6 ms·

Switzerland moves ahead with underground autonomous cargo delivery

280 points by sohkamyung 4y ago

mastazi 4y ago
Because much of Switzerland has a mountainous landscape, I wonder if the tunnels would follow the terrain contours (and be at a constant depth relative to the surface) or they would avoid uphill/downhill sections by being at a constant elevation relative to sea level? Probably the answer is "neither" but I'm curious what the thinking is.
- seanmcdirmid 4y ago
  Looking at the map, it seems to be running mostly in the highly populated valleys. I guess the spurs are probably just tunneling under mountains (if they are underground, I doubt they would go up, the bigger problem is blasting through rock under the mountains).
- bobthepanda 4y ago
  probably flat, if only because it takes a lot of energy to move freight, which isn't usually particularly light, up and down hills.
  - mocko 4y ago
    Assuming regenerative braking you can get much of the energy back again when the train goes down a hill. But your point broadly stands - for reasons like limited wheel/rail adhesion heavy trains and steep gradients seldom go together.
  - youngtaff 4y ago
    Depending on how the ‘stations’ work there maybe slopes up to them and then slopes down from them to help decelerate and accelerate the trains in and out of the stations Crossrail in London does this
    - bobthepanda 4y ago
      Right, but that’s a lot different from following mountain slopes to maintain a constant depth.
- fla 4y ago
  Swiss here. Not an expert on the project but AFAIK the idea is to reduce the impact of transportation on the surface. With globalization and population increase, the need for point to point logistic is going to go through the roof in urban areas in the next years. Currently this translates to having more trucks on the highways and roads, as our rail wail system is close to saturation already. Not to mention our road are really small compared to US (ie: highways are two-lanes per direction). This creates a ton of air and noise pollution and traffic jams. This new transportation system should absorb some of the goods traffic and hopefully scale country-wide in the future while sparing the environnement at the surface as much as possible.
- saiya-jin 4y ago
  This doesn't reach Alps, it stops at foothills of them (Luzern, Thun). Of course its not absolutely flat, but it will mimic existing regular speed rail system. Due to it not being rail, it can tackle few steeper parts (ie uphill around Lausanne, that's solid 300m altitude difference). Lausanne subway (tiniest city in the world to have one) also uses rubber tyres on the section which goes straight uphill.
jsnell 4y ago
Recent discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31879999 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31879999 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31204168 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31204168
dpedu 4y ago
Very cool. Reminds me of the also underground London Post Office Railway. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Post_Office_Railway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Post_Office_Railway edit: Take note of the mention of road traffic reduction in both articles. Some things never change!
- Terry_Roll 4y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_London_Underground#Goods_traffic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_London_Undergro...
mastax 4y ago
But why tunnels? The article didn't justify it at all. Tunnels are extremely expensive, and usually avoided in all but the most extreme circumstances. Are we at the point now where its easier to just tunnel than buy and negotiate rights of way?
- mongol 4y ago
  The Alps.
  - mastax 4y ago
    There are many existing trains in Switzerland, even high speed ones. Yet those trains are largely above ground. (I can't find any statistics quickly). This is supposed to be a low speed service - 30km/h - so they could meander around mountains to a large extent. Am I misreading that this is supposed to be entirely underground?
    - aeternum 4y ago
      The surface should be reserved for people. Surface land is rare and can be better utilized for housing, farms, parks, bike paths, solar. There's plenty of space underground and sure it's a higher one-time cost, but the conserving the surface for people is probably worthwhile.
      - pawsforthought 4y ago
        Indeed. The article talks about projected reduction of freight on roads of 40%. I wonder about induced demand. Presumably total freight volumes will not change drastically in response to the availability of this new system, in which case one could expect road traffic reductions to be stable. The quieter roads may well induce more personal transportation, but then with Switzerland’s already very good passenger rail connections, maybe not. Seems like a win all round.
    - jjallen 4y ago
      This will not be in the mountainous region of Switzerland. It's in the north where there are 120/kmh highways. Mostly rolling hills.
stevenjgarner 4y ago
I am not knowledgeable about this, but I wonder how it interfaces with existing logistics. The pictured vehicles look dramatically different in size and form factor than the standard Intermodal container [1] or even the ubiquitous (and smaller) US military Quadcon/Tricon/Bicon boxes. Will items have to be repackaged from standard international shipping containers into these autonomous cargo vehicles? What are the security (ie insurance) considerations? Also, given some of the deadly tunnel fires originated in freight ignition and combustion, what are the considerations for fire management? [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermodal_container https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermodal_container [2] The Deadly Mont Blanc Tunnel Fire 1999 (Documentary) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcLaogBviIA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcLaogBviIA
