Tuesday, February 14, 2017

How Will We Get Around Town in 30 years and What Obstacles Need to be Overcome?

What will the local transport system look like in 2045? The future local transport system (David Levinson, Transportist, Dec.19, 2016)

 Also discussed here: What key factors do you see driving these changes over the next 30 years? (David Levinson, Transportist, Dec.19, 2016)

And here: Future Demand - New Zealand transport and society: Scenarios to 2042 (23 page pdf, New Zealand Government, Nov. 2014)

Today we review an interview on the future local transportation with Marcus Enoch by David Levinson and a report looking ahead to 2042 as part of New Zealand project PT2045. Enoch sees the automation of vehicles, their conversion to electric and the rise of shared mobility, as opposed to owning a vehicle, as the three most important changes. There will be a lot more single passenger, two wheeled e-cars and goods will be delivered by robot cars. Manually driven cars on public roads will be prohibited in 25 years. Urban congestion will end before 2042 with fewer, if any, private vehicles on the road. Carbon emissions will fall dramatically.

 nz-scenarios-for-2042  

Key Quotes:

“the most important change, will be the automation of vehicles – both private and public transport vehicles.” “The second most important change is the conversion of the vehicle fleet to being primarily electric.”

“The third change .. is the rise of shared mobility, mobility-as-a-service, where people won’t be owning cars, but instead will subscribe to a service, or buy the services on demand.”

“there will be a lot of single passenger vehicles. The best example I have is the Toyota iRoad vehicle, which is basically an enclosed motorcycle that’s safe and stabilised and, will, well before 2045, be automated. And it is safe because, not only is the vehicle designed well, with a roll bar and all that, but because all the other vehicles are also automated.”

 “there will be a substitution of logistic services for a lot of shopping trips, and we need to think about that. In urban areas the best model I have seen was a demo of using a small robot for delivering goods from stores to people’s homes”

“the political system is going to have to play catch up with the technological system, and legal system is also going to be playing catch up. ..Uber decided what service they were going to provide, and they did it illegally, and they got away with it” “From an economic perspective, at the point where it’s cheaper to provide an automated vehicle than it is to provide a manually driven vehicle, people will switch over.”

 “25 year timeframe is probably enough for the last manually driven car to be prohibited from driving on streets or public roads most of the time.”

 “Congestion is a thing of the past. Compared to 2014, fewer people can afford to travel across and between towns by private vehicle so many urban and regional roads are relatively free of private travellers. Inter-regional bus services have increased in popularity, connecting market towns to urban centres.”

“Compared to 2014, people are using all motorised forms of transport far less. People prefer exploring the digital world to travelling outside. Obesity and diabetes rates have increased because of a lack of physical exercise. People regularly try to manage their health by walking and cycling for recreation. Climate emissions from transport have fallen dramatically.”

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