ROBOCAR CONTEXT

The surging wave of R&D into smarter and smarter road vehicles is proceeding within an official classification of levels of vehicle automation. However, it lacks a comparable categorization of the roads on which they are to operate.

Reducing accident cost and fatalities is
a driving force for robocars.

Asking the right questions is often the key to finding the right answer. How we think about something determines what kind of answers we get. Robocars are still an amorphous concept in a state of flux. Let’s think more about their context -- or more appropriately, their contexts.

Focus on Vehicles

The US Government’s National Highway and Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) in 2013 published a policy framework defining five levels of vehicle automation:

            0   None -- driver in full control

                1   Function Specific -- automated braking, cruise control, etc.

                2   Combined Functions -- two or more driving functions work synergistically, e.g. cruise control and lane                                         centering

                3   Limited Self-Driving -- driver cedes controls under certain conditions

                4   Full Self-Driving -- the robocar of our dreams and/or nightmares

This heuristic classification framework has become part of the vocabulary of engineers and commercial entrepreneurs working on the many public and private programs to design, prototype, test and implement robocars. It helps them communicate the technical subtleties that often escape casual participants in professional and public conversations. As such, it facilitates communication. It is a useful intellectual tool that helps a society’s progress.

Enter the Context

Today we hear about “smart cars in smart cities” still not knowing precisely what the second half of the term means. What is a smart city? In 2013 MIT’s Technology Review with electric vehicles in mind offered this:  “In a smart city, every electric vehicle must have access to a charging station within its driving range.”

Since then we have witnessed remarkable progress in robotic sensor and visioning systems. Public officials who deal with the public realm are joining conversations with individuals and corporations focused on individual vehicles. Cutting-edge thinkers are exploring visions of a smart city where electronic markers dot the urbanscape.

Robocars service a metro station need not travel across town,
go out to suburbs nor go cross country.

Vehicles then can do more than watch out for cars, kids and other obstacles on the running surfaces around them.  They inform themselves by using an array of local points that themselves can communicate back. For example, real-time data on congestion can alter trip itineraries.  Stationary data emitters can also inform congestion managers. These can be small-scale operations such as parking and circulation departments at large university and medical complexes. Alternatively they can be large-scale, sophisticated traffic control centers, such as the New York City region's Transcom, 

Two-Dimensional Robocaricity

The performance and safety of robocars in cities depend not just on the hardware and software within vehicles. They are likewise affected by the extent, complexity and intelligence of the paths, lanes, streets, arterials and interstate infrastructure over which they run. Robocars without roads make no sense.

Why haven’t NHTSA or others categorized the contexts in which robocars are to run? It’s one thing to operate robocars within a private campus, where traffic can be tamed or even eliminated on some segments of the campus and where security and maintenance resources are available. College campuses tend to be pretty not because of intellectual debates and high culture.

It’s a whole different undertaking to run driverless vehicles from Albany to Albuquerque, Boston to Boulder, or Syracuse to San Francisco.

A Matrix to Think Better

Trans.21 proposes the following categories of Robocar Context:

          

            0   Secured and managed campuses

                1   Supervised activity centers with public streets and multiple private owners

                2   Urban neighborhoods and residential or mixed use districts with firm boundaries (physical or policy) and                               populations of 5000 to 50,000 or more

                3   An entire city - central or suburban - but within the jurisdiction of a single legal entity - aka City Hall

                4   A metropolitan area with populations of 0.5-15 or so million residents

                5   Inter-regional - long-distance trips such as mentioned above, extending from sea to shining sea.

Combining these two dimensions, we get the following application matrix:

	Context Scale	0	1	2	3	4	5
Vehicle   Smarts
0
1			A
2
3		B
4						C

In the above robocar-context matrix, Cell A involves driven vehicles that automatically brake in a major activity center -- such as a large shopping district or an airport.