- ThePadawan 4y ago
  > Also, given some of the deadly tunnel fires originated in freight ignition and combustion, what are the considerations for fire management? There are 0 humans in these tunnels. If a fire broke out, why wouldn't slamming shut all fire doors in that section work?
  - magic_hamster 4y ago
    I imagine the tunnel and cars will be serviceable so there might be people in there from time to time.
    - _nalply 4y ago
      But they would have received training to react correctly in case of fire.
- ThePadawan 4y ago
  Looks to me like the pods could carry 1 or 2 EUR pallets. [0] These are absolutely ubiquitous in logistics in Europe. If you pick up a low-margin product like toilet paper or potting soil in the supermarket or hardware store, it will be sitting on a EUR pallet. Between packed in a factory somewhere and sold to the end customer, all that needs to happen is to remove the outer protective wrapping (that has shipping/tracking bar codes on it). Edit: This (2016) article has some design renderings, showing 2 EUR pallets per pod [1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EUR-pallet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EUR-pallet [1] https://www.limmattalerzeitung.ch/wirtschaft/das-wird-die-logistik-in-der-schweiz-auf-den-kopf-stellen-ld.1289041 https://www.limmattalerzeitung.ch/wirtschaft/das-wird-die-lo...
ThePadawan 4y ago
Dropping the official product FAQ that answers some (but not all) frequent question in its FAQ: https://www.cst.ch/en/faq/ https://www.cst.ch/en/faq/ My summary, having lived in Switzerland for the last 10+ years: - Of course actual railways are more efficient. They will continue to be built where possible. - This is a tunnel network to get the goods into the middle of cities without putting an ever increasing number of trucks onto the city streets to distribute them throughout the city. - This runs parallel to the Alps, not through them.
- ssl232 4y ago
  > Of course actual railways are more efficient. They will continue to be built where possible. Wouldn't this underground network be more efficient than the above-ground railways for cargo? Cargo trains above ground need to stop at lights, need human drivers, etc etc. > This is a tunnel network to get the goods into the middle of cities without putting an ever increasing number of trucks onto the city streets to distribute them throughout the city. The article suggests this is to be a national network, not local. If it were just for the "last mile" wouldn't they just use above-ground trains to get the goods to the outskirts of the city before using the underground network to get them into the middle?
  - ThePadawan 4y ago
    > Wouldn't this underground network be more efficient than the above-ground railways for cargo? Cargo trains above ground need to stop at lights, need human drivers, etc etc. Depends on your definition of "efficient" - I imagine it's definitely more efficient to ship a cargo container full of grain than a CST pod full of grain simply because they are higher volume. If your goal however is "get cereal boxes into an urban supermarket", then cargo rail is probably less efficient, yes. > The article suggests this is to be a national network, not local. If it were just for the "last mile" wouldn't they just use above-ground trains to get the goods to the outskirts of the city before using the underground network to get them into the middle? I seem to have phrased it poorly then - yes, that is exactly what CST wants to do. The goal is not to replace urban truck traffic with CST.
whall6 4y ago
Major ratchet and clank vibes
ur-whale 4y ago
It's very nice to see that there are still countries capable of large-scale, long-term infrastructure projects in Europe. Especially cool given how small Switzerland is compared to its neighbors.
DeathArrow 4y ago
Switzerland has an extensive network of railways, so I would see underground tunnels useful for last mile delivery within cities but not for longer distances.
- config_yml 4y ago
  It’s rail network heaviliy prioritices non-cargo traffic, so I can see how a dedicated cargo network underground can increase capacity and speed.
- ThePadawan 4y ago
  Note that the maximum distance on this network (Geneva - St. Gallen) is only 300km, so a ~10h trip at the projected speed of 30km/h. That's still overnight shipping. Also, seeing as the goal is to get (consumer) goods into cities, I would call that itinerary a bit hypothetical. (I agree with the general statement, and I hope so do the designers. This should complement, not replace.)
- Closi 4y ago
  This particular network certainly isn't last mile - they are talking about dropping the goods off at 10 hubs rather than last-mile. Also last-mile with tunnels isn't really practical - bearing in mind that last-mile means getting goods all the way to a customer house (i.e. it's not really last-mile if someone else has to pick it up and move it to the final destination).
sschueller 4y ago
A lot of cities here now use underground trash collection [1] . At the moment these have to be emptied via truck from above. I could see such an underground system take out the trash directly. [1] https://youtu.be/xhbhvdvTWUg https://youtu.be/xhbhvdvTWUg
- pawsforthought 4y ago
  Knew of the existence of these, but never seen the emptying process. It’s a very neat design consideration the way the barrier rises up out of the ground, so you’re not left with a gaping hole. I think the obstacle to connecting trash receptacles to a subterranean logistics network would be just how much tunneling you’d have to do. CST will connect to urban distribution hubs, with the last mile fulfilled by courier bikes, motorbikes or small delivery vans.
