HS2 is already obsolete, David Cameron should be preparing the UK for self-driving cars
Anybody who still believes high-speed rail is the answer to our transport problems, rather than an unaffordably grandiose throwback to a bygone era, needs to take a trip to Silicon Valley.
Image 1 of 2
Google's vehicles have already driven more than 400,000 miles without an accident and are beginning to be legalised in US states Photo: Reuters
By Allister Heath
4:08PM BST 30 Apr 2013
275 Comments
Some of the world’s cleverest scientists and engineers, including those at Google, are pioneering a new generation of driverless cars that will change our lives as much as the internet has already done.
David Cameron likes to think that he is making Britain more like California but his embrace of the £35bn taxpayer-financed HS2 project linking London to the Midlands and the North is, in fact, shockingly outdated, making him sound more like a French bureaucrat desperate to build monuments to himself than an enabler of US-style disruptive entrepreneurship.
The idea of self-driving vehicles will sound like science-fiction to many, barmy even, but the prototypes already work, using 360-degree sensors, lasers, learning algorithms and GPS to navigate streets in an astonishingly precise fashion.
They are likely to go mainstream in 15 to 20 years’ time and are a genuinely exciting, game-changing breakthrough that refute the myth that our economy has ceased to spawn major technological innovations.
Google’s vehicles have already driven more than 400,000 miles without an accident and are beginning to be legalised in US states. They will trigger a burst of economic growth, transform transport around the world, including in Britain, free vast amounts of time, increase productivity, make us a lot wealthier and unleash drastic, unpredictable economic and cultural changes. By allowing people to relax or work as they commute, they will deal a devastating blow to public transport in all but the densest, most congested areas.
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What Google's self-driving car sees as it makes a left turn
The biggest US think-tanks, universities, forecasters and corporations are busily trying to work out how, not if, the world will change as a result of driverless cars, and who the winners and losers will be. Closer to home, Paul Newman of Oxford University, is developing a rival system, using 3D lasers, which he has already tested at up to 40mph and could be installed cheaply on existing cars.
It is astonishing, therefore, that nobody in the UK Government seems to be thinking seriously about the vast implications of this next phase of the technology revolution, including how to redesign cities, preferring to obsess instead about a rail scheme that will be obsolete before it is even completed.
Driverless cars will have huge advantages. Commuting will become useful, productive time, saving many people two or more hours a day that are currently wasted. The number of accidents will fall by at least 90pc, scientists believe, preventing thousands of deaths, by controlling distances between vehicles, braking automatically and eliminating human errors and reckless driving. The superior safety of driverless cars means that it ought to be possible to reduce their weight, cutting back on fuel consumption, and to redesign car shapes, making them more like living rooms. Even car sickness could be reduced, with smoother driving.
A new generation of vehicles will liberate young people, the sick and other groups that cannot drive, affording them immediate mobility. The dynamics of commuting will change as it will no longer be necessary to find a parking space on arrival: the driverless car could either park itself at some distance from the workplace or even return home, before picking up the passenger in the evening. Fewer people may want to own cars, with rental becoming more attractive. This could allow residential parking areas to be put to other uses.
The look and feel of roads and towns will drastically change. As a report from KPMG, the accountancy giant, puts it, today’s roads are designed for human drivers and their erratic behaviour, requiring wide lanes, guard-rails, stop signs, wide shoulders and other features that self-driving vehicles wouldn’t need.
It will be possible to cram in far more cars into existing roads, driving at much faster speeds. Simulations of intelligently controlled intersections from the University of Texas suggest that they perform 200 to 300 times better than current traffic signals. Self-driving vehicles will have the ability to “platoon”, acting almost like train carriages on motorways, increasing lane capacity by up to 500pc, according to research from the US Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
Far more people will travel at night, sleeping at the same time, especially for longer trips such as holidays, reducing the demand for train and short-haul plane journeys.
Driverless cars will once again boost the value of suburbs and country living, and their house prices: far more people will be willing to commute much longer distances to work or school. This will encourage cities to become even more sprawling, putting massive pressure on existing planning rules. The premium on living centrally will be reduced, albeit not eliminated because of congestion, which means there will still be a need for some urban rail services.
The transition process will inevitably be painful. Like all technological shifts, self-driving vehicles will threaten some existing jobs, including that of many professional drivers, though consumers will have more money to spend on other things, creating employment in those areas.
Self-driving cars will lead to an explosion in the number of vehicles and more efficient use of the existing road network is unlikely to be enough, with mass road-building required. It will be vital to shift as much of the burden on to the private sector as possible.
It is unclear whether existing car makers will master the technology or whether new entrants will dominate the market. If the latter, Britain’s car industry – one of our few manufacturing success stories – could be wiped out unless UK firms are able to become pioneers in this automotive revolution. That will require the Government getting out of the way and making sure that appropriate accident liability rules are put in place that don’t discourage trial and error. Closer co-operation between universities and business would also be essential.
In 20 years’ time, the demand will be for far more car journeys and more roads, reversing the trend of the past decade and the recent resurgence of the railways. We will be entering a new golden age for car travel. By then, Cameron’s HS2, due in 2032, will be just another useless white elephant – a tragic reminder, as if any more were needed, of just how bad Britain’s ossified government is at anticipating the trends of the future.
