Rationalising Local Transport of Goods and People

We've already cracked long distance bulk transport of goods and data.

Shipping containers revolutionised the long distance transport of goods through the global adoption of standardised, reliable “packages” that can carry a wide variety of materials yet be handled by a single infrastructure regardless of what they hold or where they are going. The internet has, similarly, revolutionised the transport of information. It too uses standardised, reliable transmission of “packets” that are agnostic to their contents and can be handled efficiently by intermediate systems and routed to their destination with little or no regard to what is inside them.

But the “last mile” is a mess - and getting worse!

So why do we still move milk, newspapers, online shopping, post, recyclables, refuse, ourselves and our school-kids around our local neighbourhood with a plethora of highly diverse, inefficient, polluting, overlapping and expensive mechanisms? Do we really need ten different courier vans dropping off a single parcel each within sight of our front-door? Does it really make sense for each family to have two cars just because it's a mile and a half to the town?

Could we do better?

How many times have we heard the promise that “technology will let us reduce our carbon footprint and resource usage without reducing our standard of living”? How many truly significant, concrete and credible examples can one point at that bear this out? Having a truly integrated transport strategy that tied the short-haul or “final mile” movement of goods and people in with the strategic rail and other long haul plans would be one such example – and can actually significantly improve our quality of life.

What difference would it make?

If an engineer were given free rein to design the entire transport infrastructure of a district, we could actually deliver on this promise and, at the same time, make huge inroads into the perennial problems of:

We could do MUCH better!

Imagine having three or more deliveries and collections a day of almost anything (or anyone) to or from your doorstep – or actually via a special hatch in your outside wall (for the “things” not the people) . The early  morning delivery drops off your post, newspapers, milk – and fresh croissants and coffee if you like! Twenty minutes later, as the van/minibus returns, your kids jump aboard to get to school. The midday delivery brings your groceries and takes away your ironing and the widgets you made yesterday while working from home. The evening round brings back your kids, your ironed laundry and takes away your recycling and refuse.

Your delivery hatch  is weather-proof and secure and  includes frozen and refrigerated sections so there is no need to be home during the day, regardless of what you've ordered. There's no longer any need to shop weekly. Just order what you want to eat that day: maybe a pre-prepared pack of ingredients for the recipe you saw Delia making last night on television – but with just enough for the three of you that you know will be eating tonight. Everything is delivered in secure, reusable containers and many items, such as dry pet-food, washing powder and the like no longer have any disposable packaging. The shelves you store them on know when they're nearly empty and replacements arrive according to your standing order with the supermarket chain of your choosing.

The quiet, clean and “kids playing in the street”-friendly (i.e. fairly slow), battery-powered vans that deliver and collect from your house also double as mini-buses so you can simply hop aboard if you want to pop out to a friend's; get to the nearest railway station – or to the local “hub” where there is a pool of ready-charged electric cars you can use whenever you need to.  This LocalHub is the successor not just to the village shop but to what the centre of a village used to be. Because everyone orders most of their supplies through the localnet, even a small community will support a vibrant hub with newsagent, bakery, cafe, general store, post office, dry cleaners clustered around the highly efficient delivery and collection centre. These locally based services all feed material into and out of the local delivery network while at the same time providing employment for many within a mile or two of their homes – and with an easy way to get to and from home thrown in.

Would it really make a difference?

Being able to order online and have items delivered cheaply within hours would fundamentally change the way we live. While such services would make life more pleasant for all of us, they would be a god-send to the elderly or housebound. The savings in fuel costs achieved by optimising delivery and by reducing or eliminating the need to drive for many purposes are enormous and obvious. But could it ever happen?

Where could we try it out?

The UK's “eco-towns” initiative is a tremendous opportunity to do more than simply plant more trees and have thicker insulation than before. We could actually make such places extremely desirable and, in the process, develop and refine the technologies and systems needed to roll this vision out to the rest of the world over the next few decades.

So what's stopping us?

To make such a step change happen requires no new science and carries little to no technical risk. However, it does require a sustained and strong driving force and a regulatory framework to enforce technical standards and quality of service standards. Unless all delivery services within a significant area are consolidated and the vast majority of properties participate and are built or adapted to support a single system, these benefits cannot be realised. Only through long-term pressure and support can government drive the vested interests in the dairies, the postal and delivery services, bus companies and supermarkets to work together for the greater good. localnet will fundamentally change all of those businesses. While there will be winners and losers amongst these businesses, there are two  guaranteed winners: the citizens served by the localnet and the planet.