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United Kingdom Transportation

UK Company Wants To Deliver Parcels Through Underground Tunnels 117

Posted by samzenpus from the mole-mail dept.
Zothecula writes Drones flown by Amazon aren't the only way we could be getting our parcels delivered in the near future. UK firm Mole Solutions is exploring the possibility of using small robot trains running on underground tracks to manage deliveries, and it's just received funding from the British government to help test the viability of the proposal.
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UK Company Wants To Deliver Parcels Through Underground Tunnels More

UK Company Wants To Deliver Parcels Through Underground Tunnels

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  • Pneumatic post (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Pneumatic post anyone?

  • Royal Mail - Doing it in London years ago (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    The Royal Mail were doing this across London years ago - linking major sorting offices with an underground network of tunnels and trains - go google for it. Nothing new to see here.

    • Re:Royal Mail - Doing it in London years ago (Score:4, Interesting)

      by symes ( 835608 ) on Friday April 17, 2015 @04:13AM (#49491829) Journal

      Here you go [wikipedia.org]. My understanding is that London is full of all sorts of tunnels built for various purposes. From the huge Victorian era sewage system to the London Underground and various utility tunnels. Chatting to engineers, one of the issues they have building anything in London is that often you'll encounter some uncharted tunnel. Odd though this may sound, I have exploring London's underground tunnels on my bucket list.

      • If you were using the sewers you'd presumably need some kind of submarine. There's also the minor problem of it getting totally covered in shite to contend with.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Apparently NY is the same way. They can not dig without hitting something.

        http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/streetworks/assets/chapter_2/img_2_1a.jpg
        http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/streetworks/html/chapter_2/2_1.shtml

        It is kind of fascinating to see how 'wild west' it used to be. I am sure most major cities it is the same way. I heard Seattle and Chicago are quite interesting once you get under the road.

        London I have heard is a bit more grisly sometimes as they run across a mass graves from the black death.

    • Just like chicago's under ground mail and package delivery system. Also used to cool buildings.
      http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new... [dailymail.co.uk]

      this is what inspired the Royal Mail company to build theirs.
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C... [wikipedia.org]

  • What happens in case of fire? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    You know someone is going to ship a battery.

  • Royal Mail (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    In London, Royal Mail did this until recently with normal snail mail.

  • Digging tunnels under cities is expensive. I won't say it's a bad plan, quite on the contrary, but it'll be expensive to get the tunnels in place.
    I would love to see it work, motor vehicles in inner cities is a bad plan and this would make it possible to eliminate trucks from the inner city. After that making the roads bike and walk only is just a small step.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by swb ( 14022 )

      When they build tunnels for trains now, don't they use those giant boring machines that excavacte the tunnel and line it with concrete now? The machines I think are giant not because of the digging itself but because they're usually boring a tunnel big enough to run a parallel set of subway-sized cars through. Add in cathedral-sized chambers for regular stops and its easy to see why its so expensive.

      What would happen if they scaled that same excavation technology down so that the tunnel was something like

      • "What would happen if they scaled that same excavation technology down so that the tunnel was something like 2 meters in diamater for a miniature train..."

        The word you're searching for is a 'mine'.

        • "What would happen if they scaled that same excavation technology down so that the tunnel was something like 2 meters in diamater for a miniature train..."

          The word you're searching for is a 'mine'.

          Or for smaller diameter holes, there are things called oil drills (that can be drilled sideways).

      • One of the problems with digging tunnels in a city is that it causes the ground to settle. Even with modern systems that have only little vibration and only little risk of caving in between the drill head and the tunnel wall.
        If the ground drops even 10 cm on one side of a building, what do you think happens with it?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by xaxa ( 988988 )

        Bored railway tunnels are only single-track, usually with two parallel bores. Here [crossrail.co.uk] are some good photos, I believe the "cathedral"-sized cavern was built by digging down from ground level. The finished tunnel diameter is 6.1m.

        The London Post Office Railway [wikipedia.org] has 2.7m tunnels, so is pretty much what you want. It was shut down after the introduction of the Congestion Charge, since that removed enough traffic that it was then cheaper to use surface vehicles.

    • Digging tunnels is difficult. Chicago is so flat that in order to put in the first sewer system, they decided it was cheaper to raise every building in the city 10 feet (~3 meters).

  • So sad :( (Score:3, Insightful)

    by serviscope_minor ( 664417 ) on Friday April 17, 2015 @02:40AM (#49491609) Journal

    The post office used to have an underground railway in London for shuffling things between some of the major sorting offices. It got closed down because "it was cheaper to use vans".