joking 4y ago
Imagine the bandwidth of those pods transporting backup tapes!! This project gives me futuristic vibes, if they could make the numbers work, is a great idea, it could be even a closed tube that goes overground outside the cities and goes underground on the populated places. I't more or less the idea of the hyperloop, but for cargo, and without the constraints of speed and safety that make the hyperloop so expensive. As a concept it seems so good, that I really hope that is going to be financially viable in a short amount of time.
- ThePadawan 4y ago
  Virgin Hyperloop is in fact an investor in CST since 2016 [0]. I can't help but find this maybe ironic, maybe fitting (?) since AFAICT (from skimming [1]) Hyperloop has given up on passenger transport this year to focus more on ...cargo. [0] https://www.cst.ch/hyperloop-one-investiert-in-cargo-sous-terrain/ https://www.cst.ch/hyperloop-one-investiert-in-cargo-sous-te... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Hyperloop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Hyperloop
- pawsforthought 4y ago
  The consortium of investors certainly sees it as viable, to the extent that there’s no reliance on public subsidy for the project. Switzerland has the advantage of being relatively compact, so I do wonder how the economic case would stack up with different geographies. High capex, low opex. Lower capex with above-ground tubes as you suggest. I think Futurama was onto something.
digitcatphd 4y ago
I developed a concept for this in 2013 and was laughed at...
- mrtksn 4y ago
  Can we look at your presentation?
Flocular 4y ago
I think this is trying to solve delivery inside cities. However, I don't see cities beeing clogged by parcel delivery services. Transportation of goods is more problematic on the inter-city level. But that's too far to build a tunnel. What is causing troubles for cities seems to mostly be human traffic (that's why rush-hour is a thing) - for that subways could indeed be a solution. Unless Switzerland's traffic is looking completly different from what I know from Germany of course?
- ThePadawan 4y ago
  (I'm a German living in Switzerland) All your questions can be answered with "Switzerland has a functioning railroad" (for public transport). Compare the modal share between Zurich and Frankfurt [0]. 44% of travelers in the Frankfurt area use a private motor vehicle, whereas only 21% do in Zurich. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_share#Metropolitan_areas_with_over_250,000_inhabitants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_share#Metropolitan_areas...
- freeflight 4y ago
  > However, I don't see cities beeing clogged by parcel delivery services. Cities are clogged by any kind of vehicle period. Particularly delivery trucks will run into issues in the future as more and more European cities start enacting low emission zones/diesel bans inner-city [0], yet the overwhelming number of delivery trucks are diesel. > Transportation of goods is more problematic on the inter-city level. Inter-city has rail and lorries with trailers, both do not work inside the city where every extra vehicle leads to extra congestion due to the high density of everything. > Unless Switzerland's traffic is looking completly different from what I know from Germany of course? Berlin, Darmstadt, Hamburg and Stuttgart already have diesel bans and low-emission zones inner-city. In most bigger cities driving into the center is an exercise in frustration, not just due to congestion but particularly due to lack of parking spaces. [0] https://www.transportenvironment.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/City%20bans%20are%20spreading%20in%20Europe_Report.PDF https://www.transportenvironment.org/wp-content/uploads/2021...
  - Tijdreiziger 4y ago
xwdv 4y ago
Imagine all the cities of the world having huge underground networks for transporting goods; the arteries of capitalism.
- freeflight 4y ago
  All the cities of the world can't have that because quite a few of them do not have the geological conditions to be tunneled under on a large scale. In others there are issues with digging up old stuff that's archaeologically relevant, like any time something is dug in Rome. And any place with such a system also needs its economy/commerce to be "expensive" enough to justify such an investment. In Switzerland that works because it's pretty much one of the most expensive places on the planet.
esel2k 4y ago
Swiss here and my sister does contribute to the CST. Looking at a few questions: Yes we have a very well working train system (for example a delay of more than 2min is announced). The problem is rather that our infrastructure can’t keep up with the amount of commuters (at least prepandemic). Secondly nearly every squaremeter is either used for agriculture or very expensive land (at least around the cities). On top of that we have laws to prohibit trucks or trains to ride at night. And no we don’t have just mountains here, the upper part from geneva to Bern to Basel and Zürich are more or less flat. All of these with a good expertise in tunnel building are reasons why CST can be a solution… it is just that construction project can take years or 10s of years to get approved and everything moves quiet slowly.
divbzero 4y ago
This could be the most ambitious logistics tunnel since the Alameda-Weehawken Burrito Tunnel [1] entered operation in 1977. [1]: https://idlewords.com/2007/04/the_alameda_weehawken_burrito_tunnel.htm https://idlewords.com/2007/04/the_alameda_weehawken_burrito_...

