Give the street back to people.

Three Layers, each doing what it does best

The internet has three layers: fiber for the backbone, WiFi for the neighborhood, Bluetooth for the last few feet. The Physical Internet® has the same three, moving mass instead of data. The trouble today is that one layer, 2-ton cars and trucks on the street, is forced to do all three jobs badly.

High Speed

Freight rail and airplanes

Internet: fiber & satellite backbone

Freight railroads are the heavy lift: 476 ton-miles per gallon, 188 times more efficient than cars. Airplanes are the high speed: people and urgent cargo between cities. Beyond a few hundred miles, freight is already shifting to rail. The backbone exists; it just needs the right connections at each end.

Middle Mile

JPods

Internet: WiFi

Solar-powered podcars on a mesh of slim guideways above the street. Station to station, neighborhood to neighborhood. People and cargo up to 500 kg, on demand, 24×7, whatever your age, ability, or wealth. Piers about 1 m² every 30 m: it crosses the city without dividing it. This is where the Physical Internet® is built.

Last Mile

Safe to walk and bike with increased proximity to retail

Internet: Bluetooth

Walking, bikes, cargo bikes, scooters, local use vehicles. When stations are a 7-minute bike ride or a 15-minute walk away, and 2-ton vehicles are no longer on the street, the last mile is safe again. Parcels arrive at a neighborhood station and go the last few blocks by cargo bike.

Safe streets bring shops back within walking distance: the corner store, the café, the neighborhood retailer. Commerce returns to the pace of people on foot.

Where the Trips Are

Most trips are short. 60% of trips could shift from cars.

More than half of all trips are under 3 miles, and 28% are under 1 mile. Those trips belong to walking, biking, and the middle mile. In North America 92% of trips go by car; in Western Europe it is 43%, with 34% by walking and biking. Moving a person costs $0.38 a passenger-mile by car and $0.03 by JPods.

Cargo needs transport. People need walkability.

Highways and rail lines move people through a place, but they divide it. A mesh overhead crosses without dividing and leaves the street below for people. People make friends, make money, and add value walking. Only 1.2% of land in the 35 largest U.S. cities is walkable, and that 1.2% produces 20% of GDP.

Transportation: catalyst for changing energy systems

Every transportation revolution triggered an energy revolution. The infrastructure that moves people and goods determines what energy system the economy runs on.

Solar on JPods

JPods guideways aren't just transit infrastructure — they are distributed solar power plants. The guideway structure carries solar collectors that produce far more energy than the pods consume.

The Net Energy Crisis

Economies collapse when Net Energy ratios fall below 5:1. Oil has crossed that threshold. Solar hasn't. The transition is not optional — it is geological.

Cargo: The Undervalued Half

Cities think about moving people. They don't think about logistics, waste, or proximity. Those blind spots are where the Physical Internet® makes its strongest case.

The Patents

The intellectual property behind the Physical Internet® — from autonomous solar-powered guideways to distributed data centers powered by transit infrastructure.

Life Requires Energy

Money is a claim on future energy. An economy that burns more energy to extract energy than it gets back is an economy in decline. The Physical Internet® is the infrastructure that makes the solar economy physically possible.