StGeo, I would be interested in your thoughts on the future of road freight transport.
Visualise this scenario;
Interstate road freight is banned and not economic anyway.
All long distance freight, say to 150 km and above banned.
All long distance freight must go by rail or sea.
Air freight no longer operating.
All the old country branch rail lines are re-established.
Diesel is around $10 per litre with CNG not readily available and expensive.
Local farmers markets for vegetables etc are in every suburb.
The local suburban shopping centre is revitalised.

How would you reorganise the distribution of goods ?

Bazz may I as an 11 year old kid, one of the rare times I took an interest in school was a debate.
Rail vs road.
Rail lines can not go in to every street every city every industrial area.
We can not ever afford light rail to do it or any such thing.
Trucks or a 22nd century version of them,mobile/flexible transport system will always be in use.
Rail freight is distributed by trucks, air freight too.
I still think banning the cars is the best way around this.
StG is right, only 24 hour endeavors can load or unload trucks at night.
Just look at only the Sydney city markets food that is,the number of trucks would stun you.

Mostly I agree with you Belly.
This is the way I see it but I did not want to prompt StGeo.

In the "old days", take Sydney for example, every railway station had
a parcel office and major stations had a goods shed.
Electric parcel vans ran all around the electricified rail network
basically doing what couriers do now, except the addressee went to
his local station to pick up his parcel.

With the intermodel terminals now beig built, two or three in Sydney
I think, containers are loaded and unloaded automatically truck to train.
For smaller loads than containers, fork lifts etc can be used.
Trucks, small and larger could pick up and deliver locally over for
arguments sake 20 to 50 kms. The couriers we now have could work
between rail parcel offices and goods sheds and the addressee in that
local area. The same in every town.
Because of the smaller distances travelled the couriers could use
electric vans such as the Renault van.

Something along this scheme will come about, hopefully it will happen
gradually as fuel gets more expensive. That way the cost will not be
unbearable. However, if we get stuck with a crash and burn situation
the cost will be enormous just alone in unusable semitrailer trucks.

Bit of history. In colonial times they prohibited the entry of large bullock wagons into Sydney and they had a 'terminal' at Liverpool, maybe others as well. so what has changed?

I read somewhere that in China deliveries are made at night and the goods left on footpath, outside shop, which the owner brings in next morning. Imagine that happening here! Not much left by morning.

What does happen in other large cities around the world? Deliveries have to be made.

Traffic conjestion has built up in more recent times because all the young girls now drive cars. Maybe we should go back to only blokes drive and they could then pick the girls up. Bench seats in cars were better too, the girls sat closer.

All true blokes and funny Banjo,but the population of just Sydney is well past 2 million.
Like every city
Large trucks for large loads the only way if fuel cost $100 a liter it will be cheaper than any other solution.
Having been in those trucks loading or unloading, far back in a long line at darling harbor goods line, the rail head,it is a lot of trucks every day.
And Markets,night time loads arriving from as far away as Bundaberg QLD and for all I know further,one day without them and we go without some foods.
Ask why some want to ban trucks, and why we can not in fact Ban every non commercial Vehicles instead, no congestion costs down cleaner city's.

I've got zero issues with reorganizing how things are done. Can't wait till we have to function better as a species, let alone in a business sense.

How will we do it in the future? I have no idea. Depends on transport technology first I reckon. I think for us to CHANGE - I mean, totally rethink - we'd need to really make some big decisions in how we lay out our cities. Currently, I can't see how it'll change because we've designed it with one train - so to speak - of thought. That is, move freight with the wheel. Its been that way since Moses was a cowboy and how our cities have been laid out are done with that in mind.

The vast majority of buildings are isolated from each other. That makes moving freight with the entire CBD in mind almost impossible in its current form. The only solution I could see after having just finished work would be a VAST network under these areas that service the entire region where basically all buildings are serviced underneath. Problem is, to recoup the cost of setting that up would take a hundred years.

Maybe, we could remove private vehicles from these areas between say, 9:30am and 3:30pm ... or something. That would allow me to do my job virtually hassle free.