Second, the New York City post offices used to send packages to each other via pneumatic tubes. The system stopped in 1953, though, when it became rather impractical. I see that very much happening here.
And also, do we really _want_ this sort of thing? Are we just too lazy to get out of our houses to get a loaf of bread or whatever?
Yes. Online grocery shopping with dedicated delivery services is huge here (in the UK). Imagine how much bigger it would be when you could order stuff in much smaller batches at more regular intervals? Loaf of bread and a pint of milk to home at 7am, and a sandwich to your office at 1pm?
If you include the postal system and all those little trips people make, we are moving stuff between various hubs and houses several times a day anyway, often with dedicated trips using our hugely inefficient, slow and polluting vehicles. We could really get the eco crowd onside with this one.
Replacing labor intensive delivery that involves lots of big brown trucks illegally parking in traffic with an underground, computerized, electrically powered system?
> Tilleman acknowledges the idea sounds like a Tomorrowland attraction from 1965, but says it’s completely feasible with enough funding.
Really, most projects tend to be feasible with enough funding. Actually, the word feasible seems to be somewhat linked to whether or the idea would work with reasonable funding.
I think a system where packages are delivered via small, electrical driver-less trucks is much more feasible, since roads already exist.
There is too much pre-existing infrastructure underground to automate it completely in a cost-efficient way. In general, almost all construction work other than heavy lifting is still done by people.
"There is too much pre-existing infrastructure underground to automate it completely in a cost-efficient way today."
I've said on HN a couple of times that robotics work is going to radically affect society, and this is the sort of thing I'm thinking of. If we had real robots that could be turned loose with nothing more than a layout of the desired network and the necessary resources, and could intelligently deal with most blockages and intelligently call in human help when needed (and only when needed), then the cost equation of this idea changes a lot. (Also, robots to do a lot of basic maintenance without human intervention are probably necessary.)
Right now, it's a total pipe dream. Perhaps when we get such robots, it'll be more cost-effective to do something else instead, like an above-ground robotic bucket brigade for item deliveries. Or robotic delivery vehicles. But the tunnel approach may turn out to be feasible. (Or, more likely, a bucket brigade in some places, tunnels in others, and robotic drivers in yet others, where each makes most sense, freely intermixing delivery styles as needed.) So, bear in mind it is not that I am predicting specific results like "tubes in the ground", but that robots are going to radically change the cost side of many cost/benefit analyses.
"robots" (forever undefined beyond just that they're robotic) have been promised as the general fix-all to the world's physical labors since at least the 1950's.
Regardless of who does the labor, the reason robots have not spread further is that its still significantly cheaper to have people do things. So why spend the money replacing people with robots in this situation, all to build something that can be done already?
"general fix-all to the world's physical labors since at least the 1950's."
First, I'm not saying they're a "fix-all". I'm saying they're going to disrupt cost/benefit relations increasingly over the next few years. That's a much more defensible statement.
Second, part of the mental block that people are having with understanding this is that the promises that were made in the 1950s were premature, not wrong. Look at actual research coming out of robotics right now, not from the 1950s. It's still early, but there's been a qualitative change in the past couple of years; things are moving again. We got used to "nothing happening" so much so that it became just part of the mental background of our lives, but that doesn't make that rational.
There's nothing stopping people from being part of the delivery network, either. The most likely outcome is that it simply becomes an outgrowth of today's Fedex and UPS, starting in the cities and spreading out as the economics make sense. It's not even as much of a discontinuity as you might think, as from what I've seen of photos of the inside of the hubs, the hubs are already building-sized robots with small amounts of human help. It's just an expansion of the already-robotic-core of the delivery system, not an introduction of a brand new concept.
Agreed, the amount of work that would have to go into placing thousands of these tiny subways under the city to deliver to every building is insane, especially considering that they could flood or even a minor ground swell could dislodge the tracks causing a jam.
Sticking something like this underground just sounds stupid to me, especially when it would be impossible to have people actually go in to fix things. IMO this would either need to be built onto existing subway infrastructure where access to the system for repairs will be relatively easy . . . or do the cheap-easy way of just build it above ground.
I mean most large cities are getting expanding amounts of skyway (the enclosed walkways between buildings), once this gets to sufficient scale it would be no extra effort to attach pre-fabed tunnels to the bottom of the skyway networks. It's currently part of the Calgary by-law that all new buildings have to be connected to their skyway system.
The mass installation of new infrastructure is absurd considering the amount of work it requires below-ground, however above-ground would be exceptionally simple with a well developed skyway system. There's very little point of implementing this system without making it big, so until its exceptionally cheap per mile to install it will never happen, because our cities are simply way too big for a project like this if it's costly per mile.
The only thing that prevents from thinking about this idea in the same way as flying cars is our water delivery network. if we could build that 100+ years ago (albeit at gigantic expense), perhaps we have finally reached the technology level where we can expand to an extremely high-speed automated 24-hour postal service.
When you think about it, society is already curving back towards more delivery services and less 'go and fetch' services - I know I now do more shopping online than I do in an actual shop, and those thousands of dedicated supermarket delivery trucks (and attendant drivers_ are a huge saving waiting to made, alongside the postmen.
What we need is for the government to step in and finance a really large scale trial in co-operation with the postal service and the various home delivery services. Mail, pizza and groceries would be enough of a tipping point I think.
It seems like it would be easier to use tiny robot zepplins instead. Much more CPU power would be required to control the robots, but that seems like it would be cheaper than setting up a nationwide network of tunnels.
Or in cities with footpaths, what about strapping a GPS and AI to a segway-like robot and sending that on its way?
Miniature Zepplins are great until the wind starts blowing. Most of the large cities are coastal.
Robots on segways are ok until someone decides they need another segway (or whatever it happens to be carrying).
