A hyperloop-inspired goods delivery concept that uses linear motors to propel crates along a nation-wide network of pipes could help remove polluting freight traffic from roads and revolutionise the delivery of goods.
This is the claim of Magway, a London based-start up behind the scheme that has already received almost £1.5m of seed funding and grants since it was founded in 2017, including a £650,000 grant secured from Innovate UK. The company now hopes to raise a further £750,000 through a fresh wave of crowdfunding.
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The company’s co-founder and technical director Rupert Cruise told The Engineer that the concept initially sprung out of growing interest in Hyperloop, the high speed transportation concept originally proposed by Tesla founder Elon Musk (and now being developed by Virgin Hyperloop One) that will use linear electric motors to accelerate passenger pods through low pressure tubes.
He said Magway is simpler to commercialise, primarily because it’s not transporting people at supersonic speeds and it doesn’t require a vacuum.
The system uses a magnetic wave of electrical current, generated by highly efficient linear synchronous magnetic motors to drive multiple, standard-sized crates (or totes) along a track. Travelling at an optimal speed of 31mph, and just milliseconds apart, the totes are propelled through a network of new and existing underground, overground and even suspended 0.9m diameter HDPE pipes that would run alongside existing road and rail routes.
Cruise said that the system has been designed to interface with the highly automated warehouses operated by organisations like Ocado and Amazon, which, whilst highly efficient in the warehouse, still rely heavily on fleets of trucks and vans to get their products to customers.
He added that the crates carried on the Magway system are roughly the same dimensions as the totes used by these retailers so it could be very easily integrated with their systems. Indeed, Ocado Innovation Limited, along with the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) and linear motors specialist Force Engineering, was one of the partners in the Innovate UK funded project.
The team has already built demonstration versions of the system at its test facility in North Wembley, London and is now in the process of identifying sites for commercial scale pilot.
Initial commercial applications are likely to focus on short delivery routes in and out of hubs such as airports, said Cruise, but the firm’s ultimate vision is to construct a UK-wide network of tubes.
Modelling has identified where UK demand will be highest for the system, and has, he claimed, shown that 94 per cent of London’s daytime population could be within a 15-minute walk or cycle of a Magway node.
If the technology is deployed at the scale envisaged by the company it could eliminate millions of tonnes of CO2 emissions annually, save millions of pounds worth of road maintenance costs and transform the road network as we know it today. “Not enough is being done to address the future of our transport infrastructure and, more importantly, how to tackle the problem of dangerous levels of air pollution,” said Cruise. “We need big ideas that will change the way we currently deliver goods and the face of transport for years to come.”
Let’s hope we get a forward thinking Government that has the courage to invest in ‘future projects’ such as this.
The targets are achievable if we all buy into the fact tat things must change quickly.
“Propel crates along a nation-wide network to remove freight traffic from roads”
Don’t we already have one of those call the rail network?
That typically moves very little freight because typically it’s too much hastle to truck the freight to the train station (that wasn’t where the freight started) and pick it up from the other train station (that wasn’t where we needed the freight to go).
After reading this I gave a thought to the late Professor Eric Laithwaite who developed Linear Induction motors for uses in public transportation. The system he developed did not make it commercially probably because of funding issues. Though the TRL mentioned in the article did benefit from a smaller version used to propel vehicles for crash-testing. I hope they make a commercial success from this technology though I would like to think that this project is funded by the commercial organisations that would benefit most from the R&D rather than rely on crowdfunding.
Love this idea, Might be a re-purpose for some of he old Post office tunnels. However digging new tunnels under London does seem a very long winded and expensive process. Perhaps some thought should be given to moving the whole city 60km west and digging a whole load of infrastructure tunnels before the building starts. 😉
According to the developer, the pipes may be under the ground but may also be on the surface, so not necessarily a major tunnelling project
The pipes are only 900 mm diameter – that’s going to severely limit the size of items that can be carried. What happens if there’s a problem with a tote in mid-tunnel. Who’s going to crawl in there to fix it or retrieve a shed load?
The container on shipping standardized the size that we are all using as a world synergy -This needs to be thrashed out before you go conducting a system that will not transfer between continents -It is then possible to have delivery points from motorways to factories from these hubs all over the world -The other thing to realize is the washing machine (as a unit size)is a good starting point for a system container pod that would soon become the size for world design teams to fit to this transport system -A good Idea needs the world to jigsaw the infrastructure.
