Pipedream - Home Delivery By Pipes

[EEVblog]

So I was alerted to this Pipedream thing in Twitter, and have been having a back and forth with the CEO.
I didn't even need to look at the website or any other info to know this is literally and ironically a pipedream.
Package delivery by 12" pipes.
https://twitter.com/eevblog/status/1516598333804265473
https://i.pipedreamlabs.co/

I think it earns it's own thread in the Dodgy Technology section.

I thought about doing a video, but is it worth my time?

[SeanB]

Doable, and I remember the pneumatic systems still being in use when I was young, in at least one bank and one department store. But long gone, just too high maintenance, and killed off by the computer making handling cash redundant, and no more hand written receipts. Using to move small items, that will fit in the canister, from one location in a factory, to another location, in the same building, it will work and be efficient, kind of like the semiconductor industry needing to move wafers around, though there they long ago standardised on a rail system, that also can provide power and communications to the transports.

Very niche otherwise, only used if you need parts fast, but the end points are far apart, and simply using a trolley is going to be difficult. Biggest user used to be the postal service, to move mail around, but that is long gone now, the mail moves along a series of tubes still, just they are made from copper and plastic, or glass.

[Haenk]

Actually, it's nothing new:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohrpost_in_Berlin

Also found in other cities around the world.

However, as a short message system, this has been made redundant by the teletype, telex and the internet.

This new pipe dream is a nightmare. The shown pod is *way* too complicated (the former pods, called "bombs" in German, were a simple tube with two rubber ends - unbreakable and cheap). Even more absurd is the "portal". Those would be damaged forever after let's say 15 minutes. That's how long it takes, before the first trash is thrown into the portal opening.
And I'm not sure how they would be able to install their system in e.g. New York. To my knowledge, the underground is a complete mess of undocumented piping and cabling.

[MK14]

• Up to 75 MPH sounds unrealistically fast for a small battery powered unit, when mis-aligned or jammed, may smash up the pipes, which will be tricky/expensive to repair, if buried underground. Also, surely the plastic pipes, would soon be scratched and wear out, if things at up to 75 MPH were regularly going up and down it. So, the pipes would then have to be regularly replaced, which because they are underground, would tend to be very expensive and time consuming.
• Batteries would tend to wear out after around 500 to 2,000 uses, and could be expensive to replace
• Big piles of parcels (which delivery vans can be filled to the brim with), would take ages, to carefully load into the carriers, then patiently feed into those (slow by the sound of it), street chutes.
• If the underground infrastructure needs electronics, such as sensors, computers, power, control, security etc. It would need regular maintenance and repair. Which would be tricky, very expensive and time consuming if underground.
• How exactly would the inevitable regular, underground jams be sorted out ?  If it involves digging up the street, a significant workforce and would take a couple of days to sort out, per jam. It could cost a fortune, and might occur, at least once every 1,000 journeys (wild estimate).
• I.e. Look at a typical, giant (parcel) warehouse, which is NOT underground, or difficult to reach the conveyor belts. I suspect they have/need teams of workers, to almost continually un-jam the parcels and/or fix sensors/adjustments/motors/belts/etc all too regularly.

TL;DR

I don't think the proposed $0.75 per parcel/journey, is realistic.

[SiliconWizard]

Uh yeah, pneumatic stuff is old tech and long abandoned. Beyond the cost of infrastructure, just think about what could happen in case of failure.

For the fun fact, such a system was mentioned in "1984" - as if we weren't rushing towards a 1984-like world fast enough already.

[langwadt]

Uh yeah, pneumatic stuff is old tech and long abandoned. Beyond the cost of infrastructure, just think about what could happen in case of failure.

For the fun fact, such a system was mentioned in "1984" - as if we weren't rushing towards a 1984-like world fast enough already.

the hospital here just got a new pneumatic system few years ago, it moves blood,tissue, etc. samples between two locations ~1600m apart in about 2minutes so about 50km/h. The previous system was packing them in boxes marked urgent/non-urgent and then every half hour a taxi would pick them up

[MK14]

the hospital here just got a new pneumatic system few years ago, it moves blood,tissue, etc. samples between two locations ~1600m apart in about 2minutes so about 50km/h. The previous system was packing them in boxes marked urgent/non-urgent and then every half hour a taxi would pick them up

But, is that system partly/fully underground ?

