Vehicles: OmniVan
Overview
The workhorse of the localnet system is known as the “OmniVan”. The Modec electric van shown here is probably the nearest thing to it on the market today. (This vehicle is also sold as the Navistar eStar in the U.S.A.) The Modec can travel much further and faster than an OmniVan would need to but certainly makes an excellent starting point for and could easily be incrementally optimized for the role. The sections below set out the characteristics of the ideal OmniVan and how these compare with the currently available Modec vehicle - using it as a real-world benchmark from which we can, fairly accurately, extrapolate weight, performance and so on.
Range
Unlike today's delivery vans, which are often only delivering to one or a few houses in each street, the localnet OmniVan will be visiting a high proportion of all properties that it passes on every round. Except in the most sparsely populated regions, each delivery route is therefore rarely more than a few miles so speed is not an issue and the range is well within that achievable by electric vehicles.
The Modec van shown, achieves a range of up to 100 miles on a single charge - but to do so, it has to carry a 900kg battery for all of those 100 miles. The shorter cicrcuits driven by localnet vans would allow them to cope with a 10 or 20 mile range in most cases. This could save a significant proportion of the weight of the van (as much as a third of the unladen or 15% of laden weight) with corresponding increases in energy efficiency. Ideally, a battery of perhaps 100kg built into the chassis would provide backup power and allow the vehicle to be driven short distances without a payload. Additional 50 or 100kg batteries would be loaded as part of the payload as needed to provide the van with sufficient range for each trip. As these batteries are replaced as the van is reloaded, there is no "down-time" while the vehicle recharges. The onboard reserve battery will drain little during a normal day and can easily be topped up overnight - or can be deliberately run down during the day if a full charge cycle helps to maintain battery life.
Cab
A bench seat in the enclosed cab would seat the driver plus one or two passengers - who will often be other members of staff helping with the deliveries. The Modec has a rear entrance cab and more luxurious seats than would be needed in a purpose-built OmniVan. Again, this is because it has to be comfortable on fairly long journeys. The short-hops made by an OmniVan will not require the same degree of comfort.
Load-bed
These vans should be built on a very lightweight chassis that is as low to the ground as possible. The back of the van is therefore a low, flat-bed of between 10 feet (short wheel-base) and 15 feet (long wheel-base) making the overall vehicle the length of many of the delivery vans that visit our houses today.
The Modec, shown here, fits this profile quite well -offering a range of load-beds from 3.1m to 4.1m (10 to 13 feet) in length.
Removable Bodywork
It is not uncommon for vans of this size to be fitted with a cuboid or "box" bodywork structure (as shown in the photo at the start of this section). In the early 1980s, British Telecom introduced light-weight "lift-off" boxes that could be moved from one chassis to another using a fork-lift truck. In the case of these BT vans, it was actually fairly rare that a "box" would be moved to a different chassis.
OmniPods
An OmniVan, on the other hand, will have its smaller boxes (yes, plural) unloaded and replaced between each delivery round. Given improved plastics and even a passing nod to some "design" they should look a lot smarter than the old BT example shown here!
These boxes are known as OmniPods, and are about 5 feet (1.5m) long by the full width of the van (6'6" or 2m) and tall enough to stand in (about 6'6" or 2m high). Each of the two or three such OmniPods on a van can be lifted on or off the vehicle at the LocalHub or a roadside delivery point in less than a minute. Each OmniPod would have a laden weight of up to one ton.
For additional flexibility the chassis could be telescopic - allowing a single van to be both a long and short-wheelbase version as needed. This would entail some additional weight and complexity but would allow vans to be configured as needed - to carry more OmniPods at times or to access confined spaces more easily. They would also take up less space when parked empty overnight - especially if the chassis can telescope to shorter than the normal operating wheelbase.
The Modec van does not have a telescopic chassis but, nonetheless, makes a great starting point. As with any van, there is a tradeoff between having a high, completely flat floor versus a lower floor but with the rear wheels intruding into the load space. This latter option can be accommodated as long as OmniPods that are to be loaded over the rear wheels do not have containers where the wheel arches intrude. The less accessible space between the rear wheels is the ideal location for the BatteryBoxes as these do not need to be removed during the delivery round.
Carry any mix of Goods and People
These OmniPods are designed to hold stacks of standard-sized boxes or passengers - who can sit on fold-down seats that run along the sides. Up to six people can sit comfortably in each OmniPod. As all journeys on the van are short, more can be carried standing with some or all of the seats folded up.
Ease of Access
The doors of the cab are designed to slide back behind the cab and out of the way. Unless it is wet or cold, they can safely be left in this position as the driver and his assistant(s) jump in and out of the van between households.
The OmniPods on the back have doors in each side and are as low to the ground as possible. However, because the load bed must clear the wheels, they are still some way off the ground. A step beneath each door is present to help people get in but for those who find it difficult to climb in, the seats in the cab can be used. The cab can be much lower to the ground and even elderly or disabled passengers will be able to enter easily.
Where a route includes one or more wheelchair bound residents, a modified cab may be provided to allow a passenger to be carried in their wheelchair.
Electric Power
These vans run exclusively on electricity - from batteries (or potentially fuel cells) in one or more BatteryBoxes. These are the same size and shape as the OmniBox. Up to four of these can slide under the front bench seat but if more are needed for additional range, these are simply loaded into the payload area of the van.
Recharging an Omnivan is simply a matter of swapping one or more of the BatteryBoxes and occurs as an integral part of the loading and unloading operation.
The Modec, by contrast, has to incorporate its battery into the chassis but could easily be modified to draw power from boxes within its payload, allowing it to be much lighter when it does not need the full range available from almost a ton of batteries. The other benefit of removing this weight is that the payload can be greater - potentially justifying a slightly longer wheelbase and hence allowing up to three rather than two OmniPods per van.