Surely this must be a good concept. We led the world on pioneering underground rail technologies and although I agree that we should make full use of the existing rail network however isn’t road transport a major cause of problems no matter how essential to industry and commerce? I think the same could apply here in that this proposed system we could lead the world again and have the benefit of relieving the stresses on both the road and rail network in terms of volume of traffic and lessen the maintenance requirements caused by the wear induced by heavy goods vehicles on the roads. Less roadworks would be a blessing we all have longed, no screamed, for as long as I can remember. 2 billion invested to save a few minutes between Birmingham and London or 2 billion on developing this system. I think I know which one would get my vote.
At last we have a proposal to reduce the major source of pollution and overcrowding of the UK’s roadways – HEAVY LORRIES.
Previously it is the private motorist who has taken the hits deemed necessary to reduce the problems, probably because they are the easy option as an unorganised faction who have little resistance to dictatorial governmental and city authorities.
This is definitely an area which needs serious consideration.
In principle I love this: relatively small footprint on the ground, get vacuum learnings before trying it for people, free up road and rail for people.
The issues are the same ones that affect current rail freight: must truck from start to terminal A and from terminal B to destination (triple handling) so it’s most effective for trans-continental, must not lose the goods as seems to happen too easily with long distance rail.
But in principle… great!
really easy to sabotage too.
Can you make a Tunnel Boring Machine small enough for a 1m diameter tunnel?
If not, then I suspect the plans is not viable.
ROFLS!!! when something goes wrong, as it inevitably will do, and a sled breaks, or a tote comes off, how do you get into a 0.9m underground or overhead plastic pipe to clear the pile up? As has been said above, this is not new, or “innovative” and certainly owes more to Laithwaite than Musk. Laithwaite did invent the linear motor, although he refused to claim it as such, because it was “merely a motor cut open and laid flat” The capital costs of this “idea” will be enough to bury it, it is simply impossible to make sufficient profit sending small parcels down a pipe at half the speed they normally travel at. How and why is 31mph “optimal”? We note that they claim a “demonstration Version”, but strangely, no video of it. There are many “innovative” engineering companies out there whose sole purpose is to attract funding rather than actually come up with something new that works AND is commecially viable. Crowdfunding has now become so top heavy with scammers that going there for funding is a last resort! Far better to develop an electric HGV and use the existing network, but someone is already laid claim to that, and ideas need to be “new and innovative” to attract funding. I am calling yet another snake oil on this one!
A nationwide network of tubes? Or more likely a London & South East focused network. But where will the hubs be and how does the tote get from the point of origin to the hub and then out from the destination hub to the end-user? By road? Maybe using trains is as good a solution, and would be quicker that 31mph whilst overcoming the size limitations Mr Boyd mentioned. It all sounds like too little too late. Great for infrastructure as it is built – new towns and estates, but not for long-established and congested cities.
Better to use drones at say 200 ft above railway lines, no new infrastructure needed.
Yes you can indeed bore tunnels of 900 mm and less. Thrust boring techniques and variants, of which there are several, have been around for many years. Emergency or maintenance access, as with most long tunnels, can be provided by adits or access bays at certain intervals along the run. There is no question of the efficiency of tubing dedicated to transporting of materials and. to some extent, there is similarity in the transporting of mined products, not to mention, the transfer of water and crude oil carried over considerable distances, in several parts of the world, through large diameter pipes.
Surely, its not an all or nothing choice; rail and road would feature in combination with piping for an efficient surface transport system… certainly in the early years.
We didn’t abandon railways because of the perceived need to have someone walking before the locomotive waving a red flag; do have some confidence in the ingenuity that abounds in this
country.
Just imagine the roadworks involved. How many squillion wasted manhours will it cost in ‘temporary roadworks ‘ traffic queues?
Ask any Edinburgh resident what is was like during the ‘ silence of the trams’
Great idea n principle but why only 0.9m diameter ? Lets get the lorry’s off the motorway network. Where is our engineering imagination a entrepreneurial flair we can and should be aiming higher than this. If we come out of Europe we will need to go back to being inventive to succeed.