Of course, I think the tunnels could suffer the same security problems, whether physical or virtual. Imagine hacking your neighbourhood tunnel to get free pizza!
Yes, wind might be an issue for miniture zepplins, though I wonder whether there might be ways to mitigate the effect of wind. It's not like they'd be flying very high.
Regarding robots on segways, the robots would not be on the segways; they'd be self-balancing robots of approximately human dimension with a rack for carrying parcels. You wouldn't be able to easily ride one, and stealing one could be made quite difficult. For instance, you could have the robot automatically phone home along with it's current GPS position when it detects itself being "kidnapped". Or you could program it to emit an extremely loud siren. Or fry its own circuits so that it's useless to the criminals. Or snap photographs of the perps and email them to a remote location.
Tunnel paths will be pre-planned so as to avoid interfering with existing infrastructure.
I for one am skeptical of this. There is _a lot_ of underground infrastructure which isn't documented. Just think about all of the wiring, sewer lines, gas lines, which are in a typical urban environment. Most of this just has to be found by hand digging. That said, I'd love to be proven wrong.
What are the energy costs of automating the burrowing of these tunnels to connect,say a small city like Boston? The Boston Sewer network is ~1500 miles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Water_and_Sewer_Commissi...) and I am guessing this would have a comparable edge length.
And then, how do you deal with breakdowns, logistically and financially? It will have more complicated machinery than mere plumbing, with finite half-lives that'll require switch-outs.
The Boston Sewer Commission charges 60 dollars per month per family unit, and I am guessing a significant fraction goes into upkeep.
Will anyone want to spend that kind of money for the slim marginal benefit of getting things a bit faster than Amazon?
seriously? Boston would be one of the more difficult cities to connect. Boston is old, has a very established infrastructure, and a pretty expansive underground infrastructure already. I would say doing this in a place like Minneapolis might be easier because its newer (more documented, less underground infrastructure) of course then you have weather problems.
True,Boston may be a bad example for those reasons, but I wanted an example mainly to get a handle on the numbers. Minneapolis might be a better fit, but will the tubing mileage needed and the problems change?
Apart from agreeing with all the reasons below why this won't work - both technical and the blazingly obvious - and still being an ardent lover of all types of tech... I think that in the 21st century where all our labour saving devices seem to take all our time to operate, control, log in/out, update, check and generally fiddle with so that we have next to zero free time.. isn't there a certain pleasure being missed here in taking a walk to your corner store, saying 'Hi' to a passing neighbour and grabbing a few groceries before getting back home in time to catch the latest episode of Family Guy? Isn't this just another reason for us to stay trapped in front of the computer never leaving the house? /me ducks under a flying car piloted by a pig
There was a system like this in New York until the 1950s, when trucks killed it off. If you search google you can also get the RTF version which includes some grainy photos.
No doubt that such a network could be insanely useful (although why the empahsis on having it running to every house? Wouldn't one delivery point per block be adequate?). But I'm extremely skeptical about the autonomous tunnel boring machine. If it's so easy, buy some cheap land and do a demonstration, guys. Talk is cheap.
For all practical purposes, this would be like the replicator on Star Trek. You select from a menu of offerings, press a button, and whatever you ordered pops out a little while later.
(sigh) Nothing that cool would ever happen in real life.
Perhaps not exactly like that. But in some cities, Amazon offers same-day delivery that is like $7 for Prime customers. (Sadly, not Chicago.) Order your new computer in the morning, it shows up at your office / home in the afternoon. Pretty convenient. No tubes required.
Oh it used to happen. It was called kozmo.com, and it was wonderful. Once constructed, a network of tubes will be vastly cheaper to operate than an army of bike messengers. I'm looking forward to this.
Automating our point to point transportation system would be a huge value. Seems like this would compete in some ways with self-driving vehicles (though a controlled rail system seems more energy efficient).
Also on HN this morning: "The career choice that delivers", about a postman.
It's not unusual that I see articles here both on how some new device is going to save us from physical labor, and right next to that an article about how somebody discovered that they're happier when doing more physical activity.
I don't think I want a tiny subway to deliver my groceries. What's the point?
I can do plenty of physical activity and labor without going to a store (an activity that I very much dislike, with the exception of the grocery at 3am when I'm the only customer).
The point is I can now choose how to do my physical activity.
Chicago used to have an underground tunnel delivery system, using tunnels originally built to house telephone lines, used to deliver coal & remove ash:
Better gaming model: design a cargo box for the tunnel with web cams and laser turrets (or some other form of rat killing small arms). Working title: ratpocalypse, until something cooler is suggested.
"When Paris hosted the Exposition Universelle in 1900, it unveiled its vision for the future of transport. The trottoir roulant was a moving walkway that circled the fair in a 3-kilometre loop, its articulated wooden segments "gliding around like a wooden serpent with its tail in its mouth", according to one reporter.
Chicago's walkway, the brainchild of engineer Max Schmidt, consisted of three rings, the first stationary, the second moving at 4 kilometres per hour and the third at 8 km/h, an arrangement that allowed walkers to adjust to each speed before moving to the next.
In fact, the idea of high-speed walkways had been established in New York longer than anywhere else. Back in 1871, local wine merchant Alfred Speer patented the first "endless-travelling sidewalk", and promptly proposed an ambitious elevated moving walkway along Broadway. It would have zipped pedestrians along at up to 30 km/h
Undaunted, Schmidt proposed a flurry of similar projects around Manhattan - running down Broadway, along Wall Street, over the Williamsburg Bridge and across 23rd and 34th Street. To Schmidt, the advantages of the moving walkway were so compelling that he was convinced they would supplant some subways rather than supplement them. By 1909, he was pushing a massive $70 million scheme that would provide Manhattan with a network of subterranean moving sidewalks."
