Many cities have subways which transport people. Many buildings have those tubes which move important documents between departments and floors. Why not meld these 2 together?

We already got many types of normal infrastructure within cities, cable, phone, FO, water, electricity, and sometimes even steam. What about making a series of tubes (no "connection" intended with some statement we've all heard before) which transports a variety of items.

You can transport, for one, mostly all of the mail going to places within cities. It all goes into the tubes, instead of in a small truck, then a large truck, then a warehouse, then a large truck, then a small truck again. It would go straight to the destination, whether it be a building receiving business documents, or a post office, receiving personal letters.

Pretty soon, we can make these tubes large enough to transport larger items such as packages, merchandise, pets and even bodies.

It would be like, little, efficient subways for the rest of the stuff that has to commute between places.
-- twitch, Oct 24 2007

The Post Office Underground Railway http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A3826019
hmmm.... [vincevincevince, Oct 24 2007]

The Post Office Underground Railway Picture http://homepage.ntl...eumatic-railway.jpg
Reminds me of the above [vincevincevince, Oct 24 2007]

City that Rotates rota-city
much more practical. and fun! [k_sra, Oct 24 2007]

Baked http://www.cargocap.com/
[kinemojo, Oct 25 2007]

How does the mail know when to get out of the tube? Does every building, office, desk, house, shop etc have a connection to every other? Why would you want to send your pets in the mail? What's steam infrastructure? Why have you got a post office if all the mail's being sent down a tube?
-- Murdoch, Oct 24 2007


Would make for a most sterol environment.
-- 4whom, Oct 24 2007


I work in a warehouse and mentioned the idea of a tube transport system for the distance between the office and receiving. A coworker has a wife who works in a bank and said their tube system needs constant repair due to shuttles getting stuck. Maybe if you had little monorails that allowed for routing this would work better.
-- MisterQED, Oct 24 2007


see previous "quod erat demonstrandum"
-- 4whom, Oct 24 2007


This idea has been used in Futurama, so quite widely halfbaked.
-- fridge duck, Oct 24 2007


you need a rota-city as suggested on the HB. see [link]
-- k_sra, Oct 24 2007


geesh. any technology that become prominant will always be improved. So there are problems with these series of tubes? well if they become common, technology for these things would become more reliable as the market for improved capabilities and durability increases.

How are these things supposed to know where to get off? Oh get creative. It can use RFID. There.
-- twitch, Oct 25 2007


I always thought if the powers that be are going to spend multi millions on a flyover or motorway bridge then they should at least hang tubes off the construction for pedestrians . Inter officetower tubes 50 stores up might be quite exciting .
-- wjt, Oct 25 2007


Whilst the tubes are not being used for freight; the internet could use them for extra capacity.
-- vincevincevince, Oct 25 2007


I for one wouldn't mind being shuttled around in a portable coffin-like pod. Maybe it's just me.
-- twitch, Oct 25 2007


This is an old idea. See link
-- kinemojo, Oct 25 2007



random, halfbakery