Engineers are planning a radical rethink of our streets that will change just about every aspect of how we drive – including who is in control of the vehicle.
Car talk
In this new world, cars are packed nose to tail travelling at speeds in excess of current limits. They weave their way through unmarked junctions, with no traffic lights. Lane markings are non-existent, and stretches of road switch from being one-way in one direction, to the opposite, with no warning. Perhaps most alarming of all, very few of the “drivers” have even passed a driving test. It may sound like an impossibly chaotic scene, where accidents are inevitable. But this is one future based on predictions about the uptake of autonomous cars. In the United States the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) predicts that driverless cars will account for 75% of all vehicles on the roads by 2040. Vehicles, such as Google’s self driving car, are already leading the way. And small-scale trials of linked-up roads are being conducted in some cities
Far from being pandemonium, “intelligent” vehicles running on an intelligent road network have the potential to smoothly synchronise traffic, eliminating gridlock and accidents forever.
In this new world, information flow will govern traffic flow. Vehicles will be much more aware of their own positions and those of the vehicles around them, and will not rely on crude coloured lights to tell them when to stop and go. “In the future smart intersections may not need lights,” says Azim Eskandarian, director of the IEEE’s Center for Intelligent Systems Research.“These intersections will very efficiently harmonise and synchronise speeds in one direction, and then the other.”
So-called vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication will allow cars to share their the route they plan to take, their destination and current position with a central command center – like a supersized version of the one running LA’s streets.
The hub of the future will take this to an extreme – accumulating all the data across a metropolis and plan traffic loads and optimise routes accordingly. It will also send commands back to the vehicles about when to safely enter an intersection, and what speed to hold to minimize stop-start driving. Meanwhile the cars will also talk to each other, using vehicle-to-vehicle communication, constantly checking their environments and positions relative to other cars around them.
Vehicle-to-vehicle communication is already in development. In 1999, the United States Congress set aside a region of the 5.9 GHz radio frequency band – already used for wireless – specifically for the purpose. And a host of manufacturers are already developing applications.
No licence, no problem
Cars that talk to each other can also match their speeds, and drive more closely together without risk of the car in front suddenly braking. As a result, many envisage the idea of “car platooning” that will link together cars on high-speed highways to travel faster, more safely, and using less space. Various trails of this technology are already taking place, with one of the most advanced run by an EU consortium called Satre, which demonstrated trains of vehicles travelling at speeds of up to 90km/h sometimes travelling just 4m apart.
Rebuilding and redefining the road infrastructure may also bring with it new opportunities. For example, researchers at Stanford University in the US have been experimenting with roads that continually charge electric cars as they drive along. The system uses magnetic coils buried in the road that automatically couple with another coil on the bottom of the car. Such arrays could be built into future roads as they are wired up to the sensors and systems they will need.
As a driver, this new system may sound horribly confusing. But, perhaps the most radical prediction about the rise of these new roads is that humans will barely do any of the driving. Instead, we will be asked to put our faith in the system.
“What will a driver’s licence mean?” asks Prof Eskandarian.
“All you need is to be able to operate something like a GPS to input your origin and destination, and the rest will be taken care of autonomously. We don’t need a pilot’s licence to ride on an aircraft.”
Asking people to trust the technology will be a huge obstacle. But it is not the only bump in the road. The cost of this infrastructure will be significantly higher and will require huge .
