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Tulips Transit Delivery is a new way to leverage transit vehicles that travel below capacity during parts of the day and nearly empty at night. Tulips uses loading vehicles running on a smaller rail to load Light Rail vehicles on the much heavier rail.

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Learn More About…A Little Change for a Lot of Progress

Tulips Transit Delivery is a new approach to transit vehicles that may be moving around relatively empty during some parts of the day and almost completely empty at night. The new way is to use loading vehicles running on a smaller rail to load Light Rail vehicles running alongside on the much heavier rail. Light Rail now can be used at all times and in all places.

The loading vehicle moves at a very slow speed when people are near it on the tracks, but otherwise moves along the tracks at walking speeds. The loading process itself is not slow, in part because the distance is short but also because the loading vehicle can be at the selected doorway before the train opens the doors. It takes seconds to load or unload a container.

This has never been done before. Has it been tried? Yes, but loading was slow. The Postbus moved people and goods, but, as with other more recent proposals (FUTURE LINK to Postbus and City Cargo), the loading process took too much time and was not workable.

With the use of autonomous sensors, the loading vehicle would seem to be something entirely new. Actually, it is not. As with most everything in our “modern” age, what is new is always indebted to the past. The phrase “standing on the shoulders of giants” dating to Greek mythology, comes to mind.

The loading vehicle concept embraces new technologies and also some very old ones, since it has roots that spans at least three centuries.

  • Railroads, introduced in the eighteenth century, were based on techniques developed by the Romans.

  • Automatic guideway vehicles were introduced to factories in the nineteenth century. 3D mapping relies on surveying technology, tied to tracking GPS satellites moving 7000 miles/hour! GPS would be impossible without Einstein.

  • Sensors for autonomous vehicles (cameras, lidar, and infrared, etc.) are continually being refined in the twentieth century.

Learn More About…Bringing Last Mile Delivery Together with Public Transit

The last mile is the one that gives headaches and adds the most cost to delivery companies. Amazon addresses this to some degree by investing heavily in lockers at convenience stores and at Whole Foods - owned by Amazon. These lockers are not available to others who don’t belong to the Amazon empire.

Tulips Transit Delivery uses standardized lockers (and containers) that cargo bike companies have called “urban containers”, miniature versions of the giant shipping containers. Just as the giant containers are moved by “heavy rail” freight trains, smaller containers, in our case, would be moved by “Light” Rail transit vehicles.

The huge containers move long distances by rail - due to low friction efficiencies of rail - and shorter distances by less efficient but more versatile, trucks. Smaller “urban containers” could also move longer distances by rail and shorter distances by secondary vehicles to connect directly to customers.

(More about the recent PSU study about lockers, open vs. closed locker systems, and positive conclusions pointing to cost efficiency and equity towards people of lower incomes)

Learn More About…Package Collection Through Smart Storage Lockers

Lockers, in some instances, would be useful at, or very near, the transit station with an ample number of customers able to send or receive packages securely stored inside. Other lockers can be moved to other locations for pickup or for personal delivery by the cargo trike rider.

Lockers could be loaded robotically at warehouses. moved autonomously to Light Rail vehicles, and placed autonomously on locker stands at transit centers. Operating costs would be pennies per package and, mindful of Covid, delivered in a way that minimizes touching of the packages.

(Pictures to be added to show the lockers at the transit station or moved out to neighborhood/mall/business areas)

(More about efforts made by the DOT in Seattle)

Learn More About…Loading Vehicle on an Ultra Light Rail

About loading and unloading of light rail.

Learn More About…Various Vehicle Loading

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Learn More About…Increase Delivery Outreach with Autonomous Vehicles and Cargo Bikes

Lockers and containers will be locked into place on stands using the loading vehicle. No one will be needed to make that happen. The loading vehicle will be able to load the stands and possibly loading docks to supply other secondary vehicles (autonomous vehicles, cargo trikes, battery powered trucks, etc.) without manual labor.

A fully developed transit delivery system will be capable of delivering far more lockers and containers than what is needed for most transit stations. Light Rail can do most of the work, covering most of the distance, during most of the day and night. For commuters, having lockers at a station of their choice may be enough. For those living close to or shopping at an adjacent mall, those lockers may be within walking distance. Others will expect deliveries to come to the door of their home or business.

  • For autonomous vehicles the Light Rail vehicle would move materials through fast, and complicated traffic that is impossible for them to maneuver now and perhaps for decades. The remainder of the delivery route could be at night and along routes suitable for their current abilities. AVs could extend locker and containers to other locations and to some final destinations.

  • For cargo trike delivery, urban lockers and containers could be stored at transit park and rides or at malls at night. Cargo trikes, usually far removed from warehouses that supply e-commerce goods, can easily handle the shorter distance to storage hubs made available by transit.

  • For flatbed trucks and/or box trucks, the loading vehicle could load (or unload) them at night automatically and send a message to the driver when the vehicle was fully loaded and ready to move.

  • For Uber type deliveries, the station loader could load a pickup truck at the loading dock for final delivery. People living and/or working near transit stations could easily make deliveries while moving along their normal routes. Note that this is quite different for other Uber deliveries since it opens the door to larger scale deliveries - not just one or two packages but an entire container or locker!

  • Because transit centers are often within walking distance to homes, authorized people may be able to walk to the lockers and make deliveries to their friends and neighbors -as part of their regular excercise or while walking their dogs.

Tulips transit delivery is a “set up”, in the positive sense of that phrase, as when someone in the back row of a volleyball court perfectly places the ball in position for the front row teammate to spike the ball and gleefully see a point scored. The set up would be a bit different for each of the possible secondary vehicles:

(See pictures of how loading docks, stands, and station loaders would work in the Learn More section)