Future Logistics
Send anything, from anywhere, to wherever, anytime, in a mouseclick !
The challenge
Goods transportation demand is forecasted to triple by 2050. Parcel delivery services are booming due to e-commerce. Delivery vans invade cities and while the time to deliver shortens up, the volume of empty space transported is increasing accordingly. Logistics companies are looking out for methods to reduce empty kilometers, reduce salary costs and reduce environmental impact to lead the sector through a viable and healthy expansion.
Autonomous distribution
Logistic service companies are developing fast towards more autonomous vehicles. Boats, trains and trucks without drivers will realise high volume connections between fully automated logistic hubs.
City distibution centres will supply small parcels to the local economy with autonomous distribution bots. Right into your personal safe deposit that will replace your good old mailbox.
Physical Internet
Transportation scientists around the world are working on the so-called 'Physical Internet' (PI). In analogy to the (digital) Internet that allows to send packages of information, the PI will send physical packages like people or goods.
The end user's only concern is to bring the payload from A to B safely and on time. How it gets there, the transport mode, routing and logisics systems behind it will be the provider's concern. The PI will allow to send a package or person from anywhere to wherever, anytime, in a mouseclick.
World Wide Conveyor Belt
A 'worldwide conveyor belt' - the equivalent of the world wide web - will be the essential hardware to enable PI to run smoothly. That belt will consist of a network of logistic hubs and local distributions centres, interconnected by tranportation infrastructure carrying modular vehicles. The size and bulkiness of the vehicles and corresponding infra will depend on the type of connection. Ultra-heavy ship freight between continents, heavy truck loads between hubs, ultra-light delivery bots for final parcel delivery.
A missing link
Local medium distance distribution and medium-weight deliveries may be the missing link in PI. Too far and too heavy to be bridged by a delivery bot. And too little to send an autonomous van, at the risk of cloughing city supply lines and local streets.
An intermediate hardware layer, a transport infrastructure independent of local roads and able to transort the size of a europallet would bridge that gap.
FlyByke as the Local Area Network of PI
FlyByke provides technology that enables to automatically hook on and off payloads of small to medium size and ship them straight to their final destination.
The FlyByke network is aboveground. Potential conflicts with other networks and public domain users on the ground are inexisent. This makes FlyByke extra reliable to deliver in time.
Logistics providers can optimise their cost by avoiding peak hours by shipping goods overnight. Growth in goods volume will no longer have a negative impact on the viability of our cities.