Capsule pipelines are a silly idea.

Transport is silly. Nobody actually wants to do it, or wants to be burdened with the cost of doing it; in an economist's view, at any rate. But take transport out of any human civilisation and you return it to the dawn of humanity.

So what are we trying to do?

We are actually trying to make the transport we need to survive as efficient as possible. By efficiency we mean reducing the transport proportion of the total economic cost of performing a given economic activity. So that is the yardstick against which we need to measure any transport system, not on a somewhat xenophobic notion of it being in some way different to that which we are used to. Excuse me for being rational.

Throughout an increasingly large proportion of the world transport efficiency is achieved by placing a monetary cost on transport. Theory being that the most efficient mode of transport for a given journey will be the cheapest for the end user. It does not always correlate quite so well.

Economic Efficiency

Certain economic costs are commonly not accounted for within monetary cost. For example, pollution from road based transport (atmospheric, visual, noise, etc) is rarely fully paid for by the road user. Many governments are inching toward greater accountability of these 'external' costs. This process might reasonably be expected to make many of the modes of transport we currently use more expensive, and perhaps relatively more expensive than modes which are currently regarded as innovative.

Capsule pipelines have a number of credentials that make them potentially attractive to an economy which accurately accounts for its external costs. Noise pollution is minimal. Air pollution exists only at locations where power is generated. Visual intrusion and vibration can be cut to nothing by constructing pipeline underground, which is easier to achieve with pipelines than with other modes of transport.

But this is not to suggest that capsule pipelines are such poor performers in the existing economic market. There have historically been many successes, specifically in niche markets, such as telegraph conveying. A number of economic feasibility studies in the 1970s suggested a strong case for application to mineral and general cargo movements (such as [1] and [2]). So why have capsule pipelines not been more widely implemented? Could there be another factor in play here?

Notes

  1. Lynam, D., (1978), The Development of a Cost Model for Pneumatic Capsule Pipeline Systems, Pneumotransport 4, BHRA.
  2. Zandi, I., (1978), A comparative study of pneumo-capsule pipeline, truck and rail for the transpot of manufactured cargo, Pneumotransport 4, BHRA.