Outer Containers: OmniPod

Overview

These are small containers that double as passenger compartments when not full of boxes. Two or three such OmniPods form the back of a local delivery van (the OmniVan). Up to twelve can be loaded (in two layers) on an interhub vehicle - an OmniBus.

Dimensions

OmniPods fit across an OmniVan and are therefore approximately seven feet wide.

Passengers must be able to stand up in them and they must fit inside a shipping container. They are therefore approximately seven feet tall.

Seating is on fold down seats from the front and back walls with three seats across wall. Passengers need room for their knees when sitting facing each other but additional space between them would be wasted. OmniPods are therefore approximately five feet long.

Four OmniPods can therefore fit inside a standard twenty foot shipping container (or eight in a forty foot container). This is important both for delivering and relocating OmniPods themselves but also allows OmniPods to be filled or part filled at automated handling sites and shipped efficiently on articulated lorries to less automated LocalHubs where they can simply be loaded onto the appropriate delivery vans.

Weight

OmniPods are constructed of aluminium tubing and plastic outer skins. They are therefore very light. A fully laden OmniPod weighs less than one ton - whether laden with passengers or boxes. This may mean that they cannot be completely filled with boxes but, on average, each box will only weigh a portion of its maximum permitted weight.

This weight allows relatively cheap and compact hydraulic rams to lift whole OmniPods on and off vehicles. These could be fitted to suitably modified bus stops so that several OmniPods can be stored - relatively securely - on the roof of the bus stop and swapped with those on OmniVans using that bus-stop as a loading/unloading point.

Stacking

As with shipping containers, two or more OmniPods can be stacked on top of each other without any additional framework being needed. A latching mechanism at each corner locks an OmniPod securely on top of another. The framework of an OmniPod is designed to support up to four fully laden OmniPods above it - though the upper ones would not be used for passengers!

Access

On both sides of an OmniPod are three doors running the full height of the OmniPod. The centre one has a window and handles inside and out. Passengers enter and leave the OmniPod via this door. The other two doors hinge about the corner of the OmniPod and slide back out of the way so that when the OmniPod is being used for collection and delivery of boxes, the stacks of boxes at each end are readily accessible.

Loading and Unloading

Boxes can be loaded into OmniPods manually but in most cases, automated sorting equipment at the LocalHub marshals the boxes into the optimum order for delivery and fills the OmniPod automatically.

The whole OmniPod is then positioned over the chassis of the delivery van and lowered into place. The same latching mechanism by which OmniPods are attached above one another is used to lock the OmniPod to the chassis of the van.

Heating and Air-conditioning

In very few cases will passengers be aboard an OmniVan for more than a few minutes as it heads to or from the LocalHub - which rarely has a catchment area of more than a couple miles radius. However, when travelling between hubs or if riding to the hub on a “stopping run” passengers may be aboard for longer. Air vents in the floor of the OmniPod align with outlets in the chassis of the van to pipe hot or cold air as required into the OmniPod.