280 points by sohkamyung 4y ago

Because much of Switzerland has a mountainous landscape, I wonder if the tunnels would follow the terrain contours (and be at a constant depth relative to the surface) or they would avoid uphill/downhill sections by being at a constant elevation relative to sea level? Probably the answer is "neither" but I'm curious what the thinking is.

seanmcdirmid 4y ago
Looking at the map, it seems to be running mostly in the highly populated valleys. I guess the spurs are probably just tunneling under mountains (if they are underground, I doubt they would go up, the bigger problem is blasting through rock under the mountains).
bobthepanda 4y ago
probably flat, if only because it takes a lot of energy to move freight, which isn't usually particularly light, up and down hills.
- mocko 4y ago
  Assuming regenerative braking you can get much of the energy back again when the train goes down a hill. But your point broadly stands - for reasons like limited wheel/rail adhesion heavy trains and steep gradients seldom go together.
- youngtaff 4y ago
  Depending on how the ‘stations’ work there maybe slopes up to them and then slopes down from them to help decelerate and accelerate the trains in and out of the stations Crossrail in London does this
  - bobthepanda 4y ago
    Right, but that’s a lot different from following mountain slopes to maintain a constant depth.
fla 4y ago
Swiss here. Not an expert on the project but AFAIK the idea is to reduce the impact of transportation on the surface. With globalization and population increase, the need for point to point logistic is going to go through the roof in urban areas in the next years. Currently this translates to having more trucks on the highways and roads, as our rail wail system is close to saturation already. Not to mention our road are really small compared to US (ie: highways are two-lanes per direction). This creates a ton of air and noise pollution and traffic jams. This new transportation system should absorb some of the goods traffic and hopefully scale country-wide in the future while sparing the environnement at the surface as much as possible.
saiya-jin 4y ago
This doesn't reach Alps, it stops at foothills of them (Luzern, Thun). Of course its not absolutely flat, but it will mimic existing regular speed rail system. Due to it not being rail, it can tackle few steeper parts (ie uphill around Lausanne, that's solid 300m altitude difference). Lausanne subway (tiniest city in the world to have one) also uses rubber tyres on the section which goes straight uphill.

jsnell 4y ago

Recent discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31879999 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31879999 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31204168 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31204168

dpedu 4y ago

Very cool. Reminds me of the also underground London Post Office Railway. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Post_Office_Railway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Post_Office_Railway edit: Take note of the mention of road traffic reduction in both articles. Some things never change!

