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I'd love to see an advanced citywide or intra-city logistics system using pneumatic tubes or evacuated tubes in general. There's interesting non-pneumatic work
by jauntywundrkind 2y ago
I'd love to see an advanced citywide or intra-city logistics system using pneumatic tubes or evacuated tubes in general.
There's interesting non-pneumatic work from the Swiss company Cargo Sous Terrain, with self-poweres robot carriers shuttling materials around a city. Haven't heard or seen much in specifics, but their design material looks flashy & cool, and they supposedly are doing a tunnel.
https://spectrum.ieee.org/cargo-sous-terrain https://spectrum.ieee.org/cargo-sous-terrain
Outside of Atlanta GA, there's Pipedream, which launched a modest-sized intra-city auto omous robot delivery system at the end of 2023, which is cool. https://interestingengineering.com/transportation/worlds-first-underground-autonomous-robot-delivery-system-fulfills-orders https://interestingengineering.com/transportation/worlds-fir...
It probably isn't worth the trouble nor a real efficiency gain but the idea of evacuated tubes with low air resistance or maybe even using real pneumatic pressure sounds cool. Especially for longer distances, higher capacities, the idea of some kind of hyperloop like system but a bit smaller & not human rated would be neat, could eliminate a colossal amount of CO2 & effort.
- Animats 2y ago> Cargo Sous Terrain They've been "studying" and issuing PR since 2013, but so far, zero deployment. They are doing worse than The Boring Company.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- ianburrell 2y agoI wonder if anyone has done small electric cars on rail(s) in small tunnel like foot to meter diameter. It could do larger tunnel, would be easier to route, and doesn't have to be kept at pressure. My guess is that it is more efficient the pneumatic tubes and easier to deploy. Could probably even use the same containers as above-ground robots or aerial drones.
- overengineer 2y agoI want them with gopros livestreaming
- kalleboo 2y agoYou had the Mail Rail back in 1927 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Post_Office_Railway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Post_Office_Railway Edit: and before that the Chicago tunnels https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Tunnel_Company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Tunnel_Company
- YurgenJurgensen 2y agoFor those smaller ceiling-mounted pod rail things in the Sous Terrain mockups, I'm surprised they're not extending them overground (and that they've dropped them from newer infographics). Tiny elevated rails seems like it avoids a lot of the problems of both surface-level and flying delivery robots. I'm imagining that they either terminate inside businesses or form up in some kind of stacker that resembles those delivery lockers when full. (Of course, I know the real reason: It's because humans on mopeds are cheaper, but they're not more efficient.)