The next sustainable transport revolution may not look like a cleaner version of today’s road network. It may run deep underground and high above it.

For those who remember the Wombles, the phrase “underground, overground” brings a familiar tune to mind. Those fictional eco-warriors were early advocates of reuse, repair and recycling—ideas now central to the circular economy. Their habitat also provides a useful frame for the next phase of transport innovation.

The future of logistics is increasingly focused on moving goods below ground and through the air, using cleaner energy, automation and new infrastructure to reduce congestion and emissions.

Technology creates new transport paradigms

The great waves of technological progress are driven by breakthroughs in power, communication, production and transportation. When these advances converge, they create a new techno-economic paradigm and unleash creative destruction: new industries emerge while older models lose relevance.

But adoption is rarely immediate. Roy Amara’s observation remains useful: we tend to overestimate the impact of technology in the short term and underestimate it in the long term.

New ideas often begin with inflated expectations, then disappoint as early versions prove expensive, unreliable or difficult to scale. If they survive that trough of disillusionment, they can cross into the mainstream and become essential infrastructure.

That pattern is visible in transport today.

The first phase: cleaner vehicles on familiar roads

The first phase of the current transport shift has focused largely on vehicles that still travel on the ground. Electric vehicles, hydrogen fuel cells, biofuels and autonomous driving systems have all attracted investment and attention.

Electric vehicles have moved furthest toward mass adoption. Better batteries, expanding charging networks and more desirable products have helped them become a mainstream alternative to combustion engines.

Autonomous driving has followed a more difficult path. Early demonstrations created the impression that self-driving cars and truck platoons would be commonplace by now. The reality has been more complex. Safety, regulation, infrastructure and edge cases have slowed deployment.

This does not mean the technology has failed. It means that the transformation is taking longer than the initial hype suggested.

The more interesting question is whether the future of transport will involve not only different fuels, but entirely different modes of moving people and goods.

Going underground

Underground logistics offers a compelling combination of speed, sustainability and reduced road congestion. By moving freight through dedicated tunnels, cities and regions could take a significant volume of delivery traffic off the road while using clean electricity to power the system.

Projects such as Switzerland’s Cargo sous terrain point toward this possibility. The proposed network would connect major distribution centres and metropolitan areas through underground tunnels, creating a new freight layer beneath existing infrastructure.

Hyperloop concepts have also shifted attention from passenger travel toward cargo. The underlying idea is to move goods through low-pressure tubes using high-speed magnetic levitation, potentially combining aircraft-like speeds with lower operating emissions.

Other initiatives are exploring tube-based parcel logistics between distribution hubs. In a country with billions of annual parcel shipments, even a partial shift away from road delivery could reduce congestion, emissions and dependence on drivers.

The main obstacle has always been the cost and speed of tunnelling.

Faster, cleaner tunnelling

Conventional tunnel-boring machines are slow, expensive and demanding to maintain. They must grind through rock, remove debris and continually replace worn components.

New thermal and robotic drilling approaches could change the economics. By using heat and pressure to fracture or vaporise rock, these systems aim to bore through difficult ground faster, with fewer consumable parts and less material to remove.

If such technologies can scale, they could make underground infrastructure viable in places where it was previously too costly. That would not only support freight networks; it could also transform how utilities, communications and energy systems are installed and maintained.

The transport system inside the tunnel is evolving too. Advances in magnetic levitation and superconducting materials could make high-speed, low-maintenance freight movement more practical than earlier generations of maglev systems.

Superhighways in the sky

The other part of the transport revolution is overground: low-altitude airspace.

Drone delivery was heavily hyped in the middle of the last decade, then appeared to stall. But the technology is now moving toward practical deployment. Companies are testing delivery networks, while postal and logistics organisations are exploring drones for remote communities where conventional transport is costly and carbon-intensive.

The more ambitious development is the creation of dedicated drone corridors. Rather than relying only on each aircraft’s onboard sensors, a connected ground-based network can build a real-time map of low-altitude airspace and guide multiple drones safely along defined routes.

The UK’s proposed Skyway network illustrates the potential. A connected aerial corridor could support not only parcel delivery, but also emergency response, medical logistics and public-service operations.

This is not simply about replacing a van with a drone. It is about creating a new layer of transport infrastructure.

A carbon-free logistics future

The first phase of sustainable transport has made familiar vehicles cleaner. The next phase could change where and how goods move altogether.

Underground freight networks could remove pressure from roads. Autonomous and alternative-fuel vehicles could improve the efficiency of surface transport. Drone corridors could create faster, lower-emission routes for urgent and lightweight deliveries.

None of these systems will arrive overnight. They require investment, regulation, public trust and a willingness to build infrastructure for the long term. But the direction is clear.

To see the most significant transport transformation now taking shape, we need to look beyond the road: to the skies above us and the tunnels beneath our feet.