Cell B is a much smarter robocar in which the driver opts over to automation and can regain control operating  within a college campus.  Neither A nor B seems too daunting.

However the challenges in Cell C are significantly more complex and challenging. This is large driverless fleets operating throughout a metropolitan region.  The time for overcoming these problems doesn’t need to block serious discussion and implementations in A and B.

PODCAR AGGLOMERATION BENEFITS

   by         John Avault

I want to point out an aspect of the economic significance that new mobility options can have for Boston and other cities. I see Boston’s strong economy as a force for good, benefiting its residents, businesses and workers.  Greater Boston is an agglomeration of cities, towns and institutions that power a vast array of modern technology.

In Boston’s vibrant economy, space is precious and land use competition is fierce. We need space to live and space to work. We also need means to get from one place to another. Our various transportation systems and infrastructures entail costs as well as benefits. The private automobile provides a high level of convenience and flexibility, but at a very high cost. We see this in the price we pay to own and operate a car in Boston, and in the price we pay to park. There are other dimensions of this cost that are not so obvious. 

Density and porto-potties are going
up in historic downtown Boston

The number of jobs in Boston exceeds the city’s residential population. These jobs pay, on average, significantly more than Massachusetts and USA averages. Boston’s office buildings contain more than 35% of the city’s jobs. These jobs require, on average, less than 250 square feet of building space each. Hospitals contain about 12% of jobs in the city, and they correspond to an average of 211 square feet of building space each.

Stuck on Parking

Compare those numbers to a single parking space in a multi-story garage that requires about 350 square feet of floor area. Seen in this light, the automobile costs us more than just the money we spend. We are paying with very valuable limited land that we really need for jobs and housing. Because buildings and infrastructure are long-lived, we are paying by mortgaging our future.

A technology that both improves transportation access and conserves Boston’s valuable land for more productive uses deserves our serious consideration and our active investigation. PRT (or ATN, automated transit networks) can compete with the private automobile for convenience and access, and steer our land use investments to more productive uses.

Outside Boston's core, the streetscape
can still get cluttered with guideways .

Boston is an exceptional city in many ways. Millions of New Englanders, students and visiting faculty and experts identify with the “Hub of the Universe”. It has extensive but troubled transit services. Podcars will have to fit in delicately -- much as in other cities across the USA and, indeed, the world.

John Avault is a Harvard graduate who spent most of his career as Chief Economist of the Boston Redevelopment Authority. He retired a few years ago and accepts research and consulting assignments. 

PONDERING THE 3D REALITIES OF PRT

On September 24, much of the world was thrilled to hear Pope Frances tell the USA to think globally about the impacts of its greed and wars. The PRT world was also buzzed by a NPR (National Public Radio) report on PRT possibilities with an impressive interview with Mike Lester of Taxi 2000.

Explaining PRT and its potential benefits to the general public will no doubt start many productive conversations from coast to coast and overseas as well. The balanced conclusion of reporter Joe Palca’s story held up a countering view from a Minnesota official: PRT is an idea whose time has come and, with smart cars in smart cities, gone. The main culprit is the cost and offensiveness of elevated guideways, intersections and station.

Elevated, Shmelevated

Elevated guideways were highlighted upfront by Lester as a major plus. They free vehicle movements from the clutter and danger of street traffic. They overcome the friction of space. Passengers ride faster and safer.

  

However, the onset of automated road vehicles is creating new solutions. Much of the promise of PRT is that it satisfies local circulation and connection needs. Future next-gen roborcars will be able to do this without exclusive guideways. 

Fixed infrastructure makes up about 70% of PRT capital -- even with elevated guideways that are cheap compared to LRT.  So removing them from a mobility service plan is a big thing. It changes the business model dramatically.

For longer trips, exclusive guideways are needed, but PRT must walk before it runs. Ten- or twenty-station networks were considered within technological reach by MTI’s study team last year.  Why? Because Vectus in Suncheon and 2getthere in Masdar both have only two stations -- not networks at all, let alone complex ones. Ultra at Heathrow has three. Morgantown has five -- where on-demand scheduling and fleet management start to get a little complex.

