Denver tried a high-tech, computerized baggage handling system .. designed to use PCs and thousands of remote-controlled carts .. for a decade = $230 million + , then gave up on the failed project..
I do remember that, but there have long been robots loading pallets the would seem capable these days of transferring misc. shaped bags from one mode of transport to another.
Bruce Webster, principal of Webster & Associates LLC, a Washington-based consulting company that works with companies on troubled IT projects, said the decision by United came years too late. "There are a few lessons that large companies just don't seem to learn," he said. "The first lesson is that the best way to build a large, complex system is to evolve it from a small system that works. No one bothered to get a small system up and running in the first place -- they went for the big bang."This is ESPECIALLY true with the effort to re-invent and overhaul transportation in the USA away from hydrocarbon liquid fuels to EVs and batteries. It took 130 years to evolve to the highly complex and highly optimized liquid hydrocarbon fuel system we have today. You cannot convert that overnight (where "overnight" means 20-40 years). The lesson Mr. Webster cites is going to rear its ugly head again, only this time, it will be land transportation affecting EVERY person on USA soil, not just air travelers passing through DIA.