Unit 6 Delivery

listening and viewing

Text A

A new method of freight forwarding—or is it an old one?

Fans of online shopping sometimes forget one thing: most of what is actually bought and sold needs to be delivered to the customer. It takes only a few seconds to choose and buy something from an online store, but several days for it then to reach the customer.

Freight transport could use some fresh ideas, or at least it could use a new version of an old idea. And that is exactly what Franco Cotana, an expert of engineering at the University of Perugia in Italy, has in mind. He proposes to bring back, with a modern aspect, a no longer used method called the pneumatic tube.

In the late 19th and early 20th century, underground tubes were used in many cities to speed up the transport of mail between post offices and government buildings. Letters were put into capsules, the capsules into the tubes, and compressed air was then used to push the capsules from one station to the next.

In 1900 Charles Emory Smith, then postmaster general of the United States, wrote that by the end of the decade he expected the “extension of the pneumatic tube system to every house, thus making it possible for the immediate delivery of mail as soon as it arrives in the city.”

The reason that this never happened is that air compressors are expensive to operate and maintain, and the energy they produce disappears quickly, so capsules can cover only short distances. But technology now exists to overcome those limitations.

Pipenet, a system Dr Cotana invented in 2003 and has been developing since then, is based on a network of metal pipes about 1500px (two feet) in diameter. Instead of air pressure, it uses magnetic fields. These fields both lift the capsules and move them forward. The capsules are guided through the network by radio signals. At each change of direction of the pipe, the radio communicates the capsule’s destination and the magnets pull it to the left or the right. This way, Dr Cotana calculates, capsules carrying up to 50 kg of goods could travel at up to 1,500 kph, so you could be wearing a pair of jeans or taking photographs with a new camera only a couple of hours after placing your order.

Rapid maglev travel, as this is known, is not new. The ultra-fast rail line that connects Shanghai with its Pudong airport works on just this principle. But maglev has never really become popular, mainly because of the expense. But by reducing things from passenger trains to small  capsules, the costs become reasonable. Also, the pipes could go alongside roads and railways where there is enough room. So the cost of setting up the system could, Dr Cotana reckons, be kept below €2.5m per kilometre. That is a fifth to a tenth of the cost of building a high-speed railway.

Dr Cotana’s team has just completed a study to see if a pipeline network would work in Perugia, an old city which has narrow, steep streets. It is quite difficult to deliver goods in such a city. Dr Cotana’s team is now working with researchers at Tongji University in China who are interested in trying Pipenet there.

货运新招——抑或旧招？ 

网购迷有时会忽略了一件事情，那就是买卖的大部分商品仍需要送到客户手上。在网店中选购商品只需几秒钟，但是东西到买家手中却要几天。

货运也该引进些新招了，或者至少可以旧招新用，而这也正是意大利佩鲁贾大学的工程学专家佛朗哥·可塔那所设想的。他建议重拾之前被淘汰的气动输送管，并将其与现代技术相结合。

19世纪末20世纪初，许多城市采用地下管道来加快邮局和政府大楼之间的信件投送。信件被放入密封容器后投入管道，利用压缩空气将密封容器从一个站点推送至下一个站点。

1900年，时任美国邮政部部长的查理斯·埃默里·史密斯写道，他预计十年后“气动管道系统会延伸到每家每户，信件运抵城市后就能立即投送到千家万户”。

这个设想没有实现的原因在于空气压缩机的运行和维护费用高昂，而且其产生的能量很快就会消失，因此密封容器仅能短距离传送。然而现如今的技术却可以克服这种限制。

可塔那博士于2003年发明并于之后一直在改进的“管网”是一套由直径为60厘米(2英尺）的金属管道系统，它利用的是磁场而非气压。磁场会托起密封容器，并推动其前进。密封容器在无线电信号的指引下在网络中穿梭。每当管道方向改变的时候，无线电会指明密封容器的目的地，磁场就会将其分送至左边或右边的管道。可塔那博士估算，通过这种方式，运送重达50公斤货物的密封容器最高时速可达1500公里。这样，下单仅仅几小时后，你就可以穿上新买的牛仔裤或者用新相机拍照了。

这就是人们说的高速磁悬浮运输，也不是什么新鲜事儿，连接上海与浦东机场的超快铁路就是应用了这一原理。然而磁悬浮并未真正流行起来，主要原因是其昂贵的造价。而把客运火车缩小为密封容器，成本就变得合理了。而且，这些管道可沿公路及铁路的开阔地带铺设。可塔那博士估算，该系统的建造成本可以控制在每公里250万欧元以内。这是高速铁路造价的五至十分之一。

可塔那博士的团队刚刚完成了一项调查，研究管道网络在佩鲁贾是否可行。佩鲁贾是一座老城，街道狭窄陡峭。在这样的城市运送货物难度很高。目前，可塔那博士的团队正与中国同济大学的研究人员合作，他们对在中国试验“管网”颇感兴趣。

Text B

Ice road truckers

Could you spend three months driving a truck in sub-zero conditions with only short periods of sleep for days on end? Could you drive a truck across a two-inch sheet of compressed ice? Could you drive your truck towards an invisible horizon and hear the sounds of cracking, shifting ice? And could you race against the clock to meet your deadlines before the ice melts?

