Within 2030, the crisis of the logistics in the country will prevent to carry out 30% of the previewed deliveries
A fully automated and emission-free system. Capable of transporting goods along the 500 km that separate Tokyo from Osaka. Both exploiting existing highways, and with new underground routes. It is the sustainable logistics project that the Japanese government has been working on for some months and that could see the light in 2034.
The first details were provided by the Japanese Minister of Territory, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, Tetsuo Saito. The project “will not only address the logistical crisis, but will also help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We would like to proceed quickly with discussions on the issue,” he explained.
Logistics crisis that has two fundamental coordinates. On the one hand the boom of online shopping. The Japanese are buying more and more on the Internet and the consequence is that in the last 30 years the number of small parcels and packages has doubled. On the other hand, a workforce that risks not being able to keep up. By the end of this decade, Japan may not be able to make 1/3 of its shipments due to a lack of personnel.
Sustainable logistics to remove 25 thousand trucks per day from the roads
Automation is the path identified by the government. The project plans to create a middle lane along the arteries that connect the two Japanese metropolises – in the two metropolitan areas live almost 60 million people, half of the national total – where parcels would be transported by automated trolleys or on conveyor belts, on pallets with a capacity of 1 ton. The same solution could also be replicated with underground tunnels.
In the plans of Tokyo, this system of sustainable logistics would succeed in removing from the streets the equivalent of approximately 25 thousand trucks a day. But the project is colliding with the cost barrier. The option of the underground tunnel would not fall below 40 million euros for 10 km of track, with a margin higher even 10 times higher (465 million euros), according to industry estimates polled by the government in this regard.