stackyFACTS
Transport

Robots move containers through Rotterdam's dark terminals

HERE’S THE INTERESTING PART

Human port workers need pesky things like light, sleep, and bathroom breaks, so the Dutch just replaced them with mechanical steel beasts. In the automated terminals of Rotterdam, massive unmanned Kalmar straddle carriers use transponders and grid networks to silently pluck, stack, and transport shipping containers with terrifying efficiency, operating around the clock in pitch-black conditions.

Robots move containers through Rotterdam's dark terminals
STACKY / Transport
One discovery leads to another.

Keep exploring facts in this topic.

Transport →
STACKY FOR IPHONE

A bigger world.
One discovery
at a time.

Keep discovering with Stacky. Interesting facts in an app that is always within reach.

Download on the App Store
ONE MORE DISCOVERY?

Keep exploring

All in this topic →
What it takes to deliver a package overnight
Transport

What it takes to deliver a package overnight

Getting a package in 24 hours requires a frantic, choreographed ballet of long-haul trucking happening while you sleep. Drivers navigate pitch-black highways,…

Discover more
Electric trucks can drive as a digitally linked convoy
Transport

Electric trucks can drive as a digitally linked convoy

Drafting on the highway is a great way to save fuel, but doing it with 40-ton electric semi-trucks requires terrifyingly fast internet. Scania's platooning…

Discover more
Twenty-eight thousand plastic bath toys were dumped into the middle of the Pacific Ocean in 1992 when a shipping container tumbled off a cargo vessel during a severe storm.
Transport

Twenty-eight thousand plastic bath toys were dumped into the middle of the Pacific Ocean in 1992 when a shipping container tumbled off a cargo vessel during a severe storm.

Twenty-eight thousand plastic bath toys were dumped into the middle of the Pacific Ocean in 1992 when a shipping container tumbled off a cargo vessel during a…

Discover more
What incredibly simple invention from the 1950s is secretly responsible for modern globalization?
Transport

What incredibly simple invention from the 1950s is secretly responsible for modern globalization?

What incredibly simple invention from the 1950s is secretly responsible for modern globalization?

Discover more
The driverless trains carrying mail underground
Transport

The driverless trains carrying mail underground

Because paying humans to sit in a dark tunnel all day is apparently frowned upon, subterranean postal networks use completely automated locomotives to haul…

Discover more
Canals connect entirely different oceans
Transport

Canals connect entirely different oceans

Humans literally carved a massive trench through entire continents just so massive cargo ships would not have to sail all the way around the bottom of the…

Discover more
StackyMore discoveries in the app
Download on the App Store