[langwadt]

the hospital here just got a new pneumatic system few years ago, it moves blood,tissue, etc. samples between two locations ~1600m apart in about 2minutes so about 50km/h. The previous system was packing them in boxes marked urgent/non-urgent and then every half hour a taxi would pick them up

But, is that system partly/fully underground ?

all underground, three parallel pipes drilled from one location to the other. It is basically in the middle of the city

[TimFox]

As late as maybe 20 years ago, short transport tubes were common between car-parking stations and the bank in drive-in banking facilities.
In my youth (oh so long ago), department stores often had only pneumatic tubes between points-of-sale and a central cashier station, where the salesperson sent an invoice and the customer's cash to the cashier, who returned a sales receipt and the change.
Many years later, I was just chatting with fellow employees over lunch and mentioned that I was starting to play with vacuum tubes again.  I was surprised when a lady accountant said that she used to have them at her previous employer, but then found that she meant pneumatic tubes, not pentodes.
The Paris system ("pneumatique") was finally shut down in 1984.  "Pneus" were often billets-doux.

[thm_w]

Here are some photos of the system langwadt is talking about:


https://imgur.com/a/yDgxh1D
https://www.reddit.com/r/Skookum/comments/c0q79b/a_pneumatic_tube_hub_in_a_danish_hospital_this_is/

It makes a ton of sense for delivery within a hospital, lab, or factory. For home delivery I can't see it, due to obvious reasons (digging up public streets). I don't really think its worth debunking unless there is another element here.

I guess one question is which is a better system for these locations where it does make sense, fully pneumatic or electric motor based?

[langwadt]

Here are some photos of the system langwadt is talking about:

The one I was talking about is a different hospital about 75km north of the one on the video, but it is a similar maybe
even the same system, and was done about the same time ~2016/2017

[MrMobodies]

What if one of these things were to mechanicall fail in the pipes underground?



Doesn't look very practical to me.

[MK14]

all underground, three parallel pipes drilled from one location to the other. It is basically in the middle of the city

Here are some photos of the system langwadt is talking about:
---cut---
It makes a ton of sense for delivery within a hospital, lab, or factory. For home delivery I can't see it, due to obvious reasons (digging up public streets). I don't really think its worth debunking unless there is another element here.

Thanks, to BOTH of you!

I stand corrected, on my earlier post. Now I've seen that system (Pneumatic), I can see, that it is at least possible/practicable, within a building complex, system of factories and/or other, semi-connected/related buildings. But there could still be all sorts of other real life issues/problems/drawbacks, with the proposed ideas.

I guess one question is which is a better system for these locations where it does make sense, fully pneumatic or electric motor based?

Good point. Pneumatic, seems to have been chosen, in many previous solutions, over a number of previous decades. But that doesn't mean that Electric motor based, is ruled out in the future.

[TimFox]

The Paris system was in service for many years (1866 to 1984), so such systems are practicable. 
See the Wikipedia article and this one:  https://vanessacouchmanwriter.com/2019/07/02/the-pneumatic-postal-service-of-paris/
There were tubes from each individual subscriber to switching offices, much as a telephone exchange, with manual operators.

[MK14]

The Paris system was in service for many years (1866 to 1984), so such systems are practicable. 
See the Wikipedia article and this one:  https://vanessacouchmanwriter.com/2019/07/02/the-pneumatic-postal-service-of-paris/
There were tubes from each individual subscriber to switching offices, much as a telephone exchange, with manual operators.

That's amazing!

I don't think I knew about that system. 300 miles of tubing, sounds like quite a lot.

It seems one of its points (disadvantages), was the cost of all the labor, to keep it working. But these days, most/many of the staff, could be replaced by automatic robots. So I suppose it could come back in fashion.

It would be great to order something on the internet, then 5 minutes later, there is a big whooshing noise at home, as the parcel(s) arrive. Without even needing to answer a door, or go to a collection point or similar, which could be a number of miles, from home.

Some people think, one day. We could all have 3d printers, which can then make whatever we just ordered, such as dishwashers, new computers, TVs, etc. I.e. instead of just melting plastic filament wire/cable, it could manipulate other materials, such as metals. To make, just about anything. Perhaps with FPGAs/MCUs, programmable/configurable analogue devices, to make the electronics for the product.

[TimFox]

Of course, the Paris system was designed for letters and telegram-equivalents, not toasters from Amazon.

[EEVblog]

He posted a video reply to some of my comment.
It's the usual hand waving excitement you get with everyone who has these kinds of ideas.
They think just because problems and inefficiencies exist, and there are technically methods and ways to solve those problems in theory (and in small scale practice), that this will scale to a population sized solution.

https://www.loom.com/share/806023e2978b4eada69c1d53690e45bb?t=1

[EEVblog]

It would be great to order something on the internet, then 5 minutes later, there is a big whooshing noise at home, as the parcel(s) arrive. Without even needing to answer a door, or go to a collection point or similar, which could be a number of miles, from home.

Yeah it would be great. But it's not going to happen for a myriad of reasons.

[MK14]

Yeah it would be great. But it's not going to happen for a myriad of reasons.

I agree, it is unlikely to happen. Especially not anytime soon, because it would cost way too much, take too long to develop, and doesn't really offer that much of an improvement, compared to existing solutions.

