Proposed solution to the density problem in intra-city personal transportation
Defining the problem:
The higher density of people in cities proposes a barrier to human transportation; if everyone drives their own car, the negative effect of congestion would far outweigh the convenience of being transported from exactly point A to point B. Unless we decide that everyone is only allowed to move around the city in staggered time intervals (eg. 10% of the population goes to work/school at 7 am, then another 10% at 8 am, etc.), this is a problem worth finding a solution to.
Current advancements in technology and where they fail to address the problem:
Sustainable transportation such as the electric vehicle and its eventually sustainable energy sources will solve the problem of hydrocarbon-based pollution in cities, but does not address the density problem if everyone still drives their own vehicle.
The “sharing” model of transportation proliferated by Uber, Lyft, and other car-sharing or ride-sharing services is able to shift people away from vehicle ownership, but still does not address the density problem because everyone is being driven by their own vehicle unless they use an aggregate service such as UberPool. As long as the supply is higher than the demand (which has to be the case for these services to function), and the drivers waiting for them are not parked in a lot and are circling the city, there will actually be more cars on the road, which makes the density problem worse. Uber does an amazing job at reducing the total number of cars in the city, but not the amount of cars on the road at any given time.
Mass transportation is the only service that decreases the amount of cars on the road in total and at any given time. Combined with an electric drivetrain, this solution does all but one thing; transport a person from point exactly A to point B. A person still has to get to the bus stop, occasionally transfer (get off that bus and wait for another one), arrive at a bus stop, and walk themselves to their exact final destination. You may have to transfer multiple times and get on various modalities (streetcar, train, subway) and pay various fees but the same limitation holds true. In well designed cities, with frequent scheduled arrivals and well-distributed populations this system can work quite harmoniously, and for the most part this has been the best solution to the density problem.
All but one thing:
It seems to me there is an alternative to all of the existing solutions that has yet to be explored, that solves the problem of getting from point A to point B. The enabling technology: autonomous vehicles. Specifically, synchronized autonomous vehicles in a geo-digital framework.
Let’s compare the various levels of transportation to understand why cars are becoming autonomous.
Method of Transportation:
- Rocketship
2. Boat
3. Airplane
4. Train
5. Car
6. Hyperloop
Most-Used Effective Distance:
- Surface of earth → Orbit, Other planets (400+ km)
2. Via water passage (1–500+ km)
3. Via air passage (500+ km)
4. Via rail routes only (1–500+ km)
5. Via land passage (1–500 km)
6. Via near-vacuum tube (likely 200–800 km)
I’ve purposely kept this simple to allow for easier visualization. You can fragment these categories further yourself (eg. “Car” could be “motorized land vehicle with personal and sub-mass transportation use potential” so you can separate it from busses and motorbikes and acknowledge that it can transport just you, or you and your friends). The distances are just the most-frequently travelled in daily life, and this does vary across geo-political locations.
So why cars? If you look at the vehicles that transport humans longer distances, they are already mostly automated. This may not seem obvious because it’s ingrained in their design. A train stays entirely on its tracks, a plane glides with little adjustment necessary except for take-off and landing, and a rocketship better have accurately calculated its thrusters before launch otherwise we’re in trouble. Cars are not confined to any particular road, and require constant changes in acceleration and direction, and attention to other users of the road when driving in the city. There is a lot left to automate in that scenario, so it’s no wonder that cars are becoming “autonomous on highways only” before they become “autonomous on all roads”.
Here is the thing about my proposed solution; it is not possible unless cars become entirely autonomous. This is what is meant by “leveraging an enabling technology”.
I wish I didn’t have to rip off Apple, but the best name I can think of for this is a “pod”. I would imagine most people think of something closer to what I’m proposing when they think of the word “pod” anyway.
I-Pod, U-Pod, We-Pod:
You can call it whatever you like. Pods are single-person autonomous electric vehicles that can carry an individual adult and their belongings anywhere a traditional car can. The pod can either be 3-wheeled or 4-wheeled and takes up the space of half of a lane of traffic. Otherwise, it is much like a typical car — it has windows and a roof, but with only a single door. It is temperature-control enabled and has a sound system and screen display. On the outer side of the doors window is a display that presents a code which indicates it is assigned to you (or your name if privacy is less of a concern to you). You will have been notified prior to its arrival so you head outside before it arrives. If you do not enter within a minute of the pod arriving at your pickup spot (to give you time to locate it in busier areas), your assigned code will disappear, and the pod will either be reassigned to someone else who needs it at that location or will drive away to get its next passenger.
