Conveyor belts have been a great solution for complex areas. A clear example of this is the Media Luna mine in Mexico, where there is a belt capable of moving 25,000 tons per hour. However, there is nothing remotely similar to the project Japan has in hand. The idea: a conveyor belt covering the Tokyo-Osaka route.

500 kilometers. That’s a huge difference in distance compared to any megastructure that might resemble it. The proposal comes from Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, and is a response to the country’s logistics crisis due to a severe shortage of delivery drivers and a surge in cargo demand.

The solution is a project with a network of high-tech automated conveyor belts, Autoflow-Road, to transport goods over approximately 500 kilometers between Tokyo and Osaka. By establishing this monumental network for the transportation of goods, the government hopes to ensure efficient and continuous transportation of cargo.

Relieving traffic congestion. The crazy idea goes much further and is framed by improving three key benefits. The first is to ease traffic congestion on some of the country’s busiest roads. The ministry estimates that this new transport system will handle the equivalent of 25,000 trucks of cargo per day. It will also reduce pollution. According to Minister Tetsuo Siago: “This will not only solve the logistics crisis, but will also help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

Labor crisis. That’s probably the most fundamental aspect of the project: solving the problem of a shortage of people to drive the trucks. The country is set to lose 837,000 jobs in the year to October 1, 2023, the biggest annual decline since records began in 1950, according to the latest government figures.

In fact, the alarm was raised a few months ago by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who declared that the country was “on the verge of failing to maintain social functions.” The working-age population has also fallen from a peak of 87 million in 1993 to 75.3 million in 2018, and this trend is expected to continue. By 2030, the total population is projected to fall from 126 million in 2018 to 119 million, exacerbating labor shortages in sectors such as logistics.

My package is not arriving. This is the third “pillar” that the project is trying to solve. With the rise of online shopping in the last 30 years, the number of small package deliveries has doubled. The current logistics infrastructure is struggling to cope with this situation and will continue to deteriorate. According to the ministry’s forecasts, 30 percent of packages shipped in 2030 will not be delivered due to labor shortages caused by population decline. The band should fix this.

Project report

Project. According to the clues given by the ministry, it will be completed in 2034. We are talking about a system where fully automatic electric pallets, each of which can carry up to one ton of cargo, will be used to move along the routes. The pallets will be designed to carry all kinds of products, from Amazon packages and agricultural products to fresh fish and/or basic products.

Additionally, this network of automated logistics routes will transport goods 24 hours a day using airways and tunnels. At ground level, rails can be placed in various locations, most likely along median strips and shoulders. Therefore, the basic infrastructure is already in place and using tunnels will minimize the impact on surface congestion.

The path of the mines. Sticking with the materials and construction of the project’s loading lanes, Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism said it was considering modeling them on the ground based on existing high-capacity conveyor belt systems used in the mining industry, specifically a 23km belt in Kōchi prefecture or a 100km belt in Western Sahara.

Route. As we said, the idea on paper is that these will be 500 kilometers, covering Tokyo and Osaka, with construction costs estimated at up to $26 billion (between $48 million and $550 million for each 10 kilometers of tunnel, depending on location).

The project could be a solution to the aging population and the problems that arise or are foreseen in the coming years during the planning phase. We hope it does not end up like the Hyperloop.

Image | Thafo WoamHon Lera, Doppelmayr Transport Technology, Pickpik, Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism of Japan

In Xataka | Japan has an impressive new 12-meter-tall robot. Their job: repair train tracks

At Xataka | Visitors are not stopping coming to Japan. The accommodation sector has seen the opportunity at two price levels: Tourists pay more