Pneumatic tube


Pneumatic tubes are systems that propel cylindrical containers/carriers through networks of tubes by compressed air or by partial vacuum. They are used for transporting solid objects, as opposed to conventional pipelines which transport fluids. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries pneumatic tube networks were most often found in offices that needed to transport small, urgent packages such as mail, other paperwork, or money over relatively short distances; with most systems confined to a single building or at most an area within a city. The largest installations became quite complex in their time, but have mostly been superseded by digitisation in the information age. Some systems have been further developed in the 21st century in places such as hospitals, to send blood samples and similar time-sensitive packages to clinical laboratories for analysis.
A small number of pneumatic transportation systems were built for larger cargo, to compete with train and subway systems. However these systems never gained popularity.

History

Historical use

Pneumatic transportation was invented by William Murdoch around 1799. Capsule pipelines were first used in the Victorian era, to transmit telegrams from telegraph stations to nearby buildings. The system is known as pneumatic dispatch.
In 1854, Josiah Latimer Clark was issued a patent "for conveying letters or parcels between places by the pressure of air and vacuum". In 1853, he installed a pneumatic system between the London Stock Exchange in Threadneedle Street, London, and the offices of the Electric Telegraph Company in Lothbury. The Electric Telegraph Company used the system to acquire stock prices and other financial information to pass to subscribers of their service over their telegraph wires. This enabled much more rapid dissemination of information, as without the pneumatic system the company would have had to employ runners to carry messages between the two buildings, or else employ trained telegraph operators within the Stock Exchange. In the mid-1860s the company installed similar systems to local stock exchanges in Liverpool, Birmingham, and Manchester. After the telegraphs were nationalised in Britain the pneumatic system continued to be expanded under Post Office Telegraphs. That expansion was primarily driven by Joseph William Willmot improving Latimer-Clark's invention in 1870 with the "double sluice pneumatic valve", and in 1880 with the "intermediate signaller/quick break switch for pneumatic tubes", which dramatically sped up operations and made it possible for a number of carrier messages to be in the tube at any one time. By 1880 there were over of tube in London. A tube was laid between the Aberdeen fish market office and the main post office to facilitate the rapid sale of the very perishable commodity.
While they are commonly used for small parcels and documents, including cash carriers at banks or supermarkets, in the early 19th century they were proposed for transport of heavy freight. It was once envisaged that networks of massive tubes might be used to transport people.

Pneumatic tube systems in hospitals

Hospitals deploy PTS as part of broader automation strategies to handle rising patient volumes and throughput pressures in many settings, particularly those with aging populations and high admission rates. International indicators show heterogeneous trends—discharges fell in many OECD countries between 2011 and 2019, but rose substantially in others, and increased in large partner countries such as China—illustrating why capacity solutions like PTS are adopted to alleviate internal logistics bottlenecks.
History and adoption
Hospitals have deployed PTS for decades, with contemporary systems shifting from single-zone layouts to multi-zone architectures that connect high-traffic clinical areas. Vendors emphasize interdepartmental connectivity and auditability as part of hospital logistics.
Applications
Laboratory specimen transport
PTS are widely used for routine and urgent specimen transport from wards and emergency departments to central laboratories. Studies show that, when validated, PTS can achieve fast transit times without degrading analytical quality; however, laboratories typically perform local validation because effects can vary by analyte and system design
Pharmacy logistics and Unit Dose
Hospital pharmacies use PTS to expedite medication distribution to wards and automated dispensing points. Integration with Unit Dose packaging and dispensing solutions enables patient-specific, traceable medication flows and supports closed-loop medication management. Industry systems and hospital PTS vendors describe end-to-end traceability and secure handover at sending/receiving stations.
Automated handover to laboratories and pharmacies
Some PTS installations provide automated interfaces to pre-analytical laboratory lines, allowing carriers to be received, identified, and unloaded robotically so that standard tests enter fully automated tracks with minimal manual handling. Pharmacies likewise integrate stations that enforce controlled access and electronic logging at dispatch and receipt.

