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I've wondered: Instead of drone delivery, why not use underground conveyer belts for delivery in communities with sufficient population density. Instead of deli

I've wondered: Instead of drone delivery, why not use underground conveyer belts for delivery in communities with sufficient population density. Instead of delivery trucks burning carbon and adding traffic, and people carrying packages to and from them, deliveries could be loaded onto the conveyer system and routed to their destinations. Imagine Manhattan with no more delivery trucks and all the deliveries, every day, for office buildings and apartment buildings being conveyed directly to their basements (and maybe even to an elevator, which dumps the packages on the appropriate floor). The deliveries could be the mail and packages we are accustomed to now, but also anything else from one building to another intra-city, b2b, b2c, or c2c: Carryout meals (or a meal you made for your friend), groceries and drugs (especially good for people too ill to go out), a computer to be repaired, the ISP could send a replacement router, the papers you need from the office, a substitute for intra-city mail, boxes to UPS/Fedex/etc -- anything could be delivered within hours (though I might be overestimating how efficiently a network with so many nodes could route). Perhaps it would be too costly, but building a conveyer belt under someplace as dense as Manhattan seems potentially cost-effective for all the benefits. And again, perhaps I'm underestimating the complexity of a network with that many nodes. I realize this is a bit of blue sky thinking, and I know nothing of such technology. And I'm pretending that there are no political issues.

eurleif 12y ago
This doesn't answer your question, but Manhattan used to have a pneumatic tube system: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pneumatic_tube_mail_in_New_York_City https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pneumatic_tube_mail_in_New_Yor...
- johan_larson 12y ago
  I saw a pneumatic tube system in operation as late as the 1990s. The main library in Madison, WI used one for communication between the main floor and secondary storage in the basement.
whyenot 12y ago
Sort of like a modern version of NYC's pneumatic tube system http://untappedcities.com/2013/03/15/nycs-pneumatic-tube-mail-network/ http://untappedcities.com/2013/03/15/nycs-pneumatic-tube-mai...
- dghughes 12y ago
  Sweden has a fairly complex large pneumatic pipe system for garbage, I'm not sure what city has it.
holyjaw 12y ago
I'm sure science exists to prove me wrong, but I get nervous when I think of how much solid air exists when you start putting tunnels underneath populous cities. An earth quake or a flood would destroy that infrastructure, and the decade or so it would take to excavate and build these things would probably sour the population to the idea.
johan_larson 12y ago
Imagine how expensive it would be to install a new system of piping throughout the city, including equipment to move the packets along and sort them at each of the junctions. And to carry physical goods, these would have to be big pipes, probably at least 50 cm in diameter. Probably the best bet would be to piggyback on the subway system, since they already have tunnels dug. People could send and pick up packages at subway stops. And maybe subway trains could add special freight cars. But still, we are talking major expenses, and negotiations with God knows how many slow-moving bureaucracies.
- Argorak 12y ago
  While not locally, you can use Deutsche Bahn as a courier in Germany. You just deliver the package to the next train station and they put it on the next train to your destination. It's a bit expensive, but the trains run hourly for most capital cities and until around midnight, and are quite fast.
rtpg 12y ago
With enough population density, I feel like having a lot of package pickup points would make more sense logistically than having a pipe go to every home. Home delivery can be the costliest part of a package ordered online.
creade 12y ago
NYC (Roosevelt Island and, it sounds like shortly, the Hudson Yards development) and a few other places have modern pneumatic solid waste transport system provided by http://www.envacgroup.com/ http://www.envacgroup.com/
prawn 12y ago
Powered by gym treadmills.
JacobAldridge 12y ago
It's part of Scott Adams' intermittent blogging about creating an ideal new city from scratch - http://www.dilbert.com/blog/entry/garbage_city/ http://www.dilbert.com/blog/entry/garbage_city/
saosebastiao 12y ago
Conveyors are not scalable: they have terrible efficiency, maintenance, and capital costs. Conveyors are actually fantastically energy inefficient...worse than diesel trucks over anything longer than football field distances. Their rolling friction grows linearly with length. Furthermore, their number of moving parts grows linearly with length. And every roller added to the system has the potential to shut down the entire system...all it takes is a seized bearing. Routing efficiency is actually its strong point, which is why they are used in so many factory and logistics operations, but those are typically much smaller than manhattan. That being said, there is definitely potential for underground logistics...but it is more likely to happen on rails or in tubes with vehicle propulsion instead of track propulsion.
- sdk16420 12y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Post_Office_Railway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Post_Office_Railway They shut it down in 2003...
Shamiq 12y ago
I'm afraid of the security implications of another automated, hard to control, hard to see attack surface. I'm all for better infrastructure, but infrastructure is what historical comes under attack first when "shit hits the fan", and this seems like a great target and pipeline. If you can help me make it secure, I'd love to help you design it.
slapshot 12y ago
This is a bit of a modernization of a perennial HN favorite: the Chicago Tunnel Company. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Tunnel_Company http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Tunnel_Company For years, a network of tunnels connected downtown Chicago buildings with a narrow gauge freight railway. It also doubled as an air conditioning duct for some buildings. Depending on who you ask, it either failed because of politics (regulation of passenger traffic, etc.) or economics (deliveries from outside the network dominated later office traffic, which had to be carried by trucks), change (the switch to natural gas instead of coal siphoned off a lot of traffic), or geography (floods).
michaelt 12y ago
You might be interested in [1] Food Tubes - they use pneumatic pipelines rather than conveyors, but the basic idea is similar. I suspect you have to spend an absolute fortune before you figure out whether there's enough demand to make it profitable. [1] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/12/want-fries-with-those-packets-introducing-foodtubes/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/12/want-fries-with-t...
orbifold 12y ago
Alternatives to transportation by car in general should see a revival, it is quite sad that the state of public transport in the 1920's was generally quite a bit better than it is today. For example Berlin used to have one of the largest tram line systems, that also had freight trams. Early industrial cities in general tend to have a much better transportation system until today. As long as the lower classes were not able to buy a car, it was actually in the interest of industrialists to pressure for investments in public infrastructure, so their workers had an efficient commute. Now that the car industry plays a less significant role in some of the (post) industrial countries maybe there is hope to boost other forms of transportation.
cridenour 12y ago
Sounds like you should play Factorio.

