Autonomous Vehicles Will Alter Cityscapes
By Greg Gardner, Detroit Free Press |
Self-driving dump trucks and tractors are already here, but autonomous vehicles for individuals won't be a common site on our roadways until about 2023, according to a report by consulting firm McKinsey released today in
"Autonomous Driving -- 10 Ways in Which Autonomous Vehicles Could Reshape Our Lives," raises provocative scenarios of how they will disrupt our current transportation landscape.
"Autonomous vehicles will have a gradual step-by-step adoption," Kaas said in an interview. "First, there will be pay-per-usage models. These vehicles will be alternatives to cars. They will make mobility available in smaller incremental units."
Mining giant Rio Tinto operates a fleet of 53 driver-less dump trucks at an iron ore mine in western
"These are defined environments where you have defined routes," Kaas said. "You can control interactions with a known number of other vehicles."
The first places we will see smaller autonomous vehicles likely will be in the growing networks of ride-sharing and car-sharing ventures such as
Rather than go to pick up a
"Higher automation can enable that, but a truly driverless vehicle that can show up at someone's doorstep is probably a ways off," said
The McKinsey report forecasts that companies that insure, repair and service cars and trucks will undergo drastic changes from the mainstreaming of driver-less vehicles. For example, body shops could see a decline in work as driver-less cars gradually reduce the frequency of accidents. But increased complexity and software coding will require much more technical training for service technicians.
"Insurance companies might need to radically shift the risk they cover from human error to technical failures," the report states.
All this change will take the next two decades to unfold. When it does, Kaas said, a significant portion of the 50 minutes an average commuter spends in traffic each day could be used to work, relax and be entertained.
But here's the most provocative change. Major cities won't need as many large parking decks. McKinsey estimates that by 2050 up to 5.7 billion square meters of parking space could be converted to other uses. That is larger than
What will become of those surplus parking structures?
"I do not have the ultimate answer," Kaas said. "When you look at some of our large metropolitan areas they will develop more green spaces and parks, but there also will be new commercial uses."
There will still be strong demand for privately owned, human-driven vehicles.
"But we will see augmentation of personal ownership with other transportation choices," Kaas said.
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