The big news in the scientific community this week was the successful testing of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) on Tuesday in the Swiss-French countryside. Protons travelling near the speed of light collided together at a record level of 7 teraelectron volts (TeV). “Particle physicists around the world are looking forward to a potentially rich harvest of new physics as the LHC begins its first long run at an energy three and a half times higher than previously achieved at a particle accelerator,” stated the press release from CERN.

Those involved in the experiment were exuberant:

“With these record-shattering collision energies, the LHC experiments are propelled into a vast region to explore, and the hunt begins for dark matter, new forces, new dimensions and the Higgs boson,” said ATLAS collaboration spokesperson, Fabiola Gianotti.

“We’ve all been impressed with the way the LHC has performed so far,” said Guido Tonelli, spokesperson of the CMS experiment, “and it’s particularly gratifying to see how well our particle detectors are working while our physics teams worldwide are already analyzing data. We’ll address soon some of the major puzzles of modern physics like the origin of mass, the grand unification of forces and the presence of abundant dark matter in the universe. I expect very exciting times in front of us.”

Photographs from the LHC First Physics event (Source: CERN; click to enlarge)

Among the physicists and scientists assembled at the LHC on Tuesday were logisticians from the Association for the Advancement of Transportation Innovation (AATI), a research group funded by various universities and transportation/logistics companies from around the world. AATI is focused on improving the “efficiency and sustainability” of transportation networks (roadways, railways, waterways, and airways) through innovation in transportation technologies, processes, infrastructure, and policies. The AATI representatives that attended the collider test on Tuesday were optimistic that these experiments would ultimately lead scientists to the holy grail of transportation: teleportation.

“Our physical transportation infrastructures are congested and reaching the breaking point,” commented Dr. David Gahan, Director of AATI. “Transportation gridlock will constrain worldwide economic growth in the near future unless we innovate how we move goods between buyers and sellers. The recession has given us some breathing room, but once economic activity picks up again, supply chains will once again bear the costs of congestion. Better collaboration between trading partners and the sharing of transportation assets and logistics networks will certainly help, but will these actions be enough?”

Dr. Gahan doesn’t think so, which is why AATI is investigating “next generation” technologies that would leapfrog current capabilities. “Teleportation has long been discussed and portrayed in science fiction books and movies,” Gahan stated, “but the research being conducted here [at the LHC] is the beginning of making teleportation science reality.”

In addition to addressing traffic congestion, teleportation is also viewed by many logisticians as a “greener” mode of transportation. Brandon Flowers, a post-graduate student at the University of Glasgow who also attended the LHC test on Tuesday, believes this technology will significantly decrease carbon emissions worldwide. He pointed to a recent news release by UPS about its new UPS Smart Pickup service (see “This Week in Logistics News (Mar 22-26, 2010)” for our take on it). “Not sending a truck to a customer that doesn’t have a package to ship is certainly a smarter approach and cuts down on carbon emissions,” Flowers commented, “but not having to send a truck at all, even when a customer has something to ship, is the ideal zero-carbon-footprint scenario that we’re all working towards.”

But scientists and logisticians admit that there are many unanswered questions surrounding teleportation. Teleportation may reduce carbon emissions, for example, but is having more Higgs boson particles in the atmosphere good for the planet? Would the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulate Higgs boson emissions under the Clean Air Act? Would teleportation make it easier for terrorists to export weapons of mass destruction? How would customs agencies collect duties and taxes on teleported goods? Would teleportation raise unemployment, as millions of truck drivers and other logistics workers around the world find themselves idled and obsolete? Labor unions are already voicing concern about teleportation, which they strongly oppose, calling the technology “the mother of all job killers.”

What do I think? I agree with Dr. Gahan’s comments about how transportation congestion is a serious risk to future economic growth (see “The Politics of Transportation Infrastructure Funding”). This warning was underscored by George Stalk, Jr. in “The Threat of Global Gridlock” (Harvard Business Review, July-August 2009). “As the worldwide transportation network becomes less and less able to support the demands of a global economy, we’re heading straight into a crisis,” Stalk wrote. “Today’s economic meltdown masks the threat. But if prerecession trends reappear when the economy recovers, lack of infrastructure capacity, in combination with rising oil prices, will constrain global trade and drive up costs.”

I also agree that current efforts to resolve this gridlock issue are not enough. In my 11 years as an analyst, I’ve heard a lot of talk about collaboration, about how companies need to work together to maximize the productivity and utilization of transportation and logistics assets, but few companies ever walk the talk. Countless trucks still pass each other empty in the night.

So, I support AATI’s mission to drive innovation in transportation. But teleportation? Really? This all sounds like an April Fools’ Day joke to me.