Plot twist: they are both verbs and nouns, but the noun affect only gets used in psychology
From wiktionary:
“New governing coalitions have effected major changes” indicates that major changes were made as a result of new governing coalitions.
“New governing coalitions have affected major changes” indicates that before new governing coalitions, major changes were in place, and that the new governing coalitions had some influence over those existing changes.
Reading a few articles about this, it seems a big concern is area. They wanna squeeze them in every free space they have between and around roads. Conveyor belts can probably do a lot sharper curves etc. than railways. If they do special small rails, they’ll also need special trains for that.
From the articles it’s also not clear if it’s from one point to another point or from multiple to multiple. They talk about deliveries, which would rather be multi to multi, but it’s not explicitly mentioned anywhere.