The problems, costs and non-financial “externalities” (violations of privacy, noise, droppings, shade, blockage of views, etc.) of elevated guideways are real. PRT promoters do themselves a disfavor to minimize or ignore them.

Think 3D

Presenting PRT infrastructure as elevated and only elevated ignores the fact that Masdar isn’t elevated at all.  Parts of Heathrow and Morgantown are at grade. Most metros and older LRTs move up and down in 3D reality - with underground, at grade and elevated sections.

PRT is no different. Certainly it can and in many places should be elevated, but it can be even cheaper at grade - enhanced by bunker-like earthwork, plantings and smarter and smarter security systems. In pretty neighborhoods where real people live and shop and walk and where buildings are close together, the expense of tunneling may be quite justified.

Guideways have vertical dimensionality.

In the end, the future of PRT will not be decided by the optimality of the gadgetbahn, but by the sensitivities and lifestyle preferences of three-dimensional neighbors and lawyers. 

WE NEED SMARTER INFRASTRUCTURE

As Congress stalls in dealing with funds for crumbling highway and transit infrastructure, a sense of despair comes over the USA. A consensus that transcends Red/White, economic and racial divisions -- that our Federal system has become dysfunctional -- is upon us. Bernie Sanders’s plea for fundamental societal reform resonates in the heart of America. Is he the FDR of the 21^st century?

To move or not to move?

Our transportation planning process suffers. Highway interests fixed in 20^th century thinking control the many stages of project development that put new concrete and asphalt in our cities and towns. There have been modest gains in attention to walking and biking, sharing streets and accommodating app-based sharing. But on the whole, American life centers on parking lots -- despite the congestion, the pollution and the deadly accidents.

New York Large and Small

There are two New Yorks. One is the world city of 8.5 million residents surrounded by suburbs that make for a region of over $15 million. It is huge and bold and brash.

The other is New York State, and it is a vast network of hamlets, towns and cities nestled among majestically green hills and lakes. Here the scale is small. Bridges are designed in ways that obscure rather than enhance pedestrian life.

Upstate but huge in scale, the project underway for a Hudson River-straddling $5.2-billion Tappan Zee Bridge has no distrinct transit elements. Cost studies estimate adding bus lanes would cost $2.9 billion. Adding rail would require $6.7 billion! They were oblivious to ATN options that would add little to structural requirements.

TransitX sees podcars appended to the new Tappan Zee Bridge.

Jpods on the TZB?

An iconic opportunity has been missed under the watch of Cuomo, the Clintons and the host of New York politicians. With designer flare, light guideways could still be woven into superstructure aesthetics.

This is the same valley in which the more progressive NYS Public Consumer Commissioner hopes to make the Hudson the “Silicon Valley of Energy”.

Jpods has a base of operation in Poughkeepsie an hour to the north. Is it too late to fund a river-straddling PRT with networks on both sides of the mighty Hudson?

BLURRED VISION

New urban mobility options are here. Fleets of private vehicles now use the streets to provide transit- and taxi-like services. Is this the new dual-mode, dubbed DMT in the 1970s?  What does it mean to urban transport officials?

Increasingly smart cars and streets will make us safer.

Robocars are changing the modus operandi of citizens, government, businesses, especially food delivery services. It is already happening. Uber and others are transforming the taxi industry and impacting mass transit. Podcars -- automated on exclusive guideways at high complexity that off-line stations require -- are advancing on many fronts. What guidance is there from Washington?

Vision in Washington

“Silo mentality” is a term often heard in and about Washington DC. FHWA does it highway thing. FTA is a separate silo doing its transit thing. Hardly ever do the twain meet in DC. That maybe was adequate in 1975. 

