (newatlas.com) 108
The Japanese government plans to create zero-emissions logistics links between major cities, potentially using massive conveyor belts or autonomous electric carts. The initiative aims to shift millions of tons of cargo, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and alleviate the anticipated 30% shortfall in parcel deliveries by 2030 due to a lack of drivers. New Atlas reports: According to The Japan News, the project has been under discussion since February by an expert panel at the Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism ministry. A draft outline of an interim report was released Friday, revealing plans to complete an initial link between Tokyo and Osaka by 2034. Japan's well-known population collapse issues foretell severe labor squeezes in the coming years, and one specific issue this project aims to curtail is the continuing rise in online shopping, with a forecast decline in the numbers of delivery drivers that can move goods around. The country is expecting some 30% of parcels simply won't make it from A to B by 2030, because there'll be nobody to move them. Hence this wild logistical link, the first iteration of which the team says will move as much small cargo between Tokyo and Osaka as 25,000 trucks.
Exactly how it'll do this is yet to be nailed down, but individual pallets will carry up to a ton of small cargo items, and they'll move without human interference from one end to the other. One possibility is to use massive conveyor belts to cover the 500-km (310-mile) distance between the two cities, running alongside the highway or potentially through tunnels underneath the road. Alternatively, the infrastructure could simply provide flat lanes or tunnels, and the pallets could be shifted by automated electric carts. A 500-km tunnel, mind you, would be insanely expensive at somewhere around $23 billion before any conveyor belts or autonomous carts are factored in. And one does have to wonder if autonomous electric trucks might be able to do the job without any of the infrastructure requirements [...].
Exactly how it'll do this is yet to be nailed down, but individual pallets will carry up to a ton of small cargo items, and they'll move without human interference from one end to the other. One possibility is to use massive conveyor belts to cover the 500-km (310-mile) distance between the two cities, running alongside the highway or potentially through tunnels underneath the road. Alternatively, the infrastructure could simply provide flat lanes or tunnels, and the pallets could be shifted by automated electric carts. A 500-km tunnel, mind you, would be insanely expensive at somewhere around $23 billion before any conveyor belts or autonomous carts are factored in. And one does have to wonder if autonomous electric trucks might be able to do the job without any of the infrastructure requirements [...].
Rhymes with "brain"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't this what freight trains have been doing for a couple hundred years now?
trains with automated dispatch and load/unload (Score:2)
yes exactly... trains with automated dispatch and load/unload
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So like Tesla Hyperloop but without all the pesky vacuum implosions and no magnetic suspension or battery problems.
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Is the answer "crane"?
Re: Rhymes with "brain"? (Score:2)
But their question was in the form of an answer..?
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I think they realize that trains do this, but what they want is a Zero-emission, driverless system (which yes, driverless trains are a thing) that is free of switching systems so that it it enables point-to-point logistics and remove the trucks from the equation.
Cause right now even in countries like Canada and The United States, freight is sent by train, but a lot of sent by truck. Trains merely bring freight to the major city. All the smaller cities get everything trucked to them, even if the very same ra
Re:Rhymes with "brain"? (Score:4, Insightful)
Imagine if that was a 1000km long conveyer system ... that just drops cargo in the city without having to stop a 2km long train.
A mechanism that can remove cargo from a moving conveyor belt could also remove cargo from a moving train.
Re:Rhymes with "brain"? (Score:5, Informative)
A mechanism that can remove cargo from a moving conveyor belt could also remove cargo from a moving train.
Is already done with bulk materials. When coal-fired power stations were a thing in the UK, coal was delivered by "merry-go-round" trains. They passed through the loading and unloading places at a walking pace but thousands of tons were unloaded in a few minutes.
Re: Rhymes with "brain"? (Score:4, Interesting)
Canada and USA are both massive, low population per average mile sort of places, similar to, but utterly unlike Japan.
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Re:Rhymes with "brain"? (Score:5, Interesting)
Imagine if that was a 1000km long conveyer system (someone's been playing factorio I guess) that just drops cargo in the city without having to stop a 2km long train.
OK, let's imagine it. Now imagine what to do if the receiving end gets backed up or a branch falls on the conveyor. Now instead of stopping a 2km train, you have to stop a 1000km belt. Assume there are pallets every three meters, each weighing 1000kg. Starting the conveyor belt again with it fully loaded means getting 3 millions tonnes of pallets moving again. Dividing the conveyor into 1000 individual 1km belts means keeping 1000 moving systems in perfect sync.
Now imagine the security needed. You would either need to completely enclose the conveyor in a secure enclosure or risk someone just pulling one or two pallets off the conveyor to sell whatever is inside.
A train still sounds like a more economical and flexible system.