    It was cheaper of course if you considered the roads to be free and the extra traffic to cost nothing (which is how most people operate). Nice to see the government using its vast size to actually take a holistic view and consider all factors for once.

    But no, instead they decided it was cheaper to dump a bunch of extra traffic on an area notorious for congestion to save money. Brilliant!

    I don't even remember which government and I can't be arsed to lookit up becuse it makes no difference. Both the major parties are as dumb as each other.

    • Re:So sad :( (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17, 2015 @03:09AM (#49491679)

      Nice to see the government using its vast size to actually take a holistic view and consider all factors for once.

      But no, instead they decided it was cheaper to dump a bunch of extra traffic on an area notorious for congestion to save money. Brilliant!

      I don't even remember which government and I can't be arsed to lookit up becuse it makes no difference. Both the major parties are as dumb as each other.

      I know you're trying to take a swipe a government for this, but please remember that the Royal Mail has been operated as a private organisation for a long time now (even if it's only relatively recently that the government actually sold off the shares), so it wasn't a "government" decision to close thse mail tunnels; it was a private commercial decision. And frankly, as a commercial decision, it was a no-brainer -- those rail tunnels can't be cheap to operate. They also mean that you can't easily relocate your sorting offices if you wanted to.

      • I know you're trying to take a swipe a government for this, but please remember that the Royal Mail has been operated as a private organisation for a long time now (even if it's only relatively recently that the government actually sold off the shares), so it wasn't a "government" decision to close thse mail tunnels; it was a private commercial decision.

        Well, it was a really fucking stupid idea (tm) to privatise the Royal Mail. Even the Republicans haven't been big enough dumbasses to privatise the USPS. N

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by kqs ( 1038910 )

          Well, it was a really fucking stupid idea (tm) to privatise the Royal Mail. Even the Republicans haven't been big enough dumbasses to privatise the USPS.

          To be fair, the USPS is specified in the constitution as a government-run institution, so it would take some very creative legislation.

          And in some ways I wish they had made it a private company. Right now, due to the republicans, the USPS receives no federal money, but must pre-pay pension funds for decades in advance.

          But yeah, I want a government-run postal service. I want a service that will be there for everyone, not just people in big cities, or rich people, or whatever subset "makes shareholders more

          • To be fair, the USPS is specified in the constitution as a government-run institution, so it would take some very creative legislation.

            Article I, Section 8, Clause 7: "To establish Post Offices and post Roads;"

            There's absolutely nothing in there that requires it to be run by the government. The USPS could easily be spun off as a private company. In fact, in some ways, it is already; it's not a government agency like the FCC or EPA, it's a government-sponsored corporation, legally separate from fed.gov.

    • Both the major parties are as dumb as each other.

      I disagree. Only one of them is as dumb as the other.

      • I disagree. Only one of them is as dumb as the othere

        Nice :)

        Well, we're now getting a proliferation of parties, so they should be some stiff competition in the stupidity stakes.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ledow ( 319597 )

      Was going to say the same thing.

      This isn't new. London, espcially Central London (as opposed to Greater London which is about 30 miles in radius), is crawling with tunnels dug for underground lines that were then abandoned, or repurposed - and some of them were operated by the Post Office for exactly this purpose.

      Strange how the old gets reinvented as "new".

      The problem you have is that London is only a tiny, tiny, tiny portion of what you have to deal with in the UK. And it's already well-catered for in t

      • Re:Return of the old (Score:5, Interesting)

        by ledow ( 319597 ) on Friday April 17, 2015 @03:16AM (#49491705) Homepage

        And I have to say, the most relevant line on Wikipedia is this:

        "Royal Mail had earlier stated that using the railway was five times more expensive than using road transport for the same task. The Communication Workers Union claimed the actual figure was closer to three times more expensive but argued that this was the result of a deliberate policy of running the railway down and using it at only one-third of its capacity"

        If even the unions are saying it's three times more expensive, there's a problem.

        And, to be honest, I really don't want my post subject to both postal AND train-driver strikes, thanks very much. They already have had several months off for the past few years just by striking over pay while they earn more than I can ever hope to earn.

        The beauty of Amazon was that they hired random people to deliver Amazon parcels in their cars late at night and thus avoided the whole Post Office "We tried to deliver your parcel at 9am but, strangely, you weren't home.... you can collect it from the post office 20 miles from you or your workplace at any time between 9-5 Mon-Fri".

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Apparently those random people get as little as 50p per package. It's not really sustainable, Amazon is simply relying on there being a supply of people desperate enough to try it for a while before realizing they can't make a living out of Amazon deliveries. Same with their warehouses, they just burn through employees.

