Conveyor belts have proven to be an excellent solution to bust out in complicated spaces. A good example is the Media Luna mine in Mexico, where a conveyor belt can move 25,000 tons per hour. However, there’s nothing remotely like a project being proposed in Japan, where officials are thinking of constructing a conveyor belt covering the distance from Tokyo to Osaka.
310 miles. That's exactly the distance between the two cities as well as the enormous difference between it and any similar mega-structure. The proposal comes from Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism in response to the country’s logistics crisis, caused by a severe shortage of delivery drivers and rising delivery demand.
The solution is a project called Autoflow-Road, a network of high-tech automated conveyor belts that will transport goods over approximately 310 miles between Tokyo and Osaka. By building this monumental merchandise movement network, the government hopes to ensure the efficient and continuous flow of goods.
Traffic decongestion. The crazy idea goes further and aims to alleviate three key problems in the area. The first is to reduce traffic on some of the country’s busiest roads. The ministry estimates that this new transportation system will carry the equivalent of 25,000 trucks per day. It will also reduce pollution. According to Tetsuo Siago, minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism: “[The project] will not only address the logistics crisis but also help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”
The labor crisis. Solving the problem of the lack of truck drivers is perhaps the most fundamental aspect of the project. According to the latest government figures, the country lost 837,000 people between January to October 1, 2023, the largest annual decline since officials began keeping records in 1950.
In fact, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida declared a few months ago that the country is “on the verge of being unable to maintain social functions.” The working-age population has also declined, from a peak of 87 million in 1993 to 75.3 million in 2018, and the trend will continue. By 2030, specialists expect the total population to fall to 119 million from 126 million in 2018, exacerbating labor shortages in sectors such as logistics.
My package hasn’t arrived. This is the third key issue the project aims to address. With the rise of online shopping, small package deliveries have doubled in the last 30 years. The current logistics infrastructure is struggling to cope and will only get worse. The Department of Transportation predicts that 30% of packages shipped in 2030 won’t arrive to shoppers due to labor shortages caused by a declining population. The conveyor belt may solve this problem.
Japan's conveyor belt project.
The project. According to the ministry, the project will be ready in 2034. We’re talking about a system that will use fully automated electric pallets circulating along the routes, capable of carrying up to one ton of cargo each. The pallets will carry all kinds of goods, from Amazon packages and agricultural products to fresh fish and necessities.
In addition, this network of automated logistics routes would transport goods 24 hours a day using overhead tracks and tunnels. The tracks could be placed at ground level in various locations, in medians and along shoulders. As such, the basic infrastructure is already in place, and using tunnels would minimize the impact on surface congestion.
The mine track. Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism has stated that it will build the project’s above-ground load tracks based on existing high-capacity conveyor belt systems used in the mining industry, particularly the 14.3-mile conveyor belt in Kōchi Prefecture and the 62-mile belt in Western Sahara.
The route. As we mentioned earlier, the idea is a conveyor belt covering the 310 miles between Tokyo and Osaka. Construction costs are estimated at up to $26 billion (between $48 million and $550 million per 6.2 miles of tunnel, depending on the location).
The project, which is in the planning stages, could solve some of problems related to the aging population that Japan has or will face in the coming years. Let’s hope it doesn’t end up like Hyperloop.
This article was written by Miguel Jorge and originally published in Spanish on Xataka.
Image | Thafo WoamHon Lera, Doppelmayr Transport Technology, Pickpik, Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism
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