Today we face a situation where silo officials have to blur there vision. Since 1975 private vehicles have dominated roads and highways largely funded by the FHWA. Public transit edged forward in a separate program and funding silo. Taxis and private buses lurched in the sidelines, with paratransit filled niche roles. It has remained pretty much highway versus transit.

Blurred Modalities

How ironic that we want USDOT officials to get blurry!

Multi-modal shared streets - sketch by Charles Harris

Uber and other ride-sharing groups now allow private vehicles to act as passenger-focused transit, blurring the line between public and private. For passengers with smarter and smarter phones, new apps make it easier to use mobility services from private vehicles operating on public roads.

With GPS someone knows where everyone else is. With the coming of shared cars and rides and robocars, the lines between public and private dim. Bring on dual-mode thinking! 

BRAVE URBAN FUTURES

So fast are transformations sweeping our world forward into the 21^st century that it is difficult to imagine where will be in five or ten years. What will life be like in 2025?  With global communication available everywhere, why do we crowd into big cities? Will scatter over hill and vale, around remote lakes and cliffs continue?

For sure, we can expect cars to be smarter and greener. The new question is -- should you own or share one?

Relics of the past?

So what should government and private enterprise invest in? Do we need more roads, smarter roads with zip lanes, or brand new podcar spaghetti? What is future urban mobility?

Killing Pedestrian Life

From 1950-2000, it seemed right to universally assume wheeled street traffic got us everywhere. Zoning guaranteed ample parking. Services and repairs can by vans and trucks. Ubiquitous traffic crowded out comfortable walking. This shaped the USA into the obese Interstate Nation we have become.

Cargo readily switched from rail to trucking, flooding highways and streets with monster trucks. Life centered around road trips. Getting milk required a car. Walking has been relegated to parks and trails or protected within malls and special districts  -- especially the isle of Manhattan.

Europe and the rest of the world are different. In many places, pedestrian flows are thick and vibrant. But in the USA?

Podcar Futures?

Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) is hot in transit circles these days. It means concentrating tall buildings around transit stations. Within TOD districts, much travel will be by walking, biking, transit and car-sharing.  Parking will be provided peripherally.  Taxis and carts will be easily available.

Such visions are bubbling up in the Metropolitan Planning Organizations across the USA.  MPO officials often include TOD elements in their programs.  A few of them see that podcars can extend the zone of influence of the transit station.

Elevated guideways didn't catch n in the 1970s and 1980s. Will podcars fare better?

The 9^th Podcar City conference this fall will explore how PRT and its derivatives can serve cities, towns and special districts. What are the economics? What implications for energy and climate? How are MPOs handling such complexities?

PCC9 will take place in heart of Silicon Valley, November 4-6. Will local interest be the buzz, or will it come from Greenville SC? Or will excitement be from a surprise project in Jeddah or Istanbul? Who will lead the shift to car-free living?

Register today. Visit www.podcarcity.org. 

ROBO-REALITIES

There is no doubt that the reality of robocars is upon us.

Google is but one of many deep-pocketed companies developing the necessary software and contingent hardware. World auto manufacturers are jockeying to keep up with and form corporate alliances. University classes and programs are engaging students at all robocars levels, using different names. The current “autonomous vehicle” moniker is hardly likely to stick in our ever-evolving techno-English.

The question isn’t whether robocars -- and robo-vans, robo-buses, robo-trucks and robo-SUVs -- will come into our future. Rather, it is how fast and with what trajectories as street vehicles will become smarter and safer. How should the public sector react?  Analysts and investors are eyeing road automation opportunities and high-growth startups. Are robo-roads a more cost-effective investment that the spaghetti of elevated PRT guidedways and stations?

ATN proponents argue that robocars don’t solve congestion and parking problems. They project visions of small vehicles confined to a guideway network (that has to be extensive to be useful). This fixed infrastructure is costly and perhaps offensive. In this way PRT service can be faster than street traffic, and inherently safer. Guideways and stations can easily incorporate solar power collectors. 

