The Economist published a large special report on the subject of autonomous vehicles a few weeks ago. As usual, it was comprehensive, well researched and thought provoking. It laid out all the actors involved in the adoption of this new technology – manufacturers, technology firms, regulators and consumers among them.
My main takeaway from the report is that suddenly this change is really upon us, and that it may be one of the most significant global game changers. Five years ago this all seemed like something geeks talked about but with practical application only in the far distant future. Well, the future is now. The technology works, car companies and technology giants are scrambling, and the benefits are too great to be held back by governments for very long. The result will be the best business case study ever, played out in real time over the next ten years; it will be absolutely fascinating.
While there will be losers, such a taxi drivers and truckers, this change is overwhelmingly positive. Roads kill people, and so does pollution. Logistics adds cost and reduces supply of welcome goods. The adoption of autonomous vehicles can make a big dent in the damage from climate change. Easier travel can encourage diverse communities and reduce prejudice. Transport also discriminates against the old and the young and the disabled and the poor – if getting about was as easy as using electricity then all that could be changed.
The special report went into impressive depth. Yet I still wonder whether its mindset was too much stuck in the present. This will change so quickly that many assumptions will prove unreliable. But the report certainly informed, and it set me thinking. I have been drawn to a number of stories, each of which might contain a relevant lesson.
First, look at Uber in New York. One consequence has been stark but rather predictable, that is the demise of the taxi driver, including traditional cab drivers but also Uber drivers. No one is making much money. The yellow cab drivers are up in arms, but I have little sympathy – they abused their monopoly over many years and typically provided poor service. But there has been a second consequence, an unintended one. Uber has hastened the trend for fewer people to own cars and to drive in the city. But it has not reduced traffic, but in many places has increased it. That is because now the streets are clogged with empty Uber cars awaiting business. The takeaway – unintended consequences are everywhere.
Now consider a journey, say from New York to Boston. If I have a meeting in Boston at noon, I will probably leave home at 6am. If I take the fastest transport, a plane, then of the intervening six hours, the actual journey takes about forty-five minutes. That will be the time when the plane is steaming between the two cities. The rest of the time goes on driving to and from airports, ticketing and security and loading, and taxiing in the ground and the air. It may be quicker to drive. The lesson is that the key technology, that of flight, doesn’t drive the journey time. If the plane went twice as fast, it would only save twenty minutes out of 360. Rather, look at bottlenecks and transfers – that is where the time goes. Runways are few, airports fewer, and ground handling obsessed with security over speed. No matter how smooth autonomous vehicles will travel, it is the bottlenecks and transfers that will define the experience.
Next, travel with me on an NYC bus. Now I live in an apartment, I use the bus quite a lot when I go shopping, because I can’t reliably park my car near the apartment. Everyone knows that buses travel slowly, and most blame traffic congestion, especially from double parking. They are correct, but that is not the main reason buses go slowly. The bigger issue is loading and unloading. Most passengers are old, disabled or loaded down with kids or shopping. It takes a long time to get these people from the stop to their seat via the metro card swipe. The lesson is about who the passengers are. They are not just elegant, fit single unencumbered travelers. The new transport has to be for everyone in every situation. Look at car designs and ads and see how those companies have spent a hundred years failing to heed that message. I have no confidence whatsoever in car manufacturers during this transition.
Next, consider my business career at Shell, at lot of it evaluating locations and investments for petrol stations. We used to look twenty years ahead. That won’t work now. This is just one of many ancillary businesses that will be disrupted out of existence. So will dealerships and mechanics, both big employers, and both big users of suburb space. With shopping malls dying already, it is not just the need to alter roads that will complicate urban design. Land value will be very hard to predict, making some rich and others bankrupt.
Next, here is a brilliant anecdote from the Economist report. I drive on the Southern State Parkway occasionally; it is a road that leads to Long Island and in particular its beaches. I have noticed it has many low bridges, more than most parkways. Now I know why. It was deliberately designed that way, so that buses could not use it and hence poor people, especially blacks, would have less access to those beaches. Isn’t that disgusting? But such outcomes are frequent, and happen every time power and money and special interests outweigh civic benefit. Now look at US society generally. Almost every major public service is broken, and Congress struggles to unblock anything. I have no confidence at all in the US generating good civic outcomes from autonomous vehicles. Instead, I will look to Singapore, Beijing, Dubai and Stockholm. AV’s might accelerate the decline of the US as the predominant global power.
On this subject, I remember a book from the 1980’s by Martin Amis, where he described a dystopian future of outcomes driven only by money. To a great extent, this novel has been quite prescient. One vignette described travelling on a motorway where each lane carried a separate toll, with the outcome that the rich travelled smoothly while most sat in endless jams. That outcome is all too possible with autonomous vehicles.
So I think The Economist did a great job at consolidating the existing debate, but that others will have to take their work forwards. These thinkers will need to be smart, connected and agile. It will be great theatre. The end game should be almost cost-free and hassle-free travel. But there will be missteps and perhaps some poor choices if other interests outweigh civic ones. And missteps can take a long time to fix. Infrastructure is costly to develop. New York has just opened its first new subway line in a hundred years.
I somehow envisage a system with three elements. There could be pods for the last mile, with low capacity but rapid frequency, a hop-on, hop-off service that you call and arrives in seconds and takes you anywhere local. These can also serve rural areas, with longer response times. This connects to a series of hubs in a city, linked by larger pods with higher capacity and using dedicated routes at fast speed. Then even faster vehicles would connect cities in shuttles; these can also be used for freight. The key to making this work would be the ease of transfer between the three elements; it would need to be rapid and seamless.
That would be one possible outcome. The hub connectors could be publicly developed and operated and almost free. But there are other outcomes, more sinister ones. We could see the wealthy running around in designer pods, while the poor are still struggling on buses.
Over the last ten years I have taught three kids to drive, and considered it an essential life skill. Thankfully, I can still drive relatively safely, but the day will come when my reactions are slower. So I look forward to an old age without the need to drive or to walk long distances to subways carrying shopping. And I suspect those three kids will not need to teach their own kids to drive. How marvelous that will be.
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