Futuristic tubes could carry goods around Croydon to save CO2 emissions
Futuristic style tubes carrying cargo travelling at 60mph could be buried under Croydon’s streets.
The Foodtubes project would see metre-wide pipelines coarsing through Croydon's underground, ferrying everything from Weetabix to gravel.
Croydon was chosen by the project's CEO, Noel Hodson, as the perfect example of a dense, urban environment where traffic can become a major problem.
Foodtubes’ studies of Croydon include analyses of a year’s highly detailed data of supermarket deliveries in 2008, from major distribution hubs to the shops that serve 130,000 Croydon households.
Mr Hodson said: “We looked at a map of Croydon and decided it would be a very good place to start.
“We got a host of data from a major supermarket about lorry journeys and realised that much of what was being transported was actually air.”
To avoid the need for trenches to be dug for the pipes to fit in Mr Hodson proposes to use mole technology to bore into the ground and do it all at the same time.
Mr Hodson added: “ Croydon has around 100 food outlets. To supply these the borough has around 700 vehicle journeys everyday and once they had made their deliveries they very rarely take items back with them, meaning half of lorries time is spent empty.”
A typical Circuit will be 100 km, with 400 Terminals connecting to shops, colleges, office-blocks and supermarkets.
All Circuits will freely interconnect, eventually forming “The Transport Internet” and can carry any goods that will fit into the 1 metre by 2 metre capsules.
When London is fully equipped, Foodtubes will invite Mayor Boris Johnson to recline in a capsule and be electronically catapulted 50 km under London.
A Croydon Council spokesman said: “This proposal clearly has a lot of hurdles to overcome before it could ever be put into practice, and although Croydon has been mentioned in the stories that have circulated in the last few weeks we have no plans to consider anything like this for the foreseeable future.
“That said, there is another proposal under investigation that would connect up buildings in central Croydon with a network of pipes.
"These would not deliver food – but they would bring cheap heat and hot water to the heart of the town.“