You can summon a pod the same way you summon an Uber car, except that you are required, not just suggested, to enter your destination when you summon the pod. The pod and your phone/wearable device know when you’ve entered and leave the pod to ensure that you are charged appropriately.
The pods operate on top of a geo-digital map (essentially google maps or uber’s map system) with each road being its own route. This is most easily conceptualized in cities that follow a grid structure for roads but it would not be much more difficult for oddly-shaped city maps. As the pods traverse the city, a decision is made at each intersection to turn (dispatch onto another route) or keep going straight depending on immediate traffic and direction of the destination. In this way, routing depends not on what is best for you (the model of current GPS applications) but what is best for the entire system. This synchronization is how congestion can be managed during periods of high volume.
Aside from the convenience of taking you from point A to B, the ability to adjust to demand volatility is the other major advantage of the pod system. It would be more resource-efficient than even mass transportation in this aspect. Think of the bus or train system in your city. It is likely that busses come at moderate frequency during 7 am — 5 pm, high frequency from 7 am — 9 am and 4 pm — 6 pm, and low frequency for the rest of the evening, and then not at all for the rest of the night. Even though systems designers do their best with the resources they have, you notice that busses running at 8 am are still overflowing with people, and that busses running at 8 pm have a mere 7 people making use of a 30-person capacity, one-size-fits-all bus. Uber has attempted to solve the demand-volatility problem by making use of surcharges to entice the supply side of the equation. It’s no surprise that people do not consistently use Uber for their daily commutes. The inefficient bus system is at least capable of coming at the same time every day (well…almost) for a uniform cost. Many governments subsidize the cost of a mass transportation fare for this reason.
Ideally, a city would have small fleets of pods parked at various garages around the city limits. The larger the city, the larger the number of fleets (not the fleet size itself) would have to be. They would be summoned in increasing numbers as demand picks up and park themselves as demand wanes. The multiple fleets are advantageous for another reason; their garages can house chargers for pods.
There are various designs to consider for the pods themselves. This proposal highlights just one. If the pods take up half of a lane, it may be possible to manage, without causing a delay in the flow of traffic, the fact that pods will constantly be pulling over to the side of the road for up to one minute at a time. Another pod could circumvent the parked pod while slowing down only slightly. Other vehicles on the road would need to transfer lanes to do this.
Of course, this means that people would not be able to travel together in the traditional sense. There are other designs to consider that could allow this; the 2- and 3-person standard pod, the 2-person retro-view pod that allows people to face one another. Pods greater than 3 people in length would likely not be able to manage the acute turns required in most cities. An alternative would be to have a 4- or 5-person pod that would occupy the same width as a traditional car.
This last point illustrates the importance of a human-centric design. While these ideas suggest that we should re-think what mass-transportation means within a city, there is a much more human element that a network of pods would fail to capture. Mass-transportation encourages random encounters between people, and much of this communication lies in the subconscious. Our eyes and body language speak volumes about a side of ourselves even we may not even be aware of. We will continue to need each other to learn, build and grow. It is part of what has drawn the majority of mankind to urban centres as of this past decade.
On that note, it was never the intent of this piece to suggest that pods should replace all other methods of transportation outright. If this is the conclusion you have come to, I’m afraid you’ve arrived at it on your own. It is probable that in some ultra-high density corridors that LRT/BRT are the more appropriate choice. For shorter distances, it is advisable that people cycle or walk as often as they can. It is even arguable that transporting people from point A to B will limit the little exercise that they do get from having to walk to and from the bus stop.
It is my hope that the pod system can offer cities an alternative that helps to solve their pollution, congestion, transportation demand-volatility, and density problems in a way that puts the needs of its people first. The city is naught but its people, the tall glass buildings are just symptoms. Perhaps it is time that we stopped marginalizing some of those people just because they do not subscribe to the fabricated idea that owning and operating a car equates to freedom. Freedom is defined only by the limits of the world we build for ourselves. When you come to terms with that fact, it becomes clear that those who influenced the building of our infrastructure since the advent of the automobile did so without considering the freedom of anyone but themselves.
But I would rather contribute to a solution than point the finger at those who are to blame. Otherwise we may find ourselves lost in a house of mirrors.
I came up with the pod idea and wrote this piece in a matter of hours, but have been thinking about people, urban planning, technology and startups for much longer. This is clearly a work in progress — if you have constructive feedback to contribute, here is my email: biraca@mcmaster.ca . I think pictures (hand-drawn or digital) would help bring these ideas to life. If this piece can be of help to someone you know, forward it to them. I don’t care if you include my name, or give me credit for the ideas. They don’t belong to me, or anyone else for that matter.