Terry_Roll 4y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_London_Underground#Goods_traffic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_London_Undergro...

mastax 4y ago

But why tunnels? The article didn't justify it at all. Tunnels are extremely expensive, and usually avoided in all but the most extreme circumstances. Are we at the point now where its easier to just tunnel than buy and negotiate rights of way?

mongol 4y ago
The Alps.
- mastax 4y ago
  There are many existing trains in Switzerland, even high speed ones. Yet those trains are largely above ground. (I can't find any statistics quickly). This is supposed to be a low speed service - 30km/h - so they could meander around mountains to a large extent. Am I misreading that this is supposed to be entirely underground?
  - aeternum 4y ago
    The surface should be reserved for people. Surface land is rare and can be better utilized for housing, farms, parks, bike paths, solar. There's plenty of space underground and sure it's a higher one-time cost, but the conserving the surface for people is probably worthwhile.
    - pawsforthought 4y ago
      Indeed. The article talks about projected reduction of freight on roads of 40%. I wonder about induced demand. Presumably total freight volumes will not change drastically in response to the availability of this new system, in which case one could expect road traffic reductions to be stable. The quieter roads may well induce more personal transportation, but then with Switzerland’s already very good passenger rail connections, maybe not. Seems like a win all round.
  - jjallen 4y ago
    This will not be in the mountainous region of Switzerland. It's in the north where there are 120/kmh highways. Mostly rolling hills.

stevenjgarner 4y ago

I am not knowledgeable about this, but I wonder how it interfaces with existing logistics. The pictured vehicles look dramatically different in size and form factor than the standard Intermodal container [1] or even the ubiquitous (and smaller) US military Quadcon/Tricon/Bicon boxes. Will items have to be repackaged from standard international shipping containers into these autonomous cargo vehicles? What are the security (ie insurance) considerations? Also, given some of the deadly tunnel fires originated in freight ignition and combustion, what are the considerations for fire management? [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermodal_container https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermodal_container [2] The Deadly Mont Blanc Tunnel Fire 1999 (Documentary) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcLaogBviIA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcLaogBviIA

ThePadawan 4y ago
> Also, given some of the deadly tunnel fires originated in freight ignition and combustion, what are the considerations for fire management? There are 0 humans in these tunnels. If a fire broke out, why wouldn't slamming shut all fire doors in that section work?
- magic_hamster 4y ago
  I imagine the tunnel and cars will be serviceable so there might be people in there from time to time.
  - _nalply 4y ago
    But they would have received training to react correctly in case of fire.
ThePadawan 4y ago
Looks to me like the pods could carry 1 or 2 EUR pallets. [0] These are absolutely ubiquitous in logistics in Europe. If you pick up a low-margin product like toilet paper or potting soil in the supermarket or hardware store, it will be sitting on a EUR pallet. Between packed in a factory somewhere and sold to the end customer, all that needs to happen is to remove the outer protective wrapping (that has shipping/tracking bar codes on it). Edit: This (2016) article has some design renderings, showing 2 EUR pallets per pod [1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EUR-pallet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EUR-pallet [1] https://www.limmattalerzeitung.ch/wirtschaft/das-wird-die-logistik-in-der-schweiz-auf-den-kopf-stellen-ld.1289041 https://www.limmattalerzeitung.ch/wirtschaft/das-wird-die-lo...

ThePadawan 4y ago

Dropping the official product FAQ that answers some (but not all) frequent question in its FAQ: https://www.cst.ch/en/faq/ https://www.cst.ch/en/faq/ My summary, having lived in Switzerland for the last 10+ years: - Of course actual railways are more efficient. They will continue to be built where possible. - This is a tunnel network to get the goods into the middle of cities without putting an ever increasing number of trucks onto the city streets to distribute them throughout the city. - This runs parallel to the Alps, not through them.

ssl232 4y ago
> Of course actual railways are more efficient. They will continue to be built where possible. Wouldn't this underground network be more efficient than the above-ground railways for cargo? Cargo trains above ground need to stop at lights, need human drivers, etc etc. > This is a tunnel network to get the goods into the middle of cities without putting an ever increasing number of trucks onto the city streets to distribute them throughout the city. The article suggests this is to be a national network, not local. If it were just for the "last mile" wouldn't they just use above-ground trains to get the goods to the outskirts of the city before using the underground network to get them into the middle?
- ThePadawan 4y ago
  > Wouldn't this underground network be more efficient than the above-ground railways for cargo? Cargo trains above ground need to stop at lights, need human drivers, etc etc. Depends on your definition of "efficient" - I imagine it's definitely more efficient to ship a cargo container full of grain than a CST pod full of grain simply because they are higher volume. If your goal however is "get cereal boxes into an urban supermarket", then cargo rail is probably less efficient, yes. > The article suggests this is to be a national network, not local. If it were just for the "last mile" wouldn't they just use above-ground trains to get the goods to the outskirts of the city before using the underground network to get them into the middle? I seem to have phrased it poorly then - yes, that is exactly what CST wants to do. The goal is not to replace urban truck traffic with CST.

whall6 4y ago

Major ratchet and clank vibes

ur-whale 4y ago

It's very nice to see that there are still countries capable of large-scale, long-term infrastructure projects in Europe. Especially cool given how small Switzerland is compared to its neighbors.

DeathArrow 4y ago

Switzerland has an extensive network of railways, so I would see underground tunnels useful for last mile delivery within cities but not for longer distances.

config_yml 4y ago
It’s rail network heaviliy prioritices non-cargo traffic, so I can see how a dedicated cargo network underground can increase capacity and speed.
ThePadawan 4y ago
Note that the maximum distance on this network (Geneva - St. Gallen) is only 300km, so a ~10h trip at the projected speed of 30km/h. That's still overnight shipping. Also, seeing as the goal is to get (consumer) goods into cities, I would call that itinerary a bit hypothetical. (I agree with the general statement, and I hope so do the designers. This should complement, not replace.)
Closi 4y ago
This particular network certainly isn't last mile - they are talking about dropping the goods off at 10 hubs rather than last-mile. Also last-mile with tunnels isn't really practical - bearing in mind that last-mile means getting goods all the way to a customer house (i.e. it's not really last-mile if someone else has to pick it up and move it to the final destination).

sschueller 4y ago

A lot of cities here now use underground trash collection [1] . At the moment these have to be emptied via truck from above. I could see such an underground system take out the trash directly. [1] https://youtu.be/xhbhvdvTWUg https://youtu.be/xhbhvdvTWUg

pawsforthought 4y ago
Knew of the existence of these, but never seen the emptying process. It’s a very neat design consideration the way the barrier rises up out of the ground, so you’re not left with a gaping hole. I think the obstacle to connecting trash receptacles to a subterranean logistics network would be just how much tunneling you’d have to do. CST will connect to urban distribution hubs, with the last mile fulfilled by courier bikes, motorbikes or small delivery vans.

joking 4y ago

Imagine the bandwidth of those pods transporting backup tapes!! This project gives me futuristic vibes, if they could make the numbers work, is a great idea, it could be even a closed tube that goes overground outside the cities and goes underground on the populated places. I't more or less the idea of the hyperloop, but for cargo, and without the constraints of speed and safety that make the hyperloop so expensive. As a concept it seems so good, that I really hope that is going to be financially viable in a short amount of time.

