Imagine you are on a long train journey and realise you’ve left your laptop charger at home, have forgotten to pack your razor or your shoes for the evening do, or just fancy a bit of retail therapy. Not a problem, you just grab your tablet, log on to Amazon and have your purchases delivered to your train seat before you reach your destination. That’s the plan for HS2 Amazon Deliveries.
It may sound like fantasy, and today it is but perhaps not for much longer. Bombardier Transportation, who are bidding to win a £2.75 billion contract to build the HS2 high-speed trains in a joint venture with Hitachi Rail, are proposing building in the technology to do everything from ordering in your favourite food to be served on-board to having Amazon orders fulfilled to your train seat. HS2 Amazon deliveries could become a reality with purchases ordered by train passengers being rushed to stopping stations along the train’s route.
The idea is that if you board your train in London and indulge in a bit of retail therapy, Amazon could rush your parcel to Birmingham, Crewe or Manchester station and the train crew would deliver your parcel to you before your train arrives at your destination in Leeds. In fact why bother packing when you could order a complete wardrobe change for your trip on the train.
It wouldn’t be just Amazon that you can order from, although Amazon are likely one of the few companies with the logistics in place to make them a natural partner. With warehouses across the country already, coupled with the Amazon Prime Now service, delivering to train station before the HS2 arrives shouldn’t be a problem. Bombardier told AP that they plan to build technology to enable multiple retailers to deliver on the train. It’s also possible that popular products would be stored on-board as a mobile warehouse ready to be ordered from an on-board menu.
2 Responses
sigh….
i mean it sounds okay in theory. we all need more convenience, don’t we?
but by the sounds of it these people are looking at making some kind of grand pound investment in “technology”.
the technology to do this already exists, google the train times, can you make it to the train station before then? grand. no extra tech required.
people have pizzas delivered to trains now, i’ve seen it. it costs no extra (except the tip to bribe the driver), and requires no new technological breakthroughs you won’t find in your mobile phone. the train company doesn’t even need to get involved.
so why do i suspect there’s gonna be a multi-multi-million price tag for this ‘breakthrough’, eventually funded by the taxpayers?
Short and simple: a wonderful idea.