Interesting concept but I am sure that vested interests in the form of the road haulage industry will undoubtedly come out against it. Organisations such as the Freight Transport Association will say that thousands of jobs would be lost, with many successful companies going out of business. With regard to road congestion they will probably also say that this is caused by too many private cars – particularly on the motorway network – and a method should be found to limit their numbers. On the other hand, motorists say that lorries are to blame and freight should be transferred to rail.
I therefore doubt that Magway, or any similar hyperloop system, will come about within the next 20 years or so. Nevertheless, something has to be done to improve transport infrastructure – road and rail.
31mph just seems too slow to be worth all this effort and Investment?
This is insanity, the cost to build would be monumental, the disruption caused would be monumental, and can you imagine the chaos that would be caused if one badly packed crate came open in the tunnel. The £1.5 million already spent is a joke. that would get them about tree meters of tunnel. Drop this now
I doubt ‘conventional’ movements (road or rail) achieve an average of 31mph door to door, so why the need to go any faster?
Tunnelling ‘moles’ that can install pipes of similar diameters have been around for some time. These can significantly reduce the need to dig up roads.
If the network was expanded to provide launch and receiving hubs in every locality, the need for local tranport by road is eliminated.
What is the minimum bend radius on this system? Greater than a typical urban road junction would permit, I’m guessing …
Perhaps it is my grey hair and that I played with an electric train set… Long, long ago we had the Rocket and the railway system to move passengers and freight across our country and we flourished. Some years on, Dr. Beeching and the then “government run” railways decided to cut it back due to profitability and inefficiency issues; what a surprise? The lack of “the slow train” and the multiple hubs that we then had meant that we took to the roads. Huge amounts of time and money are now being spent on autonomous vehicles on the roads of which a more reliable and proven system is in fact a train, of which some in Great Britain can run over 120mph. Now “The Engineer” reports a 900mm diameter tube to be bored across the country to apparently reduce carbon emissions and ship small containers at 31mph. The lengths we will go to “save our planet” are mind-boggling. To the question of unblocking a clogged tube by the way – around the 17th century we had children sweep the chimneys, but that has been done away with… just a thought. Totally cynical of course, but my observation is that we don’t seem to think things through anymore to understand the full impact of the consequences. Take a look on the edge of your two pound coin, it says – “Standing on the shoulders of giants”. Oh no, that’s been done away with too.
Agree with Stuart last 2 sentences, lost sight of the basics. Not just the idea proponents but Engineer authors as witnessed to the simple & basic points noted in many of these new idea/technology potentially global/macro items. As engineers the basics should always be included Eg. Energy supply/usage/conversion efficiency,etc to give some basic details on project energy balance/map. Same for Newton’s laws, esp 2nd to try to understand nature’s equal & opposite reaction to the energy balance. Then environmental impact – cradle to grave, not just a link or several links in the chain where often the assumption it is “green energy‘ from somewhere.. Then resource utilisation as it relates to rare & harmful materials. Then etc,etc.
This would at least provide some basic transparent details against which engineers can then better understand & build upon to progress. Here for instance what is the energy needed to propel however many tubs at 31 mph, where is it coming from, how green is that source, what impact to capacity,etc,etc. Without some basic details how else does an engineer perform to evaluate & improve any such idea/large scale project.?
Dragons den is an example of the basics of how the business/finance world evaluate their activities/investments,etc , albeit on a micro scale. Those without some basic financial understanding/data are shown short shrift, we as Engineers need to always provide similar to better gain wider understanding for widespread support for such big ideas/projects.
For a alternative form of transport why not upgrade canal system which would run on basically existing alignments which would require far less energy for operations, less construction cost and can be used for a better drainage
Green solution and assist in climate control
Could incentives not be put in place to encourage the Amazons and DPD’s of this world to move their depots to sites that are or can be rail served that way the existing rail network could be used for trunk delivery’s. Not an original idea but surely worth looking more closely at and a lot simpler that loads of new tunnels.
Why not use standard pallet dimensions from the start ? I can envisage coded switching systems taking pods direct from factory or docks to distribution warehouse or supermarket along plastic pipes with access panels for repair and maintenance. Routes could be alongside existing rail and motorway networks with tunneling under junctions not over long distances. Power from nuclear power stations would be carbon free.
I think its a brilliant idea need some more planing a with far more in depth diagrams etc and all we have at present is artist impression currently skimming on how this might work but could well be the answer to a lot of problems at present