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Beyond Autonomous Vehicles

Read More: http://urbanangle.net/beyond-autonomous-vehicles/

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The most forward thinkers are already looking beyond autonomous vehicles to the next disruptive revolution in mobility: autonomous pedestrians.

- Technically defined as autonomous Platforms for Extended Distribution (or PEDs for short), current generation autonomous pedestrian technology is already displaying incredible capabilities in navigating and engaging a wide range of physical environments.

- Autonomous PED modules are highly efficient and cost effective. Powered by renewable biofuels, autonomous PED modules produce far less greenhouse gases than traditional fossil-fuel powered vehicles. Autonomous pedestrians even compete favorably with electric vehicles, which require external sources of electricity.

- With a compact shape, light weight, and efficient organic machine propulsion, autonomous pedestrians provide a revolutionary low-impact transport method that frees up vast economic resources devoted to traditional transportation costs while simultaneously promoting long term environmental health and sustainability.

- While traditional automobiles and autonomous vehicles both incur wear and tear over time, the range, speed, and durability of autonomous pedestrians increase in a relationship directly proportional to their use. The more autonomous PED networks are employed, the better they work, and the further they can travel.

- Unfortunately, our traditional transportation networks are designed to be highly static, with generational time horizons, high cost, and highly inefficient use of physical space and resources. Part of the genius of autonomous pedestrian technology is that it disrupts these traditional transportation paradigms, enabling a more flexible, capable, and affordable approach to mobility.

- These networks can be constructed and operated as a parallel overlay to the streets that serve the autonomous automobile platform. These parallel connections are sometimes described as side Waypoints for Applied Local Kinetics, or sideWALKs for short. Years of research and beta testing have identified highly successful approaches to interface sideWALKs with other mobility networks.

- Forward-thinking communities have great potential to de-monopolize obsolete automobile vehicle movement as the dominant priority for streets, public spaces, and other shared infrastructure. By taking a more integrated and multi-function approach, smart cities can nourish nascent autonomous pedestrian technology, and simultaneously reap economic, social, and environmental benefits.

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