Anybody who still believes high-speed rail is the answer to our transport problems, rather than an unaffordably grandiose throwback to a bygone era, needs to take a trip to Silicon Valley.
Image 1 of 2
Google's vehicles have already driven more than 400,000 miles without an accident and are beginning to be legalised in US states Photo: Reuters
By Allister Heath
4:08PM BST 30 Apr 2013
Some of the world’s cleverest scientists and engineers, including those at Google, are pioneering a new generation of driverless cars that will change our lives as much as the internet has already done.
David Cameron likes to think that he is making Britain more like California but his embrace of the £35bn taxpayer-financed HS2 project linking London to the Midlands and the North is, in fact, shockingly outdated, making him sound more like a French bureaucrat desperate to build monuments to himself than an enabler of US-style disruptive entrepreneurship.
The idea of self-driving vehicles will sound like science-fiction to many, barmy even, but the prototypes already work, using 360-degree sensors, lasers, learning algorithms and GPS to navigate streets in an astonishingly precise fashion.
They are likely to go mainstream in 15 to 20 years’ time and are a genuinely exciting, game-changing breakthrough that refute the myth that our economy has ceased to spawn major technological innovations.
Google’s vehicles have already driven more than 400,000 miles without an accident and are beginning to be legalised in US states. They will trigger a burst of economic growth, transform transport around the world, including in Britain, free vast amounts of time, increase productivity, make us a lot wealthier and unleash drastic, unpredictable economic and cultural changes. By allowing people to relax or work as they commute, they will deal a devastating blow to public transport in all but the densest, most congested areas.
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24 Apr 2013
What Google's self-driving car sees as it makes a left turn
The biggest US think-tanks, universities, forecasters and corporations are busily trying to work out how, not if, the world will change as a result of driverless cars, and who the winners and losers will be. Closer to home, Paul Newman of Oxford University, is developing a rival system, using 3D lasers, which he has already tested at up to 40mph and could be installed cheaply on existing cars.
It is astonishing, therefore, that nobody in the UK Government seems to be thinking seriously about the vast implications of this next phase of the technology revolution, including how to redesign cities, preferring to obsess instead about a rail scheme that will be obsolete before it is even completed.
Driverless cars will have huge advantages. Commuting will become useful, productive time, saving many people two or more hours a day that are currently wasted. The number of accidents will fall by at least 90pc, scientists believe, preventing thousands of deaths, by controlling distances between vehicles, braking automatically and eliminating human errors and reckless driving. The superior safety of driverless cars means that it ought to be possible to reduce their weight, cutting back on fuel consumption, and to redesign car shapes, making them more like living rooms. Even car sickness could be reduced, with smoother driving.
A new generation of vehicles will liberate young people, the sick and other groups that cannot drive, affording them immediate mobility. The dynamics of commuting will change as it will no longer be necessary to find a parking space on arrival: the driverless car could either park itself at some distance from the workplace or even return home, before picking up the passenger in the evening. Fewer people may want to own cars, with rental becoming more attractive. This could allow residential parking areas to be put to other uses.
The look and feel of roads and towns will drastically change. As a report from KPMG, the accountancy giant, puts it, today’s roads are designed for human drivers and their erratic behaviour, requiring wide lanes, guard-rails, stop signs, wide shoulders and other features that self-driving vehicles wouldn’t need.
It will be possible to cram in far more cars into existing roads, driving at much faster speeds. Simulations of intelligently controlled intersections from the University of Texas suggest that they perform 200 to 300 times better than current traffic signals. Self-driving vehicles will have the ability to “platoon”, acting almost like train carriages on motorways, increasing lane capacity by up to 500pc, according to research from the US Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
Far more people will travel at night, sleeping at the same time, especially for longer trips such as holidays, reducing the demand for train and short-haul plane journeys.
Driverless cars will once again boost the value of suburbs and country living, and their house prices: far more people will be willing to commute much longer distances to work or school. This will encourage cities to become even more sprawling, putting massive pressure on existing planning rules. The premium on living centrally will be reduced, albeit not eliminated because of congestion, which means there will still be a need for some urban rail services.
The transition process will inevitably be painful. Like all technological shifts, self-driving vehicles will threaten some existing jobs, including that of many professional drivers, though consumers will have more money to spend on other things, creating employment in those areas.
Self-driving cars will lead to an explosion in the number of vehicles and more efficient use of the existing road network is unlikely to be enough, with mass road-building required. It will be vital to shift as much of the burden on to the private sector as possible.
It is unclear whether existing car makers will master the technology or whether new entrants will dominate the market. If the latter, Britain’s car industry – one of our few manufacturing success stories – could be wiped out unless UK firms are able to become pioneers in this automotive revolution. That will require the Government getting out of the way and making sure that appropriate accident liability rules are put in place that don’t discourage trial and error. Closer co-operation between universities and business would also be essential.
In 20 years’ time, the demand will be for far more car journeys and more roads, reversing the trend of the past decade and the recent resurgence of the railways. We will be entering a new golden age for car travel. By then, Cameron’s HS2, due in 2032, will be just another useless white elephant – a tragic reminder, as if any more were needed, of just how bad Britain’s ossified government is at anticipating the trends of the future.