If a parcel is small enough (i.e. letter box sized, in the UK), typically it can be delivered by the standard postal services, of the applicable countries. In a reasonably timely and reliable way, at a somewhat fair cost.

When/if self driving vehicles, becomes a thing. I suppose they could invent/create self driving delivery vans, which simply put your items, into a deposit box, outside where people live. Using a robot thing, between the van and the persons home.
Then little infrastructure would be needed. It would simply be a potentially cheaper and faster solution, to the existing parcel delivery services, we have today.

[thm_w]

Points from his video:
- Infrastructure cost will be high, but should be in place for a long time
- Use standard pipes and boring tools that won't require tearing up roads
- Emissions reductions is there, but he thinks reducing traffic on roads is bigger
- We fit over 90% of amazon items

[Bud]

This is insanity. Cable companies here can't bury their cables leaving hanging them from the trees for years. And back when Paris built their system there was not much stuff under the ground so they could dig as they pleased.

[MK14]

- Infrastructure cost will be high, but should be in place for a long time

It would seem to cost a huge amount of money to develop, and implement. Without really offering much in the way of unique selling points, to justify throwing out the existing delivery systems, and paying for a replacement system.

- Use standard pipes and boring tools that won't require tearing up roads

That's better. But still would cost a fortune, take ages to complete, and suffer from all sorts of drawbacks and disadvantages.

- Emissions reductions is there, but he thinks reducing traffic on roads is bigger

I don't think it would have much impact, on how much traffic there is, overall. Because there are so many journeys, for so many different reasons. Also, it would still involve a lot of traffic, until it reaches the final delivery hub, street carrier chute position(s).

- We fit over 90% of amazon items

Amazon lockers, has the same issue. They are an option, for relatively small items. But can't accept bigger items. Which means that conventional deliveries, are still needed, for a number of (bigger, heavier, or more problematic) items.

[EEVblog]

This is insanity. Cable companies here can't bury their cables leaving hanging them from the trees for years. And back when Paris built their system there was not much stuff under the ground so they could dig as they pleased.

Yep, it's not even close to as easy as he thinks it is. Once again, just because a technology exists to "solve" that issue does not make it practical.

[MK14]

Yep, it's not even close to as easy as he thinks it is. Once again, just because a technology exists to "solve" that issue does not make it practical.

If he invented something, which was genuinely new and doesn't already exist. Perhaps a robot, which fully maintains someones garden(s), for them. Keeping any grass, trees and shrubs, looking nice and healthy. Some people would come flocking to his door, and say take my money.

But this idea, offers little benefit to the existing solutions, would probably cost an impracticably huge amount of money to create and involve lots of work and hassle.

He seems to think deliveries could realistically take place, within 10 minutes from making an order. But, a realistic, county wide (region), delivery chutes system. Would still probably take quite a while, to actually deliver stuff to people. Because it would have to deal with thousands of parcels/deliveries, occurring in real time. Which would mean significant queues and hence delays.

E.g. Supper/Dinner time on a Friday night. Many want their (fast) food delivered. So, suddenly, around 5 to 10 PM, there would be thousands and thousands, of similar such orders. They can't all be handled simultaneously, with the same infrastructure. Also, food gets cold. So, delays wouldn't necessarily be acceptable.

People want deliveries to be as cheap as possible, which is why delivery companies, tend to be low profit organisations. A low profit market, is not ideally suited, to attempting to get that market to pay huge installation costs, for a radically new set of solutions. Which seem to offer little real benefit, except in the inventors minds eye. Which is what you basically said, in an earlier post.

[themadhippy]

Down scale the payload to fit a 4" pipe an use the existing sewer network, no need for robots ,just train the rats.Also  the  mechanism is already  in place  to deal with  returns. Yea theres a few minor issues to iron out but with enough funding im sure i can get it to work

[Bud]

Don't tell the customers though that their food was delivered through the sewer network   

[SiliconWizard]

It would be great to order something on the internet, then 5 minutes later, there is a big whooshing noise at home, as the parcel(s) arrive. Without even needing to answer a door, or go to a collection point or similar, which could be a number of miles, from home.

Yeah it would be great. But it's not going to happen for a myriad of reasons.

Uh yeah. And uh, great? Sure. But it kinda looks like a kid's dream rather than adult stuff.

[SiliconWizard]

Uh yeah, pneumatic stuff is old tech and long abandoned. Beyond the cost of infrastructure, just think about what could happen in case of failure.

For the fun fact, such a system was mentioned in "1984" - as if we weren't rushing towards a 1984-like world fast enough already.

the hospital here just got a new pneumatic system few years ago, it moves blood,tissue, etc. samples between two locations ~1600m apart in about 2minutes so about 50km/h. The previous system was packing them in boxes marked urgent/non-urgent and then every half hour a taxi would pick them up

While that could be a solution for essentially a dedicated, point-to-point network such as what your describe, a general-purpose network using the same technology for connecting essentially every address to every other address is a completely different matter.

