New Meaning of Transportation
More than one half of the world population lives now in urban area and by 2030 this number will swell to about 5 billion people. As the pace of urbanization continuous to accelerate, existing infrastructure and services in place becomes limiting in the needs of today and tomorrow. One of the major problems arises from the transport system and presents itself as barrier to ensuring good quality of life for people crowded in megacity centers.
Some disadvantages of traditional transportation become more serious sources for the cultural and environmental degradations as waves of people continuously to aggregate. For example, additional individual vehicle ownership has decreasing convenience in the addition of congestions. It only adds to more traffic and CO2 emission, and it is a major waste of materials and space as it if left in parking throughout most of the day. On the other hand, public transportation such as buses also has key flaws. Unable to customize the solution for individual needs, it aggregates the needs of a large crowd of people and hence wastes everyone’s time, as well as act as an infectious flu hub.
From current changes we are seeing, it is inevitable that transportation will shift from an asset we own to a service industry offering end to end autonomous motility solutions. It is predicted by 2030, 95% of US passenger miles traveled will be served by on-demand autonomous vehicles owned by fleets, not individuals (RethinkX report). Already, we are seeing transport as service platform providers such as Uber, Lyft, and Didi. However, this is only the start of the revolution. For example, a company in San Francisco called Chariot was launched to reduce long transportation hours and traffic frustrations for 9-5ers. Chariot’s business model is based on crowdfunding: new customized routes of commute will open up is enough people are on that route. As opposed to a top down design of public transportation from the government, this solution offers people to pay for only the route that you need to be on without owning personal vehicle. On top of that, such company collects new data and allows users to have live information about conditions of their transportation services via their phone. For example, you can see how many seats are available in the next ride, as oppose to waiting for buses in rush hours only for it to show up to be packed with people.
Many existing transportation businesses are all developing new technological ideas so they won’t be left behind in the new era. The new era of transportation will be competing fiercely and as a result, their fleets will quickly transition from human drive, internal combustion engine to autonomous electric vehicles. Most major car manufactures and including app-based companies such as Uber have invested in building their own autonomous vehicles. Companies such as BMW and Volkswagen are also developing their own car sharing and servicing models such as Ride Cell and MOIA.
Innovation is not only manifested in the software side, but also new hardware models are also undergoing changes further resolve traffic congestions. To bypass the limitation of available space on the ground, we are seeing daring entrepreneurs trying out new underground and aeration solution.
For examples, Terrafugia’s product Transition designed to fly like a typical Light Sport Aircraft in the air and drive like a typical car on the ground. Other competition in the field has already followed, such as road-able aircraft by Aeromobil, electrical vertical take off and landing jet by Lilium Aviation, a three piece pod, car and drone vehicle by AIRBUS, and UBER Elevate by Uber. On the other hand, Elon Musk is revolutionizing the new underground transportation with his Boring company developing and developing Hyperloop, which supposing will reach 1200km/h (700mph), providing a new high speed transportation technology.
We are on the cusp of one of the most consequential disruptions of transportation in history. If autonomous vehicles pass various political barriers, it is expected to see more technological innovations, which will shifts trillions of dollars from old investor value to new business opportunities. As a result, as transporting experiences elevates, other revenue sources from advertising, data monetization, entertainment and product sales will open a road to free transportation infrastructures. Like in many other fields and infrastructures, the transportation revolution has only begun. Uber is not the end of the exploration, but the beginning of all the new field.