eurleif 12y ago

This doesn't answer your question, but Manhattan used to have a pneumatic tube system: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pneumatic_tube_mail_in_New_York_City https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pneumatic_tube_mail_in_New_Yor...

johan_larson 12y ago
I saw a pneumatic tube system in operation as late as the 1990s. The main library in Madison, WI used one for communication between the main floor and secondary storage in the basement.

whyenot 12y ago

Sort of like a modern version of NYC's pneumatic tube system http://untappedcities.com/2013/03/15/nycs-pneumatic-tube-mail-network/ http://untappedcities.com/2013/03/15/nycs-pneumatic-tube-mai...

dghughes 12y ago
Sweden has a fairly complex large pneumatic pipe system for garbage, I'm not sure what city has it.

holyjaw 12y ago

I'm sure science exists to prove me wrong, but I get nervous when I think of how much solid air exists when you start putting tunnels underneath populous cities. An earth quake or a flood would destroy that infrastructure, and the decade or so it would take to excavate and build these things would probably sour the population to the idea.

johan_larson 12y ago

Imagine how expensive it would be to install a new system of piping throughout the city, including equipment to move the packets along and sort them at each of the junctions. And to carry physical goods, these would have to be big pipes, probably at least 50 cm in diameter. Probably the best bet would be to piggyback on the subway system, since they already have tunnels dug. People could send and pick up packages at subway stops. And maybe subway trains could add special freight cars. But still, we are talking major expenses, and negotiations with God knows how many slow-moving bureaucracies.

Argorak 12y ago
While not locally, you can use Deutsche Bahn as a courier in Germany. You just deliver the package to the next train station and they put it on the next train to your destination. It's a bit expensive, but the trains run hourly for most capital cities and until around midnight, and are quite fast.

rtpg 12y ago

With enough population density, I feel like having a lot of package pickup points would make more sense logistically than having a pipe go to every home. Home delivery can be the costliest part of a package ordered online.

creade 12y ago

NYC (Roosevelt Island and, it sounds like shortly, the Hudson Yards development) and a few other places have modern pneumatic solid waste transport system provided by http://www.envacgroup.com/ http://www.envacgroup.com/

prawn 12y ago

JacobAldridge 12y ago

It's part of Scott Adams' intermittent blogging about creating an ideal new city from scratch - http://www.dilbert.com/blog/entry/garbage_city/ http://www.dilbert.com/blog/entry/garbage_city/

saosebastiao 12y ago

Conveyors are not scalable: they have terrible efficiency, maintenance, and capital costs. Conveyors are actually fantastically energy inefficient...worse than diesel trucks over anything longer than football field distances. Their rolling friction grows linearly with length. Furthermore, their number of moving parts grows linearly with length. And every roller added to the system has the potential to shut down the entire system...all it takes is a seized bearing. Routing efficiency is actually its strong point, which is why they are used in so many factory and logistics operations, but those are typically much smaller than manhattan. That being said, there is definitely potential for underground logistics...but it is more likely to happen on rails or in tubes with vehicle propulsion instead of track propulsion.

sdk16420 12y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Post_Office_Railway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Post_Office_Railway They shut it down in 2003...

Shamiq 12y ago

I'm afraid of the security implications of another automated, hard to control, hard to see attack surface. I'm all for better infrastructure, but infrastructure is what historical comes under attack first when "shit hits the fan", and this seems like a great target and pipeline. If you can help me make it secure, I'd love to help you design it.

slapshot 12y ago

This is a bit of a modernization of a perennial HN favorite: the Chicago Tunnel Company. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Tunnel_Company http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Tunnel_Company For years, a network of tunnels connected downtown Chicago buildings with a narrow gauge freight railway. It also doubled as an air conditioning duct for some buildings. Depending on who you ask, it either failed because of politics (regulation of passenger traffic, etc.) or economics (deliveries from outside the network dominated later office traffic, which had to be carried by trucks), change (the switch to natural gas instead of coal siphoned off a lot of traffic), or geography (floods).

michaelt 12y ago

You might be interested in [1] Food Tubes - they use pneumatic pipelines rather than conveyors, but the basic idea is similar. I suspect you have to spend an absolute fortune before you figure out whether there's enough demand to make it profitable. [1] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/12/want-fries-with-those-packets-introducing-foodtubes/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/12/want-fries-with-t...

orbifold 12y ago

Alternatives to transportation by car in general should see a revival, it is quite sad that the state of public transport in the 1920's was generally quite a bit better than it is today. For example Berlin used to have one of the largest tram line systems, that also had freight trams. Early industrial cities in general tend to have a much better transportation system until today. As long as the lower classes were not able to buy a car, it was actually in the interest of industrialists to pressure for investments in public infrastructure, so their workers had an efficient commute. Now that the car industry plays a less significant role in some of the (post) industrial countries maybe there is hope to boost other forms of transportation.

cridenour 12y ago

Sounds like you should play Factorio.