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by ledow ( 319597 )

            How much does a DVD cost to post using the Royal Mail?

            Not that much more and they'll send it from London to Scotland on your behalf too. These guys pick up from local warehouses and deliver in their home street and surrounding roads.

            I don't argue that it's probably not much more than a minimum-wage job but all the drivers I spoke to were more than happy with it - flexible hours, paid by how many you can take and successfully (and reliably) deliver, can do it after work, with the kids on the school run, thr

        • If even the unions are saying it's three times more expensive, there's a problem.

          Eh, well, the government used to run the Royal Mail and the decision was less clear. If you look at the costs locally, then sure the railway is more expensive than using the roads. However, how much does it cost the economy due to increased congestion? London is already heavily congested so anything that reduces it is pretty much a net win.

          Of course now it's private there's no chance of sensible decisions being made.

          And, to be

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by ledow ( 319597 )

            First point - granted. But if no private company has picked it up in the meantime, it's probably because it's just not profitable.

            Last train driver strike, the signallers went out on strike too in sympathy. It's not as simple, once things are unionised.

            My sorting office is my local branch. Which is 2 miles away (20 was hyperbole for effect), has no parking, has a local glut of traffic wardens even on weekends (precisely because there's no parking) and is only open between 11am and 4pm Mon-Fri and 9-11am

            • First point - granted. But if no private company has picked it up in the meantime, it's probably because it's just not profitable.

              Yeah, it's not profitable because someone ELSE is paying for the roads and the congestion cost. If you're the government then YOU are paying for it. So if you save money at the cost of increased congestion, you've almost certainly damped down the economy a bit and actually lost money.

              Last train driver strike, the signallers went out on strike too in sympathy. It's not as simple,

  • Until 2003 the royal mail used an underground mail railway [wikipedia.org]. Even though the costs of building the tunnels had been paid off it was five times more expensive than using road transport for the same task. I can't see how any system involving new tunnels could possibly be viable.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jrumney ( 197329 )
      There was no congestion charge in 2003.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Chrisq ( 894406 )

        There was no congestion charge in 2003.

        True, but since they say it cost five times a much to send things by the rail compared by road this would only swing the balance if 4/5 of the cost were the congestion charge. In other words it would have to cost four times as much as the driver's salary, fuel, maintenance, and vehicle costs - which it obviously doesn't

  • I remember company presentations that announced exactly such a system, but I never saw it acutally build.

    It may be viable in newly build neighborhoods if you can build the freight tunnel along with all other underground works.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ledow ( 319597 )

      On this note, I have always wondered why new-towns aren't like this.

      Every time you run a road, stick a tunnel underneath, or beside it. Or one tunnel each side.

      You have to run, presumably, at least sewers, electricity, gas, water, street lighting, traffic control, telephone, Internet etc. already so why not build it all in and put a tunnel through it too.

      Done properly, you'd never have to dig up a road to get to the services you require and all maintenance can take place underneath the road.

      Sure, it adds to

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gl4ss ( 559668 )

        because when you build a new city, there's no money at first to do such a thing.

        when there's money to do it due to having enough density, then it's too late.

        if there's shitloads of money and the tunnel becomes necessary, then it's done(like in any big city in the west it is done).

      • Where's the fun in that?

        I completely agree with the idea (and can even claim earlier art in an essay I wrote when still at school [MANY years ago] on reducing traffic accidents).

        I swear that my local council is an underground* anarchist cell**.

        If I wanted to cause traffic jams and major disruption I would be hard pushed to do better than the current scheduling of concurrent major roadworks on the three main roads through/out of the town - and, tight fisted and risk averse as I am, I'd be willing to bet that

      • Tunnels are expensive and cranky of maintenance. It's why municipalities don't build Roman-Era quality roads with 10 feet of grading and hand packed rocks that last 1000 years.

        It's called a budget. An extraordinarily annoying concept.

  • Revisiting underground tube systems is a far better idea than letting anybody and his uncle fly drones over the publics head.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gnupun ( 752725 )

      It's also a lot cheaper than drones (once the high cost of building the tunnels has been paid). Rail like systems are way more fuel efficient than drones which consume energy proportional to their weight and the weight of their payloads just to stay above ground. That's not feasible in a modern world where there is a constant shortage of energy.

  • Fixes wrong problem (Score:3)

    by monkeyxpress ( 4016725 ) on Friday April 17, 2015 @03:26AM (#49491733)

    The main problem with freight logistics is not getting all your parcels into a central city depot (this is largely done at night anyway). It is getting the small parcels from the depot to all the various houses and businesses spread throughout the urban area during business hours. Unfortunately the only real solution to that second issue is to have a whole bunch of people hand delivering the packages who can ring door bells, climb stairs etc. But what these mole people have done is ignored this hard bit and said 'hey people can just walk down to the depot and their package will get whizzed away using magnets!'. But I don't want to spend 30 mins walking to and from the depot. I want someone to deliver the package to my door so I can keep working.

