Looks like the engineers at the Tokyo-Osaka prefectures have been playing too much Satisfactory.
To be fair, the idea is interesting, transporting cargo in a way that can be mostly automated is good. The problem is when any part of the automation fails for any reason, like a container getting stuck, things can pile up, fall off or get damaged in a number of ways.
By pods are you talking about the cargo containers? That's already the standard. They get moved from a cargo ship, to a train car, to a truck. It's an efficient system. The drawback to this thing is that they're replacing the train engine with a series of conveyor belt engines. Which means that there's no downtime for maintenance and repairs unless there are redundant engines on each belt section. They will almost certainly need multiple engines on each section so that they can shut one down and service it while another powers the belts. Another drawback is that if you live behind one of these things it'll be a never-ending engine drone, rather than an occasional train passing by. Another is that they'd be wasting fuel running the belts if there is not much cargo during a given hour. If they're only going to run it when demand is high, then there's literally no point to it. A train already does that.
The benefits are immediately apparent though. There would no longer be a need for elaborate train schedules. Whenever a cargo container is ready to go, you just plop it down on the belt and off it goes. The logistics become much simpler for running the thing. But then how do they know which containers to pull off at given depots? I guess the train schedule logistics get replaced with individual container tracking logistics. Hmm... maybe this thing is pointless. LOL
They're rebuilding and replacing the aging train fleet and had a bunch of ideas of how to reuse the existing tracks without scrapping them. This might be an answer to that problem.
Exactly how it'll do this is yet to be nailed down, but individual pallets will carry up to a ton of small cargo items, and they'll move without human interference from one end to the other.
Actually seems like a good idea. I wonder how long will it take for construction cost to offset regular trucks, but it will get them off the road, and hopefully keep them out of sight.
Nah. This is different. This is a train with many more points of failure. If any part of a conveyorbelt stops, the whole belt has to halt. And if they use self driving trucks, a failure in any one of the trucks can still cause a traffic jam.
I did notice that upon actually reading the article XD
It's actually just trucks but the entire road is the drivetrain and every truck is driving all the time. If that sounds like "better" to you, then you may be a techbro