Further Uses and Logistics Integration

In the United States, drive-up banks often used pneumatic tubes to transport cash and documents between cars and tellers; by the 2020s some of these have been removed, obviated by the rise of mobile banking apps and the increasing sophistication of ATMs. Many hospitals have a computer-controlled pneumatic tube system to deliver drugs, documents, and specimens to and from laboratories and nurses' stations. Many factories use them to deliver parts quickly across large campuses. Many larger stores use systems to securely transport excess cash from checkout stands to back offices, and to send change back to cashiers. They are used in casinos to move money, chips, and cards quickly and securely. Japanese love hotels use them to allow customers to settle bills anonymously. NASA's original Mission Control Center had pneumatic tubes connecting controller consoles with staff support rooms. Mission Operations Control Room 2 was last used in its original configuration in 1992 and then remodeled for other missions. Because the room was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1985, it was decided in 2017 to restore it to its 1960s condition. The pneumatic tubes were removed and sent to the Cosmosphere in Kansas for restoration.
File:Mission Operations Control Room during Apollo 13.jpg|thumb|left|NASA Mission Control Center during the Apollo 13 mission. Note pneumatic tube canisters in console to the right.
Pneumatic tube systems have been used in nuclear chemistry to transport samples during neutron activation analysis. Samples must be moved from the nuclear reactor core, in which they are bombarded with neutrons, to the instrument that measures the resulting radiation. As some of the radioactive isotopes in the sample can have very short half-lives, speed is important. These systems may be automated, with a magazine of sample tubes that are moved into the reactor core in turn for a predetermined time, before being moved to the instrument station and finally to a container for storage and disposal.
Until it closed in early 2011, a McDonald's in Edina, Minnesota claimed to be the "World's Only Pneumatic Air Drive-Thru," sending food from their strip-mall location to a drive-through in the middle of a parking lot.
Technology editor Quentin Hardy noted renewed interest as of 2015 in transmission of data by pneumatic tube accompanied discussions of digital network security, and he cited research into London's forgotten pneumatic network.
Translogic is one of the largest modern healthcare pneumatic tube providers. KUKA is a German manufacturer of industrial robots and factory automation systems. In 2016, the company was acquired by the Chinese appliance manufacturer Midea Group. KUKA acquired Swisslog in 2014 and Translogic in 1999.
Related applications include fish cannons which use mechanisms very similar to pneumatic tube systems.

Applications

In postal service

Pneumatic post or pneumatic mail is a system to deliver letters through pressurized air tubes. It was invented by the Scottish engineer William Murdoch in the 19th century and was later developed by the London Pneumatic Despatch Company. Pneumatic post systems were used in several large cities starting in the second half of the 19th century, but later were largely abandoned.
A major network of tubes in Paris was in use until 1984, when it was abandoned in favor of computers and fax machines. The Prague pneumatic post commenced for the public in 1889 in Prague, now in the Czech Republic, and the network extended approximately.
Pneumatic post stations usually connect post offices, stock exchanges, banks and ministries. Italy was the only country to issue postage stamps specifically for pneumatic post. Austria, France, and Germany issued postal stationery for pneumatic use.
Typical applications are in banks, hospitals, and supermarkets. Many large retailers used pneumatic tubes to transport cheques or other documents from cashiers to the accounting office.
; Historical use
  • 1853: linking the London Stock Exchange to the city's main telegraph station
  • 1861: in London with the London Pneumatic Despatch Company providing services from Euston railway station to the General Post Office and Holborn
  • 1864: in Liverpool connecting the Electric and International Telegraph Company telegraph stations in Castle Street, Water Street, and the Exchange Buildings
  • 1864: in Manchester to connect the Electric and International Telegraph Company central offices at York Street, with branch offices at Dulcie Buildings and Mosley Street
  • 1865: in Birmingham, installed by the Electric and International Telegraph Company between the New Exchange Buildings in Stephenson Place and their branch office in Temple Buildings, New Street.
  • 1865: in Berlin, the Rohrpost, a system 400 kilometers in total length at its peak in 1940
  • 1866: in Paris. John Steinbeck mentioned this system in The Short Reign of Pippin IV: A Fabrication: "You pay no attention to the pneumatique."
  • 1871: in Dublin
  • 1875: in Vienna - including the unrealised corpse network of Zentralfriedhof
  • 1887: in Prague, the Prague pneumatic post
  • 1893: the first North American system was established in Philadelphia by Postmaster General John Wanamaker, who had previously employed the technology at his department store. The system, which initially connected the downtown post offices, was later extended to the principal railroad stations, the stock exchanges, and many private businesses. It was operated by the United States Post Office Department which later opened similar systems in cities such as New York, Chicago, Boston, and St. Louis. The last of these closed in 1953.
  • Other cities: Munich, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Hamburg, Rome, Naples, Milan, Marseille, Melbourne, Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Kobe, Zurich, Lausanne, Geneva, Bern, Basel
  • 1950s-1989: CIA headquarters