SoylentNews

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

The transition to fully driverless cars is still several years away, but vehicle automation has already started to change the way we are thinking about transportation, and it is set to disrupt business models throughout the automotive industry.

Driverless cars are also likely to create new business opportunities and have a broad reach, touching companies and industries beyond the automotive industry and giving rise to a wide range of products and services.

We currently have Uber developing a driverless vehicle, and Google advancing its driverless car and investigating a ridesharing model.

Meanwhile, Apple is reportedly gearing up to challenge Telsa in electric cars and Silicon Valley is extending its reach into the auto industry.

These developments signal the creation of an entirely new shared economy businesses that will tap into a new market that could see smart mobility seamlessly integrated in our lives.

Consider, for example, the opportunity to provide mobility as a service using shared on-demand driverless vehicle fleets. Research by Deloitte shows that car ownership is increasingly making less sense to many people, especially in urban areas.

Individuals are finding it difficult to justify tying up capital in an under-utilised asset that stays idle for 20 to 22 hours every day. Driverless on-demand shared vehicles provide a sensible option as a second car for many people and as the trend becomes more widespread, it may also begin to challenge the first car.

Results from a recent study by the International Transport Forum that modelled the impacts of shared driverless vehicle fleets for the city of Lisbon in Portugal demonstrates the impacts. It showed that the city's mobility needs can be delivered with only 35% of vehicles during peak hours, when using shared driverless vehicles complementing high capacity rail. Over 24 hours, the city would need only 10% of the existing cars to meet its transportation needs.

The Lisbon study also found that while the overall volume of car travel would likely increase (because the vehicles will need to re-position after they drop off passengers), the driverless vehicles could still be turned into a major positive in the fight against air pollution if they were all-electric.

It also found that a shared self-driving fleet that replaces cars and buses is also likely to remove the need for all on-street parking, freeing an area equivalent to 210 soccer fields, or almost 20% of the total kerb-to-kerb street space.

Original Submission