So I was reading Der Spiegel today and I stubled over an interesting Article (http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/mensch/0,1518,456035,00.html) describing a possible Revolution in Cago Transport.

I have not found any good English Articles on it, so I summarize a bit here:

CargoCap (From Cargo Capsule) is a System Designed to carry Freight (Europalettes) trough underground Tunnels by means of small, autonomous Freight Cars like these:

http://www.cargocap.de/download/CargoCap_Laderampe_thumb.jpg

Each Car can load 2 Europalettes and travel at a speed of 36 km/h by means of electrical Propulsion. They are intelligent to some degree and can travel in Packs to their destination.

The System is still completely fictional, although it has won a Prize in Germany, and there is already a Test Track being built by Scientists.

For further Info and Images, look at their Homepage (in English: ) http://www.cargocap.de/html_en/index.html

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Any thoughts?

I think it's a great Idea if implemented correctly. If the State could build a Nation (or EU?) Wide System like that, it would greatly reduce Traffic and Pollution on the Streets, and at the same time increase the effectiveness of Cargo Transfer trough the World.

Although, if they do it on a large scale, 36 km/h won't be enough, how about they build it as a Maglev System... The Cost would be immense, but I think it would be a fine investition in the future! :)

It remembers me the Underground mail service that London had until some years ago...not so modern, obviously :p
Very nice indeed :D

36km/h is not marketable.

Sounds more like CargoCrap than CargoCap to me right now...

...but then again, you never might know what the future holds in store for this system.

Don't see any problem with the speed. It's consistency of delivery times that really matters in freight transport, not speed, for most goods and applications. This would be really consistent since there would be theoretically no congestion or accidents to deal with.

Though at 36 km/h it would probably make more sense to design the cars as cubes. Streamlining the nose is a waste of space.

Don't see any problem with the speed. It's consistency of delivery times that really matters in freight transport, not speed, for most goods and applications. This would be really consistent since there would be theoretically no congestion or accidents to deal with.

The truck dominates in the freight transport sector because of the just-in-time delivery age. If railway freight wants to take back part of the market, it has to have an attractive expediency factor to fight with. Ideally they can make trains where you drive on and drive off, thus eliminating a large portion of mode-transfer time losses. Space efficiency is important, but not so much in the length of the train - as long as it is not getting obscenely wide or tall, how big its nose is or how long the train itself is, while there will be limitations on train lengths for every station, not a big factor. The future of freight needs a close and fluid integration with the truck with speed tha is faster than the truck to make the truck use the train for part of its door-to-door trip. The design theory that would be involved in this is actually quite simple, but the scale is large. If it weren't for the large scale, it would be quite cheap. This 36km/h dink is crap, probably expensive since it involves tunneling, and not competitive.

Some German cities use trams for cargo, Amsterdam is also going to do that in 2007 or 2008, meant to greatly reduce trucks in the center of the city. When a city has tramrails, that would be a way cheaper way.