4 Ways In Which Self-Driving Cars Can Transform Indian Cities

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during his visit to United Arab Emirates (UAE) in August, rode a self-driven car in Masdar, world's first zero-carbon, car-less city. Self-driving cars may hit the roads in a few years. But, the dream of a car-less city does not fit well with the fact that self-driving cars have the potential to transform human culture, our consumption habits and relationships. They will reduce carbon emissions. More importantly, they will allocate real estate in Indian cities more efficiently.

Transportation technologies are one of the key parameters that determine the shape of our cities. Cities, since ancient times, have been all about people living close to each other, interacting with each other, and even trading with each other. Such interactions are furthered more by transportation technologies.

In the past, when people travelled by foot or by vehicle-driven carts, they lived close to each other, near the heart of the city. Counter-intuitive as it may seem to many, such ancient cities were more crowded than modern cities. In those cities, even though the population density was , building density was not. There were no skyscrapers. Cars and means of public transport such as railroads and buses, that allow jobs and residence to be dispersed across long distances did not exist either.

Self-driving car station at Masdar City. (Masdar.ae)

But since the emergence of car, there was no such dominant force that allowed greater and greater mobility. Even though cars have become more efficient, nothing has changed since then, fundamentally. But, the emergence of self-driving cars is a fundamental shift. But, how will self-driving cars change the shape of Indian cities?

• Self-driving cars will be much faster than human-driven cars because they will not be bound by constraints such as the three seconds response time needed to stop a car. They will also be safer because they are not prone to human error or habits that often leads to accidents like drunken driving. This will allow the world to save trillions of dollars every year.

• Self-driving cars can enable car-sharing. Today, near transit stations, people are hesitant to share cars because they need to wait for the cab to pick up other passengers. This is expected to cut trip length in large cities by nearly 40 per cent. This will reduce carbon emissions and cut down the cost of travelling, allowing people to live far away from their offices. Sharing will also reduce road congestion. This will further help save time, money and resources. People will be able to benefit from proximity without living near the city centre. This will raise productivity of Indian cities.

• With self-driving cars, transit stations would not need large parking lots. Currently, parking lots of many transit stations are larger than the transit stations itself. This is so, because people travel in personal automobiles. But, self-driving cars will pick up and drop people without parking anywhere. Parking lots impose greater costs on cities and employers than cars on their owners. By reducing the need for parking space, self-driving cars will free-up real estate.

• Not all can afford chauffeur-driven cars. But, self-driving cars serve the same function of that of chauffeur-driven cars. This will allow people to read, write, think, talk or even work when they are driven to office. As the major costs of traveling include commuting time and money, self-driving cars would take time out of the equation. This will allow firms and residences to be located far from the city, raising the amