An underground delivery train comes to the Atlanta suburbs

They want a solution for today, not decades from today which is what urban planning would take. But also they likely want the neighborhood they built/moved to. They don’t want to live in a super dense mixed use plaza. They also want solutions that the plethora of communities like theirs can replicate. They just want a little upgrade to their bucolic life. They don’t want to hit the reset button. It seems way more reasonable to upgrade than try to reinvent it.

Letting restaurants open nearby to where there are clearly a lot of people is a tried and proven solution, not gadgetbhan for food.

Some sort of city-wide underground packet switched (literally) delivery network sounds sadly impractical but would be amazing and take a huge amount of traffic off the road.

There may be a restaurant on the ground floor but your favorite one might still be >1km away.

Wait, I'm lost. How many bananas is this?

It sounds like the company is focusing on company to suppliers. They mention networks but no details on that would be implemented.

The hard part is in places where there are things of archeological interest. Most of the US doesn't have this as North America has a lack of easily accessible materials that will last and so the ancients mostly used things that didn't last. In most of the world (and parts of the US) ancient civilization often left things behind that are of interest.

Are there any other negatively-named companies?

The answer to this question is always yes, regardless of the system in question - unless it's one you're very familiar with yourself.

yes, long term it might be cheaper, but to get to that long term you need to fund the huge upfront cost.

Why as a consumer would you want a pipe to your door, as you are now reliant on a single company for all deliveries. if they suddenly turn shit, thats it, you're stuck with them.

Its only really makes sense as a way for an uber dense city to reduce van traffic. but even then its probably cheaper and more efficient to use cargo bikes.

Note that we are talking about small tunnels here. A large tunnel that a human could walk in allows more flexibility.

The main difference of pumping water or gas through pipes is that the consumer does not care which part of the pumped product he gets. It's all the same. Delivering customer specific goods through pipes requires a very good management of the vehicle flow.

This.. has to be a joke? Surely they don't believe a "battery-powered autonomous vehicle" is more reliable than a pneumatic tube network?

Unlike the WSJ piece, the company web site has as you'd expect, no paywall:

https://www.pipedreamlabs.co/

Thank you.

especially the talks are very much worth your while: https://idlewords.com/talks/

> As the company’s name teases, the idea may seem futuristic, but it’s far from new. Let’s call it a cousin of the pipe-forward delivery solution favored in the 19th and early 20th century — the pneumatic tube. In cities like London and New York, networks of pipes that snaked underground and through buildings allowed people to send urgent packages, telegrams, checks, and at least one sick cat whooshing through offices, banks and mailrooms, powered by compressed air.

They should add AI in there somewhere

This must be the same group that pitched MARTA.

I have to say, it is a bold choice labeling those as a solution. Given the amount of deliveries done all day neighborhoods would be crawling with robots like this. So for neighborhoods that actually do have sidewalks, pedestrians would be hugely inconvenienced. Then there are neighborhoods that don't have sidewalks where these robots would need to share the road.

There is also the amount of resources needed for each solution. These robots are fairly complex, require batteries, etc. If they take off in a huge way that means a huge amount of future e-waste being created. Batteries need replacing often, these robots will break down, certainly in certain climates, etc.

Of course an underground system needs to be build at some point as well. However, it is much more of a one time upfront investment with lower costs down the road to maintain the system. At the very least you are not creating another environmental strain by having to fabricate a ton of batteries.

An underground system is also more likely to just work in various challenging climates. No overheating electronics in hot climates, no snow and ice related challenges in colder climates.

Delivery robots are cool. But they are, in my opinion, nothing more than a band-aid.

Now, armored aerial delivery drones… dissuading dronejacking with robust self-defense/self-destruction capabilities, adequately advertised to avoid potential lawsuits… that’s the future we’re waiting for.

Let's extend the metaphor. If you're trying to move a small, intermittent supply of products from around 1km away to your base, do you build an underground belt (this startup's gadgetbahn) or connect it to your rail network (existing roads and sidewalks)?