Picture a world totally free of site visitors jams, roadworks, and pollution, where your automobile drives you wherever you want to go although you sit back and loosen up.
This may sound like the stuff of dreams, but according to the Future of Highways report from engineering consultancy Arup, this could be specifically the sort of tension-totally free motoring we’ll appreciate in years to come.
Driving in a worldwide context
The report looks at how fast development of our cities, along with climate alter, dwindling sources and alterations in human behaviour, will impact our roads, cars and driving habits.
Presently, more than half the world’s population of 6 billion lives in cities, with a staggering 172,800 new urban-dwellers joining them each and every day.
According to Arup, this means that by 2050, around 75% of people will be live in cities.
Jam tomorrow?
Although the quantity of vehicles on the road is expected to improve by 3% annually till 2030, after that numbers are anticipated to reduce, with folks far more likely to hire cars when they need to have them, rather than purchasing them.
Altering behaviour and rising awareness of the importance of health and fitness will also imply that more men and women will, we’re told, turn to walking, cycling and other modes of transport to get around, rather than relying on vehicles.
Charge of the electric car brigade!
These that do drive will look for much more environmentally-friendly cars, so gas-guzzling cars will grow to be an increasingly endangered species. Hardly surprising that the pumps will run dry sooner or later.
Electric cars will grow in popularity, with technological developments enabling batteries last longer than they do at the moment, so drivers won’t be restricted to just a few miles just before getting to re-charge.
Ditch the pilot
Vehicles will also become driverless, thanks to totally-automated navigation systems, so you can merely get in, programme where you are going to, and let the vehicle do all the difficult operate for you.
They’ll also be able to broadcast and obtain information on targeted traffic, speed, weather and any safety hazards, adjusting route accordingly.
This improved ‘intelligence’ is down to what Arup describes as the ‘Internet of Things’ – the connection of devices, sensors and machines to the internet.
Only connect…
At the moment there are about 1.84 connected devices per person on the planet, but by 2020 this is anticipated to rise to about 6.6 devices per particular person.
Cars will even be in a position to communicate with every single other, letting every single other know about potential hazards as nicely as relaying data about their speed and direction.
Solar roads
But it’s not only automobiles which will grow to be more technologically sophisticated in years to come.
Arup’s vision of the future consists of advanced solar panel road surfaces, which would produce clean and renewable energy. Electric automobiles could be charged as they are driving along, or when they are parked, so you wouldn’t have to plug them in overnight as you do now.
Panel heaters
Solar-panel surfaces would have other advantages as well, as they’d contain LED lighting to light the way, as well as heating components to hold roads snow and ice-free.
Drivers would no longer have to fear skidding in freezing situations (but there’d be no excuse to take the day off operate in undesirable climate either.)
New technologies will create other possibilities too, for instance, such as concrete that makes use of bacteria to heal cracks, consequently minimizing the require for repairs and roadworks which snarl up site visitors.
Science truth
These developments may well all sound as even though they belong in a sci-fi movie, but they may occur sooner than you consider.
For instance, Milton Keynes is already charging electric buses wirelessly as portion of a trial led by Mitsui and Arup.
Arup is also working with the Crown Estate and Land Securities to use centres to consolidate goods and provide them to shops on London’s Regent Street with the ultimate aim of lowering the number of polluting diesel delivery vans.
What ever takes place in the future, it is clear that we need to have to take action to tackle not only to make driving a lot more environmentally friendly, but also to reduce the pressure on our infrastructure from our growing population.
The road ahead – Arup ponders the future of driving
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