Pneumatic Tube Systems are not a new technology, as this picture of the central telegraph office in London in 1932 illustrates. A basic Pneumatic Tube System consists of a tube linking two different locations, a carrier to carry the payload, and a power source to move the carrier from one location to another. Complexity arises from requirements to link several different locations and move several carriers simultaneously.

Developments and refinements to PTS over the past 100 years have most significantly been to the sophistication of the control systems. Of course, introduction of new materials and manufacturing techniques means that today's products only bear a passing resemblance to the earliest systems.