Delivery people unload trucks at night in Shinjuku, Tokyo.
Stanislav Kogiku | Image SOPA | Light Rocket | Getty Images
Japan is planning to build an automated cargo transport corridor between Tokyo and Osaka, dubbed a “conveyor belt road” by the government, to compensate for a shortage of truck drivers.
The amount of funding for the project has not been set. But it appears to be one of the main ways to help the country cope with the overwhelming amount of remittances.
A computer graphics video created by the government shows a large, wheeled box moving along a three-lane corridor, also called an “auto-flow road,” in the middle of the highway. The trial system will begin testing in 2027 or early 2028, aiming for full operation in the mid-2030s.
“We have to be innovative in the way we approach roads,” said Yuri Endo, senior deputy director overseeing efforts at the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism.
In addition to creating a shrinking workforce and needing to reduce the workload for drivers, the system will also help reduce carbon emissions, he said.
“The key concept of the automated flow road is to create a dedicated space in the road network for logistics, using a 24-hour automated and unmanned transport system,” Endo said.
The plan may sound like a solution that would only work in a crime-ridden and densely populated society like Japan, not a populous country like the US. The plan in Switzerland includes an underground line, while the one planned in London will be an automated system running on low-cost linear motors.
In Japan, loading will be automated, using forklifts, and coordinated with airports, railways and ports.
The boxes are 180 centimeters, or nearly six feet, high, and 110 centimeters, or 3.6 feet, wide and 110 centimeters long, roughly the size of a large closet.
The system, which also applies to business deliveries, may be extended to other routes if all goes well. Human drivers may need to deliver deliveries the last distance to people’s doors, although driverless technology may be used in the future.
The shortage of truck drivers in Japan has been exacerbated by a law that took effect earlier this year that limits the number of overtime drivers can bring in. This seems necessary to avoid overwork and accidents and to make the project tolerable, but in Japan’s logistics, government and transportation, it is known as the “2024 problem.”
Under current conditions, Japan’s overall transportation capacity will decline by 34% by 2030, according to government estimates. Domestic transportation capacity is about 4.3 billion metric tons, almost all of which, or more than 91%, is by truck, according to the Japan Trucking Association.
This is a fraction of what moves in a large country like the U.S. About 5.2 trillion ton-miles of cargo are transported in the United States every year, and it is predicted to reach more than 8 trillion ton-miles of goods by 2050. A ton-mile measures the amount of goods shipped and how far they are moved, with a standard unit of one ton moved one mile.
Demand for deliveries from online shopping has surged during the pandemic, with users jumping from about 40% of Japanese households to more than 60%, according to government data, even as the overall population continues to decline as the birth rate falls.
As is the case in many places, truck drivers have a tough job that requires them to be on the road for days at a time, a job that most job seekers find uncomfortable.
In recent years, annual fatalities from delivery trucks crashing on the road have hovered around 1,000. That’s better than nearly 2,000 deaths in 2010, but the Trucking Association, which brings together about 400 trucking businesses and organizations in the country, wants to make deliveries safer.
The association also urged consumers to refuse delivery orders or at least wrap their orders. Some industry experts have urged businesses to limit free delivery offers.
Trucks carry about 90% of Japan’s cargo, and about 60% of Japan’s fresh produce, such as fruits and vegetables, come from remote areas that require trucks, according to Yuji Yano, a professor at Ryutsu Keizai University, which is funded by ? by delivery giant Nippon Express Co., now called NX Holdings, and focuses on economics and liberal arts studies, including trucking.
“It means that the problem of 2024 is not only a problem of transportation but really a problem of the people,” said Yano.
