The Transportation of Goods

"Daring ideas are like pawns moved forward on the chessboard. They may be beaten, but they may by that start a winning game." Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 - 1832) German poet

e will devote this page to a description how the handling of freight would be done on an automatically controlled transportation system, using suspended vehicles. This is a short, non-technical description that anyone can digest.

reight should mainly be handled at night, for 2 good reasons: 1) The beam network would not have so much passenger traffic during the night 2) Some of the vehicles could be converted from hauling passengers to hauling goods, by removing their seats. A built-out network of beams, that reaches most of the "important" parts of a city, most of the harbors, freight terminals and industrial areas could do much to unburden the roads their heavy traffic! All types of users could draw benefit from this, as long as the beams really reach all the way. And, as has been shown elsewhere on these web-pages, it is not more expensive to erect beams than to build roads, provided large-scale production of beams gets under way. Transportation of goods could be booked temporarily from time to time, or one could have a regular schedule. Essential data would be pickup and delivery times, source, destination, type and amount of freight.

Let us differ between 5 types of transportation of goods: Passenger cars with some or all seats removed, for carrying parcels and the like Open-sided waggons, which could take for instance motorcars Container vehicles, which consist of cars with grappling hooks to carry containers Special vehicles for carrying stuff like frozen foods, liquid or volatile substances, etc "Freight trains".

1) Some vehicles, used during daytime to haul passengers, could at nighttime be converted to freight carriers by removing some or all seats. This could be done automatically, by robots (figure 9). 2) The open-sided waggons are mainly meant to transport motorcars, but could also carry bulky things that woun't fit into a car with closed sides. 3) Container-carrying vehicles of a simpler kind are already being used in the harbors. 4) As time goes by, there will be a need for transporting various goods of a special nature. The important thing is that the interface towards the beam is standardized, and that weight limits are not exceeded. 5) Sometimes, a transport is so bulky that several cars are required, or personnel has to accompany it. In this case, the cars would be coupled together. Not, however, in a physical sence but in a logical. The central computer knows that the cars are together, and treats it as one transport, notwithstanding that the cars might travel at different times, and maybe travel different routes. The FLYWAY® concept, however, does not rule out the use of physically coupling together several cars.

Examples of how container-carrying cars could be used

In a typical application, redistribution centers for goods would be placed in a ring around the nucleus of a city, as illustrated to the left. Inside this ring, no other kinds of transportation of goods is allowed, for environmental reasons. Heavy transports by rail and truck would arrive to these centers. The containers would be opened, the freight repacked in other containers according to their destination, and the beamcars would pick up these containers for transport the final step of the way, into the city. Going in the opposite direction, the cars could take the city's refuse, as well as its produce to these centers, for further distribution elsewhere.