Government grant for freight pipeline scheme
Mole Solutions has been awarded a grant by Innovate UK for an urban freight transport solution using a Mole Freight Pipeline system, aimed at reducing the level of road freight within urban areas.
The nine-month project, based on an actual medium size town in the midlands, will use freight pipelines carrying goods in capsules to link edge of town consolidation centres with inner town nodal points.
Research and data gathering on the range and scale of freight movements within the urban area will establish the current state of commercial, environmental, socio-economic influences. A freight pipeline based system will then be conceived to improve the situation and a comparison of all the relevant parameters carried out to establish the benefits and the economic viability of the proposal.
Mole Solutions, the project leader and system integrator, will be assisted by DHL (third party logistics), Morgan Sindall (tunnelling and pipe construction), Laing O’Rourke (civil engineering), Force Engineering (capsule propulsion), WGH (capsule and track) and SoSustainable (socio – environmental), and a local university for data gathering and analysis.
Irrespective of the merits of the final results for the test case the process established in the project can then be used to assess other locations that have major congestion and pollution problems caused by excess road usage. Mole Solution are already in negotiation with authorities at other major conurbations who have interest in the concept.
Source: logisticsmanager.com
Portal: logistik-express.com