But letting those vehicles exit the guideway network to be by driven -- by people or IT -- over streets in what was termed "dual-mode transit" in the 1970s opens up new levels of coverage and even higher levels of service. DMT is the liaison between class PRT and road traffic (automated or not).

PRT vehicles stay at stations (blue dots), whereas DMT vehicles can exit the 'system' and circlulate on streets.
- maps courtesy of LogistikCentrum.

Dual Mode Bridges the Gap

The good thing about tensions between PRT and robocars is that it lifts our level of thinking to a long-range function. What are current and future modal options? What kind of transportation and community life do we want? 

In seeking answers to these questions, policy analysts and investment advisers in urban (land) infrastructure make trade-offs with many environmental and economic factors.

Since the ATN scenario is purely hypothetical, so too is dual-mode transit on a large scale. DMT is simply an open PRT system. Vehicles are designed to be able to exit the guideway and run on roads or other pathways powered by batteries. The speed and range limitations of batteries become irrelevant: the guideways recharge them. Like PRT, DMT can be pursued at metro, regional, mega-regional and national levels.

BOSTON BREAK-UP

Like most states across the US, Massachusetts is in fiscal crisis. Infrastructure needs are especially great after a tough winter in Boston. Revenues are short, and few funds are coming from Washington.

The “T” (Boston’s transit agency, the MBTA) is especially hard hit. Unions are worried that worker well-being is at risk with as new Republican governor sets out a new political agenda.

What future for taxi drivers?
And train conductor?

Applications for cab drivers are down. They are up for Uber. So taxi owners and drivers anxiously watch as a rewriting of state and municipal regulations for taxi, limousines and related public conveyances take place. Complicating this volatile mix, Bridj is expanding app-accessed bus service throughout the historic Hub of the Universe. Meanwhile, MIT hums with new technology ideas.

Several state senators are excited about mobility innovation for the Commonwealth. Hearing PRT pitches from Jpods, they say they are ready to take a fresh look at new options and move ahead. 

Boston Strong; Boston First

Boston, Cambridge and other Bay State boosters brag that the very notion of independent local government began there. There may be historical validity to the claim that Massachusetts set the mould for many states and towns across the US.

Boston certainly had a prominent role in thinking through and catalyzing the War of Independence from King George. In fact, in Boston today tourists visit a replica of the ship from which tea from England was dumped into the harbor, launching armed conflict that broke us off from royal tyranny!

Well respected environmental activist, planning visionary and Jpods fan Judeth van Hamm points to many Massachusetts transportation firsts. The first steamboat churned up the mighty Hudson River in New York State, but the first steamboat service was in the Bay State in 1818.  At the end of the nineteenth century, electrification of a railroad to Hull and Boston’s underground light rail, now the Green Line, were US firsts.

Under Harvard Square 20th century subway and trolleybus
 interstect. What for the 21st?

During the auto-drunk twentieth century, Massachusetts was the first to embrace a circumferential highway -- Route 128, re-designated I-95, encircling Boston and dominating suburban life.

2015 Steps

Alden (Morgantown) and Raytheon made for podcar innovation place in Massachusetts in the second half of last century. But no new modal infrastructure was built, and Harvard thinkers shunned the idea, advising that the best thing to do about congestion is to not worry about it. Now new Massachusetts moves are coming forth. A Jpods mockup will be on display in Boston May 19 as part of meetings with Boston officials.

For more info, contact Judeth at one@hullportside.net.

FEED YOUR METROS:

Global event organizers Terrapinn can take credit for an energetic Dubai rail conference last month. Mideast Rail 2015 took place in the largest of the United Arab Emirates -- the high-growth zone on the southern shore of the Persian Gulf. Hundreds of participants and scores of active booths by exhibitors from all over the world were abuzz with local Emiratis and influential transport professionals with credible budgets in variegated accents of Arabic. The Program was in English and Arabic, with aisle talk also in Punjabi, Farsi and other tongues.