    Personally I think the most likely solution will be autonomous milk cart type things that drive around to your house and message you so you can go out and retrieve your parcel from them. They don't need to be fast if they can be smaller and there can be more of them. Drones have a lot of issues in urban areas (where are they going to leave your package?) but could be a great solution for rural situations.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by EzInKy ( 115248 )

      As long as it isn't drones buzzing over my property I'm for it.

    • I want somewhere I can pick up my parcel at a time convenient to me. Luckily we have that here in the Netherlands. I can have the packet send to my supermarket and then I can go get it with my next shopping trip. No need to stay at home for a simple delivery.
      Sadly Amazon doesn't work with it yet so I have to have that send to my work address.

  • I can see it now (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I can see it now, my package being lost underground where no man dare set foot.

  • Yes all these drones flying through the air dropping parcels on peoples heads. That is definitely not the future. The future are small tunnels beneath the cities which transport all the goods to the homes. True it works best in densely populated areas, but who doesn't? And in those remote areas the parcel head problem would be limited. So that is the niche for drones. Tunnels and tubes is definitely the best solution. Look at the movie Brasil. A whole society can thrive on such system. True it is just a dys

    • Water and gas are delivered by 'tunnel' and they seem to work just fine. If you think of this as a refinement of that, then it makes a lot more sense. If they need to dig human-safe tunnels, then yeah, it's going to get expensive, but a "fat pipe" network seems pretty simple. The things that go up and down oil pipelines prove that we can have machines in pipes doing jobs for us, so I'm sure moving some boxes around is quite possible.

      That said, I seriously doubt we'll all have a chute outside our house where

  • The mail tunnels have been mentioned. A somewhat similiar system was operating in Chicago for the first half of last century : The Chicago Tunnel company. It was a system like the UK mail tunnels with electrical narrow-gauge trains in tunnels. The cars were not driverless, but the network was larger, and open to any customer . Access was often with an elevator carrying a whole narrow-gauge car from the basement of buldings down to the tunnels. Pretty impressive.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C... [wikipedia.org]

    Who knows : w

  • This is a great idea, and as we hear on BBC, there are already existing tunnels all over the world, dug by Tibetans:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programme... [bbc.co.uk]

    • This is a great idea, and as we hear on BBC, there are already existing tunnels all over the world, dug by Tibetans:

      Unfortunately that won't work for London: Tibetans can't dig inside the M25 or their shovels spontaneously combust.

  • So, this would be an example of Internet business evolving into the proverbial "series of tubes"?

  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Tunnel_Company

    And they operated into the 1970's.

    London is going to be a hard nut to crack, ti's already got several levels of tunnels under the city.

    There are some real issues with underground tunnels, especially ones to small to be traversed by people. People are "universal power tools" and can get in there and fix unusual problems. If a rail car the size of a trash can gets stuck in a tunnel you can send a man down.. figuruing out how to get it out is going to be a

  • New York Roosevelt Island Trash Collection (Score:3)

    by mspohr ( 589790 ) on Friday April 17, 2015 @11:10AM (#49494127)

    New York's Roosevelt Island has had underground tubes collecting trash for 30 years. They use a Swedish system of 20" diameter tubes. It's worked well for 30 years and is still maintained. No reason this couldn't be done in reverse to deliver stuff.
    http://www.wired.com/2010/08/t... [wired.com]

    • In different pipes, presumably!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mspohr ( 589790 )

        Well, it you got creative about it, it could be garbage out from 6am to noon and packages in from noon to 6 pm... would probably require some cleaning or containment of the packages.

  • Why not the "drone mole". Instead of flying, it tunnels. Like a Horta [startrek.com]

    Oh.. and can I have my city opt out?
  • Such systems were in common use up until the 60s in major cities. They used pressured air for propelling containers through a system of pipes. That was mainly used for inner city express mail service, so the pipes way not have a diameter large enough for parcels, but I bet if you turn on the compressors in Vienna or Berlin most of the system will still work fine. This makes the news? This gets government funding? Maybe ten years from now I propose a system using magnetic tape to record audio and video as we
  • Underground tunnels are so much better that above-ground tunnels.
  • Just make fresh water pipes bigger and put the goods to be delivered inside sealed spheres and send them down the water pipes. A lock could be installed in every neighborhood for removal. This is obviously a one-way system.

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