Tomorrow’s Semis Could be Modular City Dwellers

In today’s cities there’s hardly room for the mammoth trucks that service restaurants and shops, let alone 16-meter (52 ft) long tractor-trailers. As roadways give way to ever more densely packed skyscrapers, something will have to be done to supply the increasing demands of city-dwellers.

According to recent industrial design graduate Takbeom Heogh, the solution to this transportation and logistics quandary is the development of his GelenK project – a completely novel, modular, autonomous truck.

In his vision, Heogh has conceived of a single-seat semi that gives its pilot the ability to monitor road conditions and plot optimal routes. Beyond those relatively commonplace features, the aerodynamic GelenK can do something a bit more futuristic: it can disassemble its long trailer into three separate components, effectively reducing the size of the vehicle.

Once separated, the three trailer sections switch into an autonomous drive mode and follow the pilot controlled cab as it navigates through the city.  While not stated in Heogh’s plan, I’d imagine the GelenK’s drone sections could then branch from their mother ship and make their deliveries unsupervised.

If that were the case, once fully unloaded, the drones could rendezvous with their driver on the outskirts of town and ready themselves for further deliveries.

While its unlikely the GelenK will see big city streets anytime soon, the audacity of Heogh’s idea could be a startlingly accurate vision of the future of transportation and logistics. As more and more of the world’s population continues to flock to cities, automated logistics will become increasingly more important for urban areas teeming with life, activity and needs.

Images Courtesy of Takbeom Heogh & Michelin