Figure 1   Access to Dubai’s metro stations could be neatly enhanced with small scale systems such as podcars.

The growing regional metro market totals up to billions, maybe trillions of dollars -- or dirhams, dinars or riyals. Most will be driverless - in Madinah, Riyadh, Dohai etc. The reality of Dubai’s stunningly successful driverless metro, first segment opened in 2009, inspires to that degree. Dubai’s driverless metro is quite superb -- well-used and user-friendly. It has served growing volumes of passengers over the last six years without major incident. 

This is a major credit to Dubai’s leaders and to the very international team that pulled it off -- Wilbur Smith, Systra, MHI, Thales, Serco, …… and many more. The metro has been fast-tracked over 20km out to Jebel Ali. Many brag that it is the world’s largest driverless network with a long stretches parallel to a flat, straight highway. In this corridor that heads to Abu Dhabi, lots of modern desert urban development is in place, and more underway. . 

Dubai’s metro lacks modern, small-scale circulators. Seven pairs of slick moving walks awkwardly connect the Mall of Dubai. A manual streetcar links another station to the slow, bumpy (automated) Hitachi monorail that runs out the trunk of Palm Jumeirah. But no neat circulators or podcar networking extend the reach of stations. Sadly, there wasn't any talk of such intermodalities at MER-2015.

Figure 2   Long walks to the Mall of Dubai.

High-speed rail was on the agenda. Multiple plans, visions and protocols trend to the creation of regional rail system, and high-level discussions are underway. Major HSR stations should have easy interfaces with metro lines and district circulators. Intermodality should be on the agenda for Mideast Rail 2016.

HYPER-TOD IN MAKKAH

TOD is a term popular in urban planning. In discussions of densities in city and suburb, Transit-Oriented Development is a new take on the old notion that density goes hand in hand with access transport infrastructure. Higher density should be at transit stations. Most US growth is better described as Interstate -oriented.

One good example of American TOD is the Ashmont station of Boston’s Red Line. Instead of one-story retail with parking, TOD principles led to a 15-story apartment tower right next to “T” station. It works well. A modest success of a Bostonian scale. It would be bigger in New Work or Chicago. In Texas, TOD is more likely to mean 4-story apartments each with “only” one parking space.

Picture of a Model of a Vision for Human Intensity near the Kaaba.

Most American neighborhood groups fret about density, mostly because of the increased traffic it will bring. Suburban Americans spend much of their lives driving, sitting in traffic and worrying about where to park. To many, TOD is but a ruse to soothe those worried about more traffic that higher density.

Makkah Embraces Intensity

Not so in one of the Holy cities of the Hejaz, the western part of Saudi Arabia along the Red Sea across from Egypt. Here, density is embraced in full pedestrian mode. Few pilgrims to Makkah arrive by car. Officials already have a monorail to serve Hajj guests, and more lines are planned. Foreseeing growth and higher levels of pilgrimage in coming years, high-density development is planned for the heart of the jewel of the Red Sea.

The state of the art of urban transport modality is the focus of Terrapinn’s conference March 17-18 in Dubai. Where do podcars fit into the menu of planners -- not just in Makkah but throughout the Middle World and Africa and beyond? Driverless taxis, vans and buses? Driverless metros? PRT?  Will these be discussed at Mideast Rail 2015?

Peter Muller of PRT Consulting has been invited to speak at a Saudi university. Taxi 2000 participated in detailed application studies in Abu Dhabi. What else is occurring in the ministries of Kuwait, Oman and the UAE?

If  transit programs are implemented with the intensity of TOD plans in the heart of Makkah, visions of more sustainable urban live begin to appear.

