Mobility on demand may be facilitated by state-of-the-art technologies for self-driving vehicles.
Self-driving car fleets have the potential to turn transportation into a utility, with customized rides available anywhere, anytime. Public transportation could become a two-layer system: a network of large vehicles (for example, trains, buses) providing backbone transportation for many people over long distances, and fleets of transportation pods providing the customized transportation needs of individuals for short hops. Such a transportation network would be connected to the IT infrastructure and to people to provide mobility on demand. The operation of the backbone could include dynamically changing routes to adapt to people’s needs. Real-time and historical transportation data are already used to determine the most optimal bus routes and location of stops at a fine granularity. Mobility on demand may be facilitated by state-of-the-art technologies for self-driving vehicles. Taking a driverless car for a ride could be as easy as using a smartphone. The robot pods would know when people arrive at a station, where the people are who need a ride now, and where the other robot pods are. After driving people to their destination, the robot pods would drive themselves to the next customer, using demand-matching and coordination algorithms to optimize the operations of the fleet and minimize people’s waiting time. Public transportation would be convenient and customized.