Soon we will be travelling in 1.5m diameter tubes and routed like packets in computer network: http://www.et3.com/
What does this do for the mail and e-commerce ? Do your math. ET3 provides 50x more transportation per kWh than electric cars or trains and can be built for 1/10th of cost of high speed rail or 1/4 cost of freway. One tube provides capacity of 32-lane highway. Cost per passenger is 1 penny per mile - take trip to Paris every wekend for $49.99 one way. That's less than CanadaPost charges for a tiny parcel these days.
Frequently asked questions: http://www.et3.com/faq
ET3 aliance has big plans - In 20yrs they want to displace 90% of all global transportation (current value of $8.6 trilion).
But don't get your hopes up, it's just an engineering study right now. Oil companies will make sure the project gets stalled.