BOSTON’s Sub- HUBS

The neighborhoods of Boston are waking up to the exciting new prospects of networked transit.  This month a group of concerned citizens and Boston’s Transportation Director will meet with Bill James, the main force behind Jpods.  This may inspire the MBTA to think in a networked way.

Boston Back Bay streets are traffic-tamed and pedestrian friendly. Could a pod hub be retrofitted in?

Boston, Cambridge and other communities are inventing mobility futures in the age of Zipcars, Bridj and Uber.  Midway through the second decade of the 21^st century -- it is time to rethink public infrastructure policies. That means primarily but not exclusively transportation, and it is clear to that our future should be free of fossil fuels.

How far out can Boston envision a next-gen transit network? Is 2020 too soon? Or is it better to think to 2030 and work backwards to determine the first phase?

What Neighborhood Hubs for the Hub?

Where should stations or simpler “mobility hubs” be? Where in your neighborhood is the best site for a mobility “portal” that interfaces with existing MBTA and commuter rail stations?

Boston neighborhoods have many
architectural gems.

What destinations in Dorchester, Roxbury, JP, Fenway-Longwood  and Kenmore should be part of a network 2030?  Should it extend further to Brighton, Forest Hill? South Boston? Will Brookline and Cambridge join in for a larger look at “Boston-as-Hub”?

Judeth van Hamm and her varied team are opening important dialogs with those who commune in these districts.  She and Bill James both integrate solar power collection and use into their designs.

NEW PARADIGMS OF MOBIILTY

Driverless cars are changing everything about urban mobility. Uber has raised billions of dollars to work with. The former head of world transit recently observed that cities being "invaded" by new mobility entrepreneurs.

Self-driving cars change the paradigms of personal, community, service and corporate operations. Delivery of restaurant and shopping items is possible with robo-carts: experiments are underway in Santa Monica. Tomorrow’s smart taxi and shuttle services will operate in new ways that should lower the cost of taking a cab. Ride-sharing flourishes, Who know what lifestyles will be in 2020, let alone 2030 and beyond?

Podcars extend the reach of metro stations.

Even with a temporary reprieve from high gasoline prices, we see over the horizon a world where fuel-burning vehicles are passé --  like dial telephones wired to the wall. People young and old today are getting less ego satisfaction and more frustration out of the burden of owning a personal vehicle. Today, it is a necessity to be a full participant in US life. But the costs! The hassles! The dangers! Owning a car hardly seems worth it for more and more people.

No wonder many are kissing off the drudgery, renting when needed, and seeking the advantages of living in neighborhoods where walking and biking are safe and easy. There taxi and bus services are more available, and distances to travel are shorter. And maybe in the future a pod-station will anchor a local community hub.

Ripple Effects in the Urban System

If a large shift in mobility patterns were to happen, the places we want to get to (for work, shopping, socializing, sports, worship, and back) will need fewer parking spaces. Landscaped trails and gardens can replace parking lots. New housing, perhaps with no parking requirements, will appeal to those without cars. With modest funds, community volunteers and creativity, your part of town can create landscaped pedestrian networks and tame traffic.

Nodes of density will become more commercially viable clustered around pod-stations. Car-free citizens will walk and bike more. They will take transit more. Most adults uninterested in kids don’t want to live in suburbs. Most seniors don’t want the isolation of remote retirement communities. We all want to be close to other people, stores and happening places.

Systems of mobility can work together,

Podcars Mean Car-Free Living

Podcars are available to expand our mobility options, making young and old go car-less. This may seem impossible in today’s auto-addicted America. Well, a comparable paradigm shift happened about a century ago when the rich and middle classes got rid of the carriages and horses. Urban America sprawled out into suburbs and exurbs and mega-regional hubs, drunk in the 1960s and 1970s on cheap gas and the mobility of cars. Now it’s not so cheap. The friction of space is still there.

Automating cars won’t immediately reduce traffic. It does, however, do something much more important: automated mobility lessens the need to spend, on average, $10,000 a year to own and operate a personal car.