There is a popular TV series about working on the ice roads of Canada’s far north. It is called Ice Road Truckers and it’s all about the men and women who are brave enough to transport goods across the northern regions that only have access roads for part of the year.

This is because the “roadways” are made of ice that stretches for many miles across nothing but open, frozen lakes and offer an economical alternative to air supply for areas not on the regular road system. The supplies and materials that these truckers bring to these areas are always essential to the working of these areas, whether it’s oil, food and medical supplies or building materials and machinery for industry. If a piece of machinery does not get delivered and if it is too large to be sent by air, the company will have to wait eight months for the ice to be thick enough again.

Driving on the ice roads isn’t a job that every truck driver can do. It takes nerves of steel and more than a little madness to get out there and travel across miles and miles of frozen emptiness. Most drivers who try this sort of work turn around the first time they hear the ice cracking under the huge weight of their trucks. Others make it across thefrozen ice to their destination but decide the stress is not worth the money, although the money is great. Most ice road drivers earn an entire year’s salary in three months of practically nonstop transportation of materials and supplies. This pace is required because the ice roads are only usable for 3 to 4 months of the year. After that, they become dangerous as the ice begins to disappear in places.

Even the slightest mistake or fault in the road could cost a driver his life. The trucks all travel in convoys at a slow and steady pace. If a truck has to stop for any length of time, a major disaster could occur, because the ice is not able to take the pressure of a heavy weight in one spot for long. If a truck breaks down, it is a race against time to get moving again. If a truck does break through the ice and sinks, the driver has less than a minute to get out of the icy water before he dies.

One of the worst sights an ice road trucker can see on his journey across the emptiness of the ice road is the front of a big truck, half submerged in the ice and frozen in place. The driver obviously tried to get across the ice road too quickly or at the wrong time of the season. That is why constant checking of the ice is so important to the safety of the trucks and their drivers. The information from these checks can tell the drivers how fast they can travel and what distance they must maintain from each other on any given part of the ice road.

Dianne Rowland, wife of an ice road trucker, was perfectly happy to let her husband disappear into the great white north for a couple of months every year, trucking goods and equipment to and from the mines in the Arctic Circle, until she saw the first episode of Ice Road Truckers. Five minutes after the documentary started, she said she would not let him go back.

冰路上的卡车司机 

你能连续三个月都在零度以下的天气里开卡车，并且一连几天只睡一小会儿吗？你能驾驶卡车驶过仅有两英尺厚的压紧的冰面吗？你能一边听着冰层破裂移动的声音，一边开着卡车朝着无法目及的地平线前进吗？你能与时间赛跑，在冰雪融化前赶上最后期限吗？

有一部关于在加拿大极北之地的冰路上工作的热播电视系列片，叫做《冰路上的卡车司机》，讲述的是在北部地区运输货物的勇敢男女的故事，这些地区一年中仅有部分时段才能通路。

原因是这些“路面“其实是空旷结冰的湖面上延绵不绝的冰层，对于常规公路系统以外的地区，这是相对于空运来说另一种经济实惠的选择。卡车司机们运来的供应物资及材料，无论是石油、食物、医疗供给，又或是建筑材料以及工业器械，对于保障这些地区的正常运作至关重要。如果某个机器没有送到，而其体积又太大不能空运，那么公司就只能等八个月，等冰层厚度再次达到行车要求。

在冰路上驾车并非每一位卡车司机都能做到的。要想去那里横穿绵延无边、冰雪天地的荒野，需要拥有钢铁般的意志，甚至不止一点点的疯狂。大多数初次尝试这个工作的司机在听到冰面在卡车巨大的自重下发出碎裂的第一声时就会掉转车头。而其他一些成功穿越冰天雪地抵达目的地的司机们则认为报酬虽然可观，但与他们承受的压力相比却不值。大多数冰路卡车司机用三个月就能赚一年的钱，这三个月里要马不停蹄地运输材料及供应物资。这样的速度是必须的，因为冰路在一年之中只有三四个月可以利用。过了这段时间，某些地方的冰开始消失，冰路会变得非常危险。

在冰路上，哪怕是最小的失误或故障都可能致命。所有卡车都组成车队以均匀缓慢的速度行驶。如果一辆卡车不得已停留片刻，就有可能引发一起重大的灾难，因为冰层无法长时间支撑来自同一点的重量。假使一辆卡车出现了故障，就必须和时间赛跑，尽快再次启动。要是一辆卡车真的压碎了冰面沉了下去，那么司机仅有不到一分钟的时间逃生。 

冰路卡车司机在穿越空旷冰路的行程中见到的最糟糕的景象之一，就是巨型卡车的车头一半沉在冰中，冻在原地。司机当时肯定是行驶得过快，或者在错误的时节穿越冰路。这也是为什么时刻检查冰面状况对于卡车及司机的安全如此重要。这些检查所得的信息可以告诉司机在某段冰路上可以开到多快，以及彼此之间应保持多少距离。

戴安娜·罗兰是一位冰路司机的妻子，本来非常乐意让自己的丈夫在每年的两三个月里驱车直入白雪茫茫的北方大地，为地处北极圈内的矿场来回运送物资和设备，直到她看了《冰路上的卡车司机》第一集。这部纪录片播放五分钟后，她就表示不会让丈夫回那种地方了。