Robocars and deliverbots

Andrew Atkin — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 22:37:55 -0800

Repost?

Great site. I'm only part way through it, so far.

Deliverbots will give us the "physical internet", which I believe will change everything. As well as what you speak of, they can also function to work as a go-anywhere production-line so as to change a great deal of our industrial operations too.

Just some comments:

PRT: I agree with most of your thoughts on PRT. I think the ULTra system is the most promising PRT system, because it can expand out onto the roads and evolve into a "roborcar" system in its own right. And the advantages of that, like you've said, are overwhelming.

ULTra also has the potential to function as a 'horizontal elevator' for new residential developments. It can't take trucks, but does it need to for new developments? We don't need to take a truck on an elevator that supports the apartments of a high-riser, we just break down the parcels from the truck and send each small individual item to each apartment. PRT can do the same thing for 'the last mile' in a residential development. The included link is my own idea here.

http://andrewatkin.blogspot.com/2009/06/club-economies.html

Indeed, the demand for high-capacity trucking could be dramatically reduced with robocars because you don't have to worry about the cost of the driver overhead, so you can move in the direction of individual vehicles for individual items. Trucking could mostly be reduced to intercity operations only. In many ways small but large numbers of robocars could be more efficient than trucks due to the lack of intermediate stops. Certainly more energy-efficient.

Rail versus rubber:

Just thought I would point out that rubber can be made to be much more energy-efficient in a more specialised system. You can make wheels that move closer to the direction of push-bike wheels, which reduce rolling losses and to the point where those losses are as good as irrelevant. (this means relatively large diameter wheels, with a thin rubber ring. And also maybe high pressure tyres and low rolling-loss rubber). You can probably get away with this if the cars are operating in more controlled conditions, and in a more controlled way i.e. they don't have to deal with the extremes of what a traditional cars has to deal with.

You might like to check out my own closely related ideas relating to this:

http://andrewatkin.blogspot.com/2009/06/automated-transportation-network...

All the best,

Andrew Atkin

This deliverbot article is

Jack Tallent — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 09:50:12 -0700

This deliverbot article is captivating! Once you start thinking about it, the ramifications really become mind-blowing.

Robocars: Deliverbots -- computer driven trucks

brad — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 14:53:24 -0700

For part seven of my series on Robocars, I now consider the adjunct technology I am calling Deliverbots — namely robot driven trucks and delivery vehicles, with no people inside. These turn out to have special consequences of their own. Read:

Deliverbots

Brad Ideas - Robocars: Deliverbots -- computer driven trucks - Comments

Robocars and deliverbots

This deliverbot article is

Robocars: Deliverbots -- computer driven trucks