Drive-through Loading Bays

Delivery vans and trucks are loaded and unloaded by driving through a passageway in the LocalHub building. The OmniPods on the back of the vans are lifted vertically off them and moved into the core of the building where the boxes within them are processed and they are refilled with boxes to be delivered on a subsequent round.

Typically there will be two points at which vans can stop. At the first, the OmniPods are lifted off the van. As soon as they start to lift, it can be driven forward to the second stopping point. Here, newly filled OmniPods are lowered onto it. In this way, a throughput of two vans every two minutes or so should be achievable.

Vans are guided into the correct position for loading and unloading by tapered concrete kerbs and small ramps - like those we are all used to driving up to in an automated car wash.

In the event of a problem with either of the two loading bays, the remaining one can be used for both unloading and loading though throughput will be lower.

Note that many OmniPod will contain a BatteryBox along with the boxes of goods to be delivered.