This is the transport of tomorrow

Flying vehicles, supersonic trains, cars without driver ... The leaders of the main technologies already design the new generation of public transport

   Autonomous driving and vehicles powered by clean energy sources. In these two pillars will be based the means of transport of the future. The reason? The forecasts on the mobility of the population force to find transport systems that are sustainable. According to the United Nations (UN), in 2050 70% of the planet's inhabitants will live in urban centers. The great ally in this race is technology. It is the key to continue growing without exhausting the available natural resources or causing chaos.

  The United States, together with Japan, leads the rest of the countries in the expansion of smart cities. This year, the Department of Transportation of the Obama Administration has allocated 165 million dollars for the development of technologies of 'smart cities'. Of these, 100 million are destined to promote advanced transportation technologies in cities such as Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Houston, Los Angeles, Buffalo and Marysville.

Greater autonomy

"Mobility is complicated, complex infrastructures and the fact of using mostly technologies that do not require a driver in 2020 is probably beyond our reach," explains Pat Elizondo, Senior Vice President of Global Marketing and Sales in the Public Sector Division of Xerox. leading company in the market of intelligent transport systems.

However, a study by Xerox states that two out of ten citizens surveyed believe that they will travel through the cities with an autonomous car. Precisely, the United States is the test bench for this type of vehicle. However, the most optimistic engineers point to 2021 as the closest date to see these vehicles traveling the highways. At least this is the bet of Ford, Uber and BMW, but they also join the big technological test bank like Google and Tesla.

One of the main pitfalls for these vehicles to roll is still bureaucracy, although their engineers have found in Barack Obama a great ally. "We are not talking about the latest gadget or application, we are talking about improving the lives of people," he commented this month in an interview with the 'Pittsburgh Post-Gazette'.

Safety issue

The International Association for Highway Safety has estimated that more than 37,000 people die each year in traffic accidents in the United States. In Spain, the first major test of an autonomous car has already taken place. Last year, a Citroën vehicle toured the nearly 600 kilometers that separate Vigo from Madrid without a driver at the wheel . With a system of radars and cameras, which report the speed and obstacles on the road, the Citroën Grand C4 Picasso reached the Spanish capital.

Aerotaxis by Uber
the bet of the visionaries

The project not only consists of an air transport system, but also incorporates the advances found in the development of its autonomous car. However, it is not the first time that you hear people talking outside the science fiction of flying taxis. Airbus works so that in 2017 they can fly their Skyborne car inside the Vahana Project. The European aeronautical plans are for 2030, far from the dream of Uber.

The famous Japanese Bala Train has a potential competitor, Elon Musk's Hyperloop. The dream of the creator of Tesla cars is getting closer and closer to becoming reality. Traveling at more than 1,300 kilometers per hour seems like science fiction, but thanks to an aluminum capsule with a capacity for 30 passengers, it tries to make it tangible. With a propulsion system, the engineers of Elon Musk, try to develop a system of electromagnets that makes float in a tube the Hyperloop capsule. Completely eliminating friction, this system expects to reach vertigo speeds.

Google, Uber, Tesla and all the major brands of car manufacturers are already working on the car of tomorrow. The first tests with these vehicles are already a reality and not so far. Last 2015, Citroën tested its autonomous device between Vigo and Madrid. A race that has the support of Barak Obama, but that the different administrations still turn a deaf ear to the requests of the sector. The technology is already on the asphalt and behind the governments that do not know how to control these vehicles equipped with cameras and sensors of the latest generation.

The lane on the left has been taken by Uber, who has overtaken its competitors. The collaborative transport company has already deployed in Pittsburgh (United States) the first fleet of fully autonomous vehicles to meet the needs of its customers. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, Japan's Toyota has set out to invest $ 1 billion in artificial intelligence for the next five years and works to equip the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games with autonomous vehicles.

In spite of the shadows that glide on this type of vehicles, like the accidents of the Google Car and of the Model S of Tesla, the experts predict that the main advantage that they will bring is the improvement of the traffic. Spaniards lose an average of 18 hours in traffic jams, with Barcelona residents being the first with 28 hours between congestion and congestion, according to data from the 2015 Annual Traffic Measurement Report published by INRIX collected by Eurostat.

By countries, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany dominate the classification of the biggest traffic jams in Europe. However, the first position in long lines of stopped cars is occupied by China. That is why they have decided to combat congestion by 'jumping' traffic.

Last August, the city of Qinhuangdao, northwest China, opened the first elevated bus in the country. The vehicle measures 22 meters in length, 4.8 in height and 7.8 in width, and has the capacity to transport 300 passengers. The almost eight meters of height allow the TEB-1 to avoid the dense traffic of the Asian giant. This 'high' technology has been studied in China for years, and this first vehicle is not yet fully prepared for it, as it has serious difficulties in turning on curves. Looking at the sky or, as the recently awarded winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature Bob Dylan sings, "the friend's answer is in the wind".

That's what skyTran's parents and the founders of Uber, Garrett Camp and Travis Kalanick thought. In the heart of the NASA offices in Mountain View (United States) and after several years of research, skyTran is born, a "fast and high-tech solution to revolutionize the transport system", explain the creators on its website. SkyTran's network is a low-cost, high-speed system controlled by a computer that uses magnetic levitation to move around. "SkyTran has access to a wide range of cutting-edge technologies and capabilities and is able to combine NASA's experience, assets and information with its own core competencies," they added. For its part, Uber is working so that by 2020 its aerotaxis will fly over the big capitals, a project that would also incorporate the advances found in the development of its autonomous car. However, it is not the first time that you hear people talking outside the science fiction of flying taxis.

'Green' buses

While all these new technologies land or disembark in Europe, the Old Continent is inclined towards ecological transport. Fossil fuels give way to electricity, which increasingly takes over public means of transport.

Paris has since the summer with the first autonomous bus and 100% electric of the neighboring country. With capacity for 12 passengers, the small vehicle already covers the banks of the Seine at about 25 kilometers per hour, although at a high price for the Gallic Administration. Each unit costs $ 215,000.

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