Oh and still, I wonder what happens with the system your talked about with the hospital, if it ever gets jammed. How does maintenance work? And I sure hope they have a back-up solution, probably involving classic delivery.

[langwadt]

Uh yeah, pneumatic stuff is old tech and long abandoned. Beyond the cost of infrastructure, just think about what could happen in case of failure.

For the fun fact, such a system was mentioned in "1984" - as if we weren't rushing towards a 1984-like world fast enough already.

the hospital here just got a new pneumatic system few years ago, it moves blood,tissue, etc. samples between two locations ~1600m apart in about 2minutes so about 50km/h. The previous system was packing them in boxes marked urgent/non-urgent and then every half hour a taxi would pick them up

While that could be a solution for essentially a dedicated, point-to-point network such as what your describe, a general-purpose network using the same technology for connecting essentially every address to every other address is a completely different matter.

Oh and still, I wonder what happens with the system your talked about with the hospital, if it ever gets jammed. How does maintenance work? And I sure hope they have a back-up solution, probably involving classic delivery.

sure they can always go delivering by car, but they have three separate tubes even though they currently only  need one

[coppice]

You never know what might be feasible in specific cities, by reusing defunct installations. When Mercury Communications started in the UK in the 1980s, it was feasible for them to start wiring up the City of London  quickly with fibre, because they bought the remnants of the London Hydraulic Power Company. They still owned a series a pipes that was put under the city in Victorian times, to hydraulically power a variety of systems before the electric grid got started. Their pipe network was ideal for quickly deploying modern telecoms.

[TimFox]

Similarly, there was an underground freight-tunnel 24"-gauge rail system in Chicago, which is still in place although service was ended in 1959 after the two CTA subway tunnels on State and Dearborn Streets severed much of the dense matrix of tunnels 40 feet below grade.  The network reached 60 miles, all under Chicago streets that (mostly) form a rectangular grid.  The remaining tunnels in central Chicago were fixed up by adding flood gates after the infamous underground flood of 1991-92.  The tunnels are in use by the electrical utility and various communications cables.
The company that drove the pilings in the wrong location to pierce the tunnel roof at Kinzie St claimed they didn't know the tunnel was there--if they had asked me, I could have shown them the map in the standard book on the subject.
Later, in 2004, the Kinzie St bridge (which the pilings were supposed to protect) was the site of the infamous Dave Matthews Band incident (q.v.).

[MarkMLl]

I thought about doing a video, but is it worth my time?

Yes, because as with "The Boring Company" it completely overlooks the difficulty of getting wayleave under the densely-populated areas which are its only possible application.

As such it highlights the ignorance of technological "visionaries", not to mention the questionable ethics of their financial backers who have no excuse for not knowing better.

MarkMLl

[SiliconWizard]

These projects tend to hog investors' money (and political interest) to the detriment of more sensible and useful ones. This is definitely not harmless.

[TimFox]

The narrow-gauge Chicago freight tunnels were dug on the cheap by digging up the public roadway, fabricating the relatively small tunnel forty feet down, then covering it again ("cut and cover").
Later, two subway tubes were added downtown, to normal loading gauge and standard rail gauge.  Almost all of the subway tunnels were bored with a boring machine.

[coppice]

The narrow-gauge Chicago freight tunnels were dug on the cheap by digging up the public roadway, fabricating the relatively small tunnel forty feet down, then covering it again ("cut and cover").
Later, two subway tubes were added downtown, to normal loading gauge and standard rail gauge.  Almost all of the subway tunnels were bored with a boring machine.

The secret to low infrastructure costs in to get in early. The Chinese realised this, and built infrastructure like crazy before their cities expanded too far. Now those cities have mushroomed in size they are finding further infrastructure much more expensive to build. Even if some of their earlier work was not of the highest quality, its a lot easier to upgrade it than to put new systems in place in a busy city.

[Rick Law]

This actually makes Amazon Prime Air and Alphabet's (Google's) Wing look more practical --  unmanned flying drones to deliver your package instantly.  After all, Wings claimed over 10,000 cups of coffee and 1200 roasted chicken has been successfully delivered.^[1]

That is of course until some bad elements in society use that for criminal purposes -- a very bad flying drone can be easily overlooked amongst the many cups of coffee and bagels being flown across town to someone's breakfast table.  On the plus side, it certainly can clear the "aerial rats" (as a former Mayor in NYC once called the pigeons) from the city.

References:
In this article about Amazon Prime air is where you will find Wing's claim of 10,000 cups of coffee and 1200 roasted chickens delivered.  This article is actually an interesting read if you wonder whatever happened to those flying drone delivery ideas:
[1] https://time.com/6093371/amazon-drone-delivery-service/