Japan: Autoflow-road, fully automated freight transport!
In Japan, the Ministry of Territory, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT, Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism) has been working for several years on a revolutionary project to create fully automated freight transport routes. Named « autoflow-road » (automatic flow road), these logistic corridors would allow the transport of packages on autonomous electric shuttles measuring about 1.80 m high and 1.10 m wide and long, on reserved tracks along the motorway or in underground tunnels. The MLIT broadcast avideopresenting this project.
This system could therefore operate without human interaction, 24 hours a day, allowing the daily elimination of nearly 25,000 trucks, a boon in the face of the shortage of drivers and the country's population decline (cf.Japan is no longer the world's third largest economic power), while significantly reducing carbon emissions. The load should also be automated using forklifts and harmonized with airports, ports and railway stations. Only the delivery of the last kilometre should require human intervention by light vehicles or cargo bikes.
The idea is to design a first 500 km axis between Tokyo and Osaka, a road with the highest volume of freight transport. A second route should be created between Tokyo and Nagoya. A first portion should be tested by 2027 or early 2028, with full commissioning planned around 2034.
The only shadow in the picture is the dizzying cost of this futuristic project: between 7 and 80 billion yen per 10 km portion, a total price of about 3,700 billion yen (more than 22 billion euro). In order to pay this bill, the Japanese government has decided to involve the private sector in the project, including the transport and logistics players who will be the first users.
Elsewhere in the world, similar concepts have sprouted. But on a smaller scale and at a higher cost. In Switzerland, the CST (Underground Cargo) project plans to dig an underground tunnel between Lake Geneva and Lake Constance to transport goods. But we should not see the end of this tunnel until 2045 for a much saltier bill of up to 52 billion euros.
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