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Comment by qwertox | Hacker News Reader

> The city will have an underground passageway for deliveries and garbage collection. It will test advanced digital technologies and autonomous robots.

The passageway for deliveries sounds like the best thing, but garbage maybe not so much. I have a feeling that over time it will degrade into a sewer-like environment (without the water) with foul smells, unless the garbage is really well sealed.

Edit: Then again, these underground passageways are way bigger than I expected (shown in the video). I thought those would be just big enough for some rail-based autonomous vehicles. But if people handle the garbage underground, I really wonder if the ventilation is superior as to create a worker-friendly environment. It really looks like some people will spend their day underground delivering packages or collecting garbage.

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Its Japan. I bet you will be able to eat off the ground in there years from now.

Makes me think of Pipedream Labs' concept of a network of tubes with an internal robotic conveyance systems for home/office delivery[1]. It seems like something that large new buildings could benefit from, even without a connection to a broader network. People don't love having to go down to a front desk to pick up packages, property managers don't like handling them, and delivery drivers don't like wandering around trying to find a random unit. Would be interesting to see if it's viable on a larger scale.

[1] https://youtu.be/BgMu35T9P9Y

Makes me think of the Paris pneumatic post system

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_pneumatic_post

Maybe the garbage will be like in Sweden? In some city or neighborhood they have this modern setup where each garbage disposal chute is connected by pneumatic tubes to a central garbage dump in the area. So when garbage needs collected the truck doesn’t need to drive around the neighborhood stopping every 5 meters making a ton of noise and spreading garbage around accidentally. It enters this underground area and collects it in bulk out of the huge bins.

Edit: I think it’s this https://www.envacgroup.com/how-it-works/the-envac-system/

I don't know what they're doing in your city (outsourced to lowest bidder private company?) but I've never once found any garbage on the ground here after garbage collection by the city.

It’s not really „modern“, they apartmrnt building I grew up in had this. It was built in the early 50s.

Reminds me of Roosevelt Island NYC pneumatic island trash shute

https://www.npr.org/2017/07/26/539304811/how-new-york-s-roos...

The underground are not tunnels but excavated with the road built on top, it's far cheapers than tunnels.

> The underground are not tunnels but excavated with the road built on top,

Are you describing "Cut and Cover" ?

As in "Cut and Cover is a method of construction of shallow tunnels"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunnel_construction#Cut-and-co...

It has been used for centuries, e.g. was used to dig the first parts of the London underground in the late 1800s

Half as Interesting: Roosevelt Island’s Pneumatic Trash System (5m44s) [2022-12-06]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfM4cjDoo6o

If you saw how meticulous Japanese are about disposing of garbage you'd probably be less concerned.

Shibuya 5 in the morning is pretty bad by any standard.

I wonder if anyone has done a economic study of all the old-people being employed to keep all this (and other things) clean and working properly.

(It's all a bit sad though: I often see folks who look over 70 standing around for hours on end waving a warning stick and so on... Then there are all these nearly-disabled old-people who have no one to look after them.)

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