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Freight Transport System * USA - Ingleside may be test site for new one
Ingleside,Tx,USA -The Corpus Christi Caller Times (Corpus Christi,TX), by Fanny S. Chirinos -November 11, 2007: -- A new way to move shipping containers might be tested in Ingleside as early as next year... Stephen Roop, designer and assistant director of the Texas Transportation Institute, a research and development agency working with the Texas A&M University System, has developed a freight shuttle that would move a container from point A to point B on rails. The process would be automated and computerized, with the owner of the shuttle programming where the shuttle needs to take the container... The concept is to alleviate congestion on highways and ship cargo more efficiently, Roop said. It was developed after engineers determined an underground freight system was too expensive... The shuttles are electrically powered, unmanned vehicles, designed to run on rails, most likely in highway medians...
Shuttles would glide on specialized, derailment-proof rails as fast as 70 miles per hour in opposite directions on parallel rails on an automated control system. The electricity cost to operate a shuttle is estimated at about $.10 per mile... A prototype, estimated at $15 million to $20 million, is being developed. A testing site for the prototype might be built in Ingleside, said Roop, who presented the project to port commissioners in October. A second presentation had not been scheduled as of Friday, but Roop expects to start testing in the second half of 2008... (Images: Rendering shows what an unmanned, electrically powered freight shuttle might look like. Drawing courtesy Texas Transportation Institute)
Labels: freight transport systems
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