Storage: Somewhere Safe

Localnet can provide storage for valuables - as an alternative to a safe, a safety deposit box or “under the bed”.

This section discusses:

• the Existing provision of this service: What, How, How Often, Costs, Providers and Trends
• the Proposed provision with localnet: What, How, How Often, Costs, Providers and Evolution
• how the existing and proposed services compare

Existing Provision

What

Valuable items that we are worried about people stealing tend to be quite small. Here we consider items that would fit inside a safe or a safety deposit box. These typically include:

• jewellery
• heirlooms
• precious metals or coins
• documents
• cash

How

Those of us fortunate enough to own something valuable have plenty of options - as long as we have either enough space or money:

• a safe - expensive, takes up space, probably overkill for most of us and a magnet for burglars
• a safety deposit box in a bank or similar - expensive, overkill for most of us.
• fake baked bean tin or similar - cheap but small
• under the bed - cheap but risky
• out in the open

The latter two options are used by a lot of elderly people. Burglars know this and will attempt to distract the owner while someone else ransacks their bedroom hunting for valuables.

Volume and Frequency

Those with safes probably open them fairly frequently as they'll use them to store even moderately valuable items such as jewellery they wear for special occasions. Only a small proportion of the rest of us have safety deposit boxes and unless you live near your box, the distance is going to deter you from using it for such items.

Financial Model

Buying a decent safe is expensive and something few of us could justify. Even if we could afford the rental on a deposit box, we'd probably not use it much due to the distance we'd have to travel.

Most pensioners would struggle to afford a safe or a deposit box and even if they were given the latter for free, would not be able to use it due to the travel involved.

Providers

Safety deposit boxes are provided by banks and security firms today. Storage companies offer various levels of secure storage for larger items.

Trends

Even if crime is not rising, the perception of it is certainly enough to frighten many, especially elderly residents. There are frequent horror stories of thefts - often quite violent - from vulnerable householders.

As living standards have improved over the years, it is inevitable that the value of items owned by elderly people is increasing.

With Localnet

What

As with most other categories of service, we need to apply the Pareto principle - addressing 80% or so of the potential market with 20% of the hassle. A good cut-off point for valuables is:

• items that will fit inside a standard PaperBox.

Boxes of this size are already catered for within the system so carrying valuables in containers does not require significant additional infrastructure - at least not out to the dwellings.

How

Each residence in a localnet area will have at least one SafeBox which is outwardly identical to a PaperBox. The construction of the SafeBox is somewhat different from a PaperBox however. It has:

• more robust walls, including a metal layer strong enough to ensure an angle grinder is needed to get into it (or a long time with a hacksaw).
• a different locking mechanism that can only be opened by its owner and that sprays die over anyone tampering with it.
• an additional tracking device built in so its location can be determined

Users can ask for their SafeBoxes to be returned to them with two taps on their localnet touchpad. Any SafeBox that is collected is automatically routed to a safe storage unit - comparable to the rooms holding safety deposit boxes today.

The safety of the boxes in transit is maximised by the following procedures:

• as it is outwardly indistinguishable from a PaperBox, this ensures that the staff handling it - or the thief looking out for it - will not be able to tell it apart from a normal PaperBox and would therefore have to steal several hundred of the latter to stand a good chance of having taken one of the former.
• localnet knows from the locations of every box and member of staff who collected the box and whether or not it was placed onto the delivery van.
• the box is immediately moved to the centre of the container on the delivery van so that removing it would require several other boxes around it to be removed first. Moving any at all is only possible if the van's box locking mechanisms have been disabled.
• on arrival at the LocalHub, boxes are transferred to a secure container that awaits collection by a specialist security van. (Though these too can be targets for serious criminals - hence it may actually be safer to have the SafeBox buried in the middle of a less valuable and hence less tempting cargo on its way to the storage unit - especially if the secure storage unit is co-located with the “Out of Sight” store. In this case the ratio of valuables to non-valuables will not increase much as the box travels to its destination.)

Users of this service are issued with window stickers stating “No Valuables Kept Here” - to put alongside their neighbourhood watch stickers at any entry point that a burglar might be considering breaking in through.

Volume and Frequency

The police have long advised members of the public to take better care of their valuables and not to leave them where they are easily stolen. We therefore want to encourage every family to use this service. Most families would struggle to fill one SafeBox and would very rarely need access to it.

Financial Model

As with the other storage services, the costs incurred by localnet are:

• the boxes - which in this case are considerably more expensive than others - though this can be amortised over many years as they will not wear out.
• the storage facility - which incurs the same sort of construction and management costs as a safety deposit room. However, the potential to scale this up allows these costs per box to be dramatically lower than most such existing safe rooms. As with the other storage facilities, increased automation and the inherent gain in volume to surface-area ratio means that a single large cube of automated racking could hold a huge number of such boxes.
• transfer costs - of getting a box between its owner's residence and the safe storage location. This should be little more than a daily PaperBox delivery costs. There is some additional overhead in ensuring its safety en route.

Since reducing the chance of finding valuables should reduce the level of burglary, this service should probably be offered as part of the standard service. Every resident should be given on SafeBox and four free transfers per annum. Additional boxes may be quite expensive to provide but as they will last for many years, the annual fee for one need only be a fraction of its production cost.

For the paranoid, those with deep pockets or with extremely valuable items, a secure collection and delivery service could be offered - either to and from the home or, more affordably, at the LocalHub. The charges for this would have to cover the additional cost of transporting the box between the owner's residence and the secure storage facility.

Providers

It probably does not make sense for a localnet provider to become a high security specialist. The safe, long-term but readily accessible storage of SafeBoxes is probably best handled by companies with experience in this market and an existing infrastructure.

Evolution

Initially, a localnet safe storage unit might look very much like an existing safety deposit room. In fact, one could be adapted relatively easily. However, as the system scales up and fewer, larger centralised locations become practical, there is significant benefit to combining the safe storage facility with the lower cost general storage units required by the “Out of Sight” service. Much of the infrastructure and automation costs can then be shared across these.

 

Comparison

The table below assesses the impact of localnet on this service on a scale of -5 to +5 (details here)

	Existing services	As part of localnet	Score
Scope	Range of options but some are not so much “safe” storage as “vulnerable” storage.	Items that fit inside a SafeBox.	-1
Frequency	Those that have a safe storage location in the home may use it frequently. Those with safety deposit boxes rarely.	Convenience is in between a safe and a safety deposit box so likely to be used about as much. However, free provision should encourage all households to use it sensibly.	+2
Security	Hugely variable. Safety deposit box very secure but owner and hence contents vulnerable en route to and from it.	Systems allow close tracking of contents.	0
Convenience	The secure approaches are very inconvenient especially for those without a car.	Very simple to store and retrieve.	+2
Cost	Hugely variable. Comparison is with a safety deposit box.	Basic level of one box per household should be run at no more than break-even to encourage its use and hence discourage crime.	+1
Quality	Hugely variable.	Comparable to safety deposit box.	+1
Carbon Footprint	Travelling to safe room very inefficient.	Shared transport overheads.	+3
Time	Travel time significant.	Takes a few seconds to send or request retrieval.	+4
Resources Used	Quite a lot of steel in a safe or a safety deposit box.	SafeBox somewhere between these two.	0
Reuse & Recycling	Not applicable.	Not applicable.	0
Landfill Waste	Not applicable.	Not applicable.	0
Other Differentiators		Affordable peace of mind for the elderly.	+3