Imagine getting ready for work in the morning. You, your wife, and your kids have to be in three different places across the city. After a hearty breakfast, everyone piles into the car. You and your wife are sending work e-mails on your smart phones, while your children are in the back seat playing the newest version of Angry Birds on their tablets. The car stops at school first and drops the kids off. The car then drops your wife off at work, then you get out at your office. From there, the car then goes to the dry cleaners, where the employees there will unload your family’s dirty clothes from the trunk. Afterwards, the car goes to a parking garage where it will wait for a text message from one of the family members for a ride home. Sounds like something out of a science fiction film? The truth is, this technology is not far from becoming a reality!

There are few things that come to mind when thinking of what is worse than driving in rush hour traffic in the city. A drive that might only take 10 minutes without traffic, can easily take over an hour during peak times. There is no easy way to solve this problem; building subways takes a lot of time and is extremely expensive, building more roads is also costly and can actually encourage more people to drive, and setting up driving restrictions (ie: quotas, CBD taxes, etc.) can be unfair and favour the wealthy. Driverless car technology could be the answer to our urban congestion problems. Though the technology is still in its infancy, there is a lot of focus on developing and implementing this technology sooner than you might imagine.

The main force behind driverless car technology is safety and efficiency. User error and driver inattention cause almost all accidents on the road every year. Human drivers making snap judgments about hundreds of different decisions, such as how far to keep from the car in front, how fast to go when the light turns green, should I slow down to rubberneck at that accident? The idea behind the technology is to sit back and let a computer with sophisticated hardware make all the calculations and do all of the decision making while interacting with the other cars on the road, creating a more efficient flow of traffic on the road than the network that is already in place.   

Google has been leading the way in developing driverless car technology. The project has been led by Sebastian Thrun, director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence laboratory and co-inventor of Google Street View. As of 1 March 2012, Google has been testing their driverless car technology on the streets of Nevada and have since been allowed to operate test cars in California and Florida as well. They have equipping Toyota Priuses with a range of cameras, radar sensors, and laser range finders to see other traffic. They also have sophisticated software that works with Google Maps in order to navigate routes. During this testing phase, at least one human driver has always been present in the car ready to take over in case there are any malfunctions. Google has announced that their driverless cars have successfully driven over 300,000 miles without an accident, a much better record than the average human driver. Google is not the only company developing driverless technology. Toyota and Audi are hard at work on their own systems and have recently unveiled new luxury cars at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas that come equipped with radars, cameras and lasers that will help the driver to navigate road lanes, traffic lights and signs, as well as avoiding other cars on the road.

Future Implications

The driverless car revolution is still some years away. Google estimates that it will be another decade or even longer before we see widespread integration of driverless cars on city roads. One thing is for certain, when driverless cars become mainstream, they will bring sweeping changes with them. 

1. We will move into a new era where cars are used more efficiently. According to one study, the average private car sits idle 95% of the time. With driverless car technology, the car would be able to drive itself, increasing its utility and functionality. You could send the car to pick up your children from school or friends from the airport. Additionally, to increase utility, the car could be shared with people in the neighbourhood, similar to a car sharing system like Zipcar or Getaround. However, the more we will utilise our cars, the quicker they will break down and need to be fixed/replaced. 

2. You will be able to save time running errands. During your busy day it can be quite a hassle to go to the grocery store, pick up dry cleaning, and provide routine maintenance for your car. Imagine being able to pre-purchase groceries from your phone and then sending the car to pick them up. No longer will you need to go for routine oil changes every 3000 miles and wait while it gets done, the car will drive itself to the mechanic shop and have itself automatically serviced.

3. Traffic will flow more efficiently, also allowing you to save time. Traffic in the future will be able to flow bumper to bumper while moving at a safe and constant speed. Traffic lights and traffic signs would no longer be necessary as computerised cars communicate with each other and weave through busy intersections. Meanwhile, you can sit back and get work done during your commute home.  

4. Car design will be different. If our future cars don't require a driver, then the design will be altered. We won't need a steering wheel or driving pedals, instead we will need more forms of entertainment and utility in the car. Perhaps your windshield would be a form of Google Glass, allowing you to work on important documents or attend a video conference call. Also, since there would be virtually no accidents (they are mostly all caused by human error), cars could be made from cheaper, lighter materials which would help reduce the costs.

5. Industries would be affected. Taxi drivers, bus drivers, truck drivers and anyone else who earns a living steering and driving automobiles would be out of a job. The taxi and car rental industries would be consolidated into one service. Long distance buses between cities would be cheaper, faster, and more frequent as there would be no need for a driver and traffic would be more efficient. Chartering a bus or mobile home would be easy to do and cost efficient for tourists, who would need less hotel rooms.