ThePadawan 4y ago
Virgin Hyperloop is in fact an investor in CST since 2016 [0]. I can't help but find this maybe ironic, maybe fitting (?) since AFAICT (from skimming [1]) Hyperloop has given up on passenger transport this year to focus more on ...cargo. [0] https://www.cst.ch/hyperloop-one-investiert-in-cargo-sous-terrain/ https://www.cst.ch/hyperloop-one-investiert-in-cargo-sous-te... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Hyperloop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Hyperloop
pawsforthought 4y ago
The consortium of investors certainly sees it as viable, to the extent that there’s no reliance on public subsidy for the project. Switzerland has the advantage of being relatively compact, so I do wonder how the economic case would stack up with different geographies. High capex, low opex. Lower capex with above-ground tubes as you suggest. I think Futurama was onto something.

digitcatphd 4y ago

I developed a concept for this in 2013 and was laughed at...

mrtksn 4y ago
Can we look at your presentation?

Flocular 4y ago

I think this is trying to solve delivery inside cities. However, I don't see cities beeing clogged by parcel delivery services. Transportation of goods is more problematic on the inter-city level. But that's too far to build a tunnel. What is causing troubles for cities seems to mostly be human traffic (that's why rush-hour is a thing) - for that subways could indeed be a solution. Unless Switzerland's traffic is looking completly different from what I know from Germany of course?

ThePadawan 4y ago
(I'm a German living in Switzerland) All your questions can be answered with "Switzerland has a functioning railroad" (for public transport). Compare the modal share between Zurich and Frankfurt [0]. 44% of travelers in the Frankfurt area use a private motor vehicle, whereas only 21% do in Zurich. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_share#Metropolitan_areas_with_over_250,000_inhabitants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_share#Metropolitan_areas...
freeflight 4y ago
> However, I don't see cities beeing clogged by parcel delivery services. Cities are clogged by any kind of vehicle period. Particularly delivery trucks will run into issues in the future as more and more European cities start enacting low emission zones/diesel bans inner-city [0], yet the overwhelming number of delivery trucks are diesel. > Transportation of goods is more problematic on the inter-city level. Inter-city has rail and lorries with trailers, both do not work inside the city where every extra vehicle leads to extra congestion due to the high density of everything. > Unless Switzerland's traffic is looking completly different from what I know from Germany of course? Berlin, Darmstadt, Hamburg and Stuttgart already have diesel bans and low-emission zones inner-city. In most bigger cities driving into the center is an exercise in frustration, not just due to congestion but particularly due to lack of parking spaces. [0] https://www.transportenvironment.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/City%20bans%20are%20spreading%20in%20Europe_Report.PDF https://www.transportenvironment.org/wp-content/uploads/2021...
- Tijdreiziger 4y ago

xwdv 4y ago

Imagine all the cities of the world having huge underground networks for transporting goods; the arteries of capitalism.

freeflight 4y ago
All the cities of the world can't have that because quite a few of them do not have the geological conditions to be tunneled under on a large scale. In others there are issues with digging up old stuff that's archaeologically relevant, like any time something is dug in Rome. And any place with such a system also needs its economy/commerce to be "expensive" enough to justify such an investment. In Switzerland that works because it's pretty much one of the most expensive places on the planet.

esel2k 4y ago

Swiss here and my sister does contribute to the CST. Looking at a few questions: Yes we have a very well working train system (for example a delay of more than 2min is announced). The problem is rather that our infrastructure can’t keep up with the amount of commuters (at least prepandemic). Secondly nearly every squaremeter is either used for agriculture or very expensive land (at least around the cities). On top of that we have laws to prohibit trucks or trains to ride at night. And no we don’t have just mountains here, the upper part from geneva to Bern to Basel and Zürich are more or less flat. All of these with a good expertise in tunnel building are reasons why CST can be a solution… it is just that construction project can take years or 10s of years to get approved and everything moves quiet slowly.

divbzero 4y ago

This could be the most ambitious logistics tunnel since the Alameda-Weehawken Burrito Tunnel [1] entered operation in 1977. [1]: https://idlewords.com/2007/04/the_alameda_weehawken_burrito_tunnel.htm https://idlewords.com/2007/04/the_alameda_weehawken_burrito_...