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This seems to actually be a train, at least in some of the pictures in TFA. Just a train with individual powered units that take one container each.
Presumably the whole thing moves relatively slowly, so merging in units and removing them at their destination wouldn't be too difficult. Japan actually has quite a lot of monorails with points (I think they are called turnouts in US English, where the rail can be reconfigured to go one of two or three ways). The conveyor part implies that the track provides the
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Japan is mostly electrified trains, and their high speed rail makes a profit. They help subsidise the tickets with things like turning the station into a huge shopping centre, and lining the tracks with solar panels.
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Now imagine the security needed. You would either need to completely enclose the conveyor in a secure enclosure or risk someone just pulling one or two pallets off the conveyor to sell whatever is inside.
I went to Japan in 2018 for the first time. I've done some world traveling before, but had never been to Japan before. It was pretty amazing. This conveyor belt idea shows you what you can do when your entire bleeping country isn't filled with psychopaths like the USA (where I live) is. Most Japanese people will simply behave ethically and just not steal the stuff. I'm sure a few will try to exploit it, but probably not enough to be a big issue. Yes, we could never do that in the USA because peop
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I think they realize that trains do this, but what they want is a Zero-emission ...
Did you know that most trains run on electricity in advanced nations?
Except in the USA where the railways are about 75 years behind technically. Most Americans, plus Elon Musk according to his Hyperloop proposal paper, don't seem to realise this.
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Since trains transitioned to diesel, they've been electric and use the diesel to generate that electricity.
Case in point about misunderstanding railways. The fact that diesel-electric locos use an electric stage in their transmission does not make them "electric trains", any more than the lubricating oil in a diesel powered car's torque converter means that it runs on lubricating oil. Electric trains pick up electricity from an over head wire, conductor rails, or even batteries, using electricity generated any way you like, as it as it would be for this Japanese conveyer belt or electric road vehicles.
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I think they realize that trains do this, but what they want is a Zero-emission ...
Did you know that most trains run on electricity in advanced nations?
Except in the USA where the railways are about 75 years behind technically. Most Americans, plus Elon Musk according to his Hyperloop proposal paper, don't seem to realise this.
This is about freight trains
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This is about freight trains
There is no reason at all why a new railway in Japan built to carry freight (instead of this conveyer belt) would not be powered by electricity. It would be astonishing in this day and age if it were not.
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This is about freight trains
There is no reason at all why a new railway in Japan built to carry freight (instead of this conveyer belt) would not be powered by electricity. It would be astonishing in this day and age if it were not.
Irrelevant. You wrote : "Did you know that most trains run on electricity in advanced nations? Except in the USA where the railways are about 75 years behind technically"
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You should learn something about trains before commenting. I don't know of any country that relies on external electric to power freight trains. Almost all, including US, use diesel electric locomotives as the best means.
The UK uses electric locos for some of its freight trains, and some locos, such as the Class 92, were built for freight haulage. A specific example (shared with France) is the freight shuttle train which carries lorries on flat wagons hauled by electric locos through the Channel Tunnel.
It is not a case of "relying" on them. Most freight trains in the UK are still hauled by diesel electric locos, but the point here is that there is nothing in principle why a freight train cannot be electrically hauled (
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I think they realize that trains do this, but what they want is a Zero-emission, driverless system (which yes, driverless trains are a thing) that is free of switching systems so that it it enables point-to-point logistics and remove the trucks from the equation.
It doesn't have to be a "train", but a narrow-gauge electric rail system with individual powered containers on wheels would be far better than a conveyor belt. A switching system would actually be an advantage, not a disadvantage, since without one, you have to build individual point-to-point systems, possibly duplicating a lot of infrastructure instead of sharing it.
You could even de-centralize the control of the switches by adding a routing cartridge to the individual containers that contains an RFID or o
Re:Rhymes with "brain"? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Continuity has limited benefits though; bi-directional capacity is likely more useful. You would likely want shorter trains with higher frequencies (and shorter sidings), that can take advantage of staggered, limited stops for maximum throughput. Add automated pallet/container [un]loading and staging and you have an essentially continuous flow.
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You really don't need to tell Japan anything about trains. If they see the need, they know why :)
I'm telling you this as the guy who waits for the train for about 2-3 minutes every day on a small Japanese rail station, and in that time I see two large freight trains roll by.
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Japan does some smart stuff.
Japan also does some dumb stuff.
99% of Japanese businesses and 35% of Japanese households still have fax machines.
Re:Rhymes with "brain"? (Score:4, Funny)
But do they have mimeographs?
Re: Rhymes with "brain"? (Score:2)
I'm the sole USA employee of a huge Japanese company. A company in Spain wanted to buy some machines. They asked if they could buy 50. In cash. That same day. 2 years later they gave up and signed a contract with a Korean company.
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No brain - single point of failure (Score:2)
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Adam Something (Score:4)
Waiting for an Adam Something video on the reinvention of trains, badly. Honestly, this idea sounds daft.
Re:Adam Something (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Adam Something (Score:5, Informative)
The Roads must Roll was a great SF story.
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The Roads must Roll was a great SF story.
It's one of my favourites. Leaving satisfied. Thank you.
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The roads must roll.
Yes, but what happens when they crash?
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What if we make the conveyor out of solar panels?
Factorio, Satifactory ?? (Score:4, Funny)
Someone's been playing the automation video games and decided it was just crazy enough it might just work.
Factorio!!! (Score:1)
Damnit, you beat me to it. :D
Satisfactory!!! (Score:2)
Came to say the same! Everyone knows you can't beat the throughput of a conveyor belt.
Reminding me of: never underestimate the throughput of a station wagon full of hard drives.
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whiskey etc (Score:3)
Alternatively, the infrastructure could simply provide flat lanes or tunnels, and the pallets could be shifted by automated electric carts.
And then you could put them on rails, and then you'd have a train, which was what you should have built in the first place. It could be narrow gauge, however. You can still have kind of an amazing amount of train on that. If it must be able to carry only pallets, you could make it lighter than usual, but that takes away some of its durable charm.
Re:whiskey etc (Score:5, Interesting)
If it's not a 'train' but a bunch of 'self-powered carts' this works.
Part of the problem with the current infrastructure is that it's not spontaneous. It's not 'instant.' You'd have to fill up a whole train before it could leave the station. I think the idea of the conveyor belt/carts is that they are small. If a package needs to move, it starts moving immediately.
That's definitely the beauty of a conveyor belt. It's always moving, there's no additional cost for putting an individual thing on it vs putting a whole lot of things on it. So someone orders a new shoelace, it ships instantly. Of course, the drawback is that you're burning money even if you're not shipping anything.
As soon as you move away from the 'always on' conveyor belt, you start running the math of balancing 'frequency' vs 'capacity' and they are enemies of each other.
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I imagine, instead of a conveyor belt, a roller conveyor. Japan is good at motors and machining, so they can do more or less all of it themselves. Then you can use a lot of brushless motors that can be somewhat redundant, "intelligent" (self-controlling anyway) and also self-diagnosing. Belts themselves are a liability. Ironically, Japanese CVTs are extremely good proof of this...
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I imagine, instead of a conveyor belt, a roller conveyor.
The artist's renderings in TFA look like they might be roller conveyors.
When it comes to negotiating hills, I think a belt might be better. Cargo is less likely to slip on a belt than on rollers. Also, cargo on a belt is being driven by all of the rollers driving that segment of belt, instead of only the ones within the footprint of the cargo.
Re: whiskey etc (Score:2)
A belt is only driven by the rollers at the ends, and maybe any which are under the cargo in question, because otherwise there's no friction.
Belts might make sense for inclines, though. There's no reason they couldn't use both strategies on a single line.
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Good points - thanks.
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If you want cheap you can do a relatively massive ratio of dumb transport boxes to expensive drive/control cars and either only run it when it's full or tell everyone that they'd better not be late because it only runs X times a day.
If you want fast you can go as far as the extreme case of a single car engine-with-some-cargo-space that leaves as soon as
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You don't have to fill up a whole train. Just like passenger trains don't wait until they're full, freight trains can be run on a schedule.
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If it's not a 'train' but a bunch of 'self-powered carts' this works.
Part of the problem with the current infrastructure is that it's not spontaneous. It's not 'instant.' You'd have to fill up a whole train before it could leave the station. I think the idea of the conveyor belt/carts is that they are small. If a package needs to move, it starts moving immediately.
That's definitely the beauty of a conveyor belt. It's always moving, there's no additional cost for putting an individual thing on it vs putting a whole lot of things on it. So someone orders a new shoelace, it ships instantly. Of course, the drawback is that you're burning money even if you're not shipping anything.
As soon as you move away from the 'always on' conveyor belt, you start running the math of balancing 'frequency' vs 'capacity' and they are enemies of each other.
I think the issue with trains is you still need trucks to take things to and from the train station, once you factor in the cost of that extra load/unload it's probably just cheaper to leave things on the truck and drive them straight to the destination.
I don't think this new system would really change those economics.
But for Japan in specific, if there's a tight enough labour market, and there's enough packages moving between the cities, it could make sense. I do wonder however about the feasibility. I dou
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Something roller coaster size. And you could double-deck it. Osaka to Tokyo at ground level, the reverse trip on the upper tracks. You could send batches of like five cars each, timing them by the amount of cargo to go.
No need to steer, just don't run into unit ahead of you and when the switching system shunts you off the main track to the siding stop at the RF beacon, or for that matter the red light.
It's not a bad idea.
Real life Factorio (Score:4, Funny)
Will Japan have a main bus or embrace the spaghetti?
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I've been trying to learn to "embrace the spaghetti" myself. After taking the "main bus" strategy to its inevitable conclusion, I've decided that the congestion issues outweigh the additional materials cost for extra belt.
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....mind, you I still haven't really figured out how to use the logic blocks so maybe they could fix the main bus strategy, I don't know.
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Same, i've recently been doing a replay and I decided to go no outside blueprints and it's been fun, ended up with just a mashup. I believe the lead developer said he consider spaghetti most in the spirit of the game. Excited for the expansion, probably going to open up more options.
The Roads Must Roll (Score:5, Informative)
(Robert Heinlein, 1940)
Re:The Roads Must Roll (Score:4, Informative)
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Dammit, you BOTH beat me to it!
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Indeed!!! It's the most improbable of transportation systems but Heinlein was certainly imaginative in telling it.
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Dang, y'all beat me to it. (But I only visit daily, so...)
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Ninja'd!
What about the biters? (Score:1)
No mention of "The Roads Must Roll" by Heinlein??? (Score:5, Insightful)
OK y'all, turn in your geek cards if your first thoughts were not of the Heinlein classic "The Roads Must Roll". I cannot believe you young whippersnappers haven't mentioned this in the comments I skimmed, and it is especially atrocious that the writeup doesn't mention it.
SHOULD HAVE BEEN YOUR VERY FIRST THOUGHTS!!!
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And now I see comments on it. lispm and smithmc can keep their geek cards. Maybe I should turn in my slashdot card for not looking hard enough.
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Ha! Thanks. I remember being so disgusted when truly anonymous commenting went away, and that was the best protest handle I could think of. Got some funny comments at first telling me to set up an account.
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Thank you! I was going to say the same thing! I remember listening the radio show of this story several years ago.
"Conveyor belt"? Fascinating. (Score:2)
eh? (Score:1)
Quite a bit longer than Morocco's (Score:4, Informative)
Morocco's conveyor belt [atlasobscura.com] is "only" about 100 km, transporting about 3 million tonnes of phosphate each year.
But if this one in Japan is underground it probably won't be visible from space like Morocco's [nasa.gov]. The lack of dust being blown off of the parcels would also cut down on that.
The Roads Must Roll (Score:3)
Heinlein.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
--k.
It would shatter the record (Score:2)
The current longest is 61 miles and it can be seen from space https://earthobservatory.nasa.... [nasa.gov]
The solution is more sex (Score:1)
The problem arising from low population is more about 'last mile' ie delivering individual packages to 'Homes' and not moving goods between 2 cities in bulk which is anyway not very human intensive.
So unless they make conveyors going to each home this is not a solution to their problem.
The solution is more sex
Trainphobia Again - is there a Cure? (Score:3)
The Problem is at the Ends (Score:2)
Even the existing fast transport methods of rail and air have this problem. From a London suburb, it takes me as
Re: The Problem is at the Ends (Score:2)
Uh... friction? (Score:2)
I guess the conveyor belt will be powered by a perpetual motion machine.
Can we please stop calling everything zero emission? There is no such thing.
They could do it for almost free (Score:2)
They could do something awesome like a maglev network but honestly, you have to understand it is not the U.S. There is half a century of ultra-high precision operations under their belt. That means they could probably do this for almost free by adding autonomous centrally controlled bullet trains that get slotted into the existing bullet train network in gaps. Say launch a short bullet train 5 minutes before and after the human one takes off. No need for human pilots, the trains can do start and stop, or e
The Roads Must Roll! (Score:1)
that is all
Size XXXXXXXXL (Score:2)
Just imagine... (Score:2)
...all the sushi it could carry!
Japan (Score:1)
like mel brooks said (Score:2)
immigration, what a show
Dumbest idea I've heard of lately (Score:2)
Heinlein called it 74 years ago (Score:2)
Classic SciFi for the win.
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The Roads Must Roll (Score:2)
What a great idea (Score:2)
But, instead of a conveyor belt why not lay two super long metal sticks a few feet apart. Then place a container that has metal wheels on it that can easily roll on those metal sticks. To stablize the metal rods and ensure they stay parallel we can use planks of wood or some other material. I seriously feel like if we did it, that would enable cheap and energy efficient transportation.
Basic info (Score:1)