"Roadless Trucking"

An innovative young company, Ohio Airships, thinks their new aircraft, the DynaLifter, can revolutionize transportation:

“Roadless Trucking” is Ohio Airships’ largest vision for Dynalifter® aircraft. Most of the world (Africa, Asia, South America, and Australia) has a desperate need for the market features that a sophisticated trucking system would offer. However, the largest cost in building any trucking system is not in the “mode” (i.e. the trucks or trains), but rather in the “road” (i.e. the highways or rails).

Conversely, a “roadless” system built entirely of existing freight aircraft would be prohibitively expensive for any nation (as is the case in the US). Therefore, a Dynalifter® “Roadless Trucking” system, with transport costs and speeds comparable to trucking without the need of building a sophisticated highway network, could essentially be afforded by every developing nation. Such a system could, almost overnight, improve a nation’s standard of living and rate of growth...

Only a few times in a generation does a technology emerge that has the potential of changing the world’s economy. For centuries, man has sought to find more cost-effective ways of transporting goods over vast distances. Successful examples of this include the Roman road network, the Panama & Suez canals, the Trans-continental Railroad, and the US Freeway System.

There is a direct correlation between a nation’s transportation & communications infrastructure and their standard of living. Where developing nations once could not afford to ‘catch up’ with First World nations’ complex telecommunication systems, they are suddenly able to leapfrog ‘landline’ technology with the creation of wireless networks. Many people in these countries who have never had telephones in their home are currently conducting global business with cell phones and on the Internet.

A transportation breakthrough comparable to the wireless revolution does not yet exist. Ohio Airships feels that it holds the key to such a transportation revolution with the inception of Dynalifter “Roadless Trucking” systems.

They've convinced a paying customer:

During mid-2006, a British sales firm contacted Ohio Airships regarding their interest in obtaining orders for Dynalifter aircraft.  Using their existing business relationships the firm has received preliminary interest in approximately 650 Dynalifter variants in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.  Also, the firm has ranked these potential customers according to their level of interest, and has identified five customers who are most likely to place the first orders.  These initial orders would total $4.09B in aircraft sales alone (excluding service contracts, parts, etc.).

This is great news for libertarians, because roads and other infrastructure create a nasty public choice problem. Congestion charges, which force customers to internalize the costs of road use, are a great idea and should be more widespread, but the deeper problem is that road networks are a natural monopoly. DynaLifter could enable the creation of a new "roadless" urban model. A city supplied by DynaLifters could be placed in the midst of the ineffable peace of nature, the wonderful stillness-with-birdsongs that our ancestors took for granted but we have to retreat into the remote wild to get. Yet they would have full access to the cornucopia of world trade. In the internet age, most office jobs can be converted to a telecommuting basis. Corporations could establish back-offices in DynaLifter-supplied outposts in case of terrorist attack, then outsource more and more of their operations there to take advantage of the low cost of living and the absence of urban distractions.

Go, DynaLifter!

Comments

[Nato]

I was reading about some of this stuff on /. Very promising. I hope it bears out the high expectations.

[Nato]

As a side note, was the freeway system really an advance over rail, or was it primarily more efficient because it wasn't so regulated?

[Nato]

It would also seem that this model of freight would encourage densification somewhat, or at least penalize the opposite. There's a tremendous number of positive externalities to that dynamic.

[Trucking Software]

This can be a good move anyway. I have always sad that there should be less movemnet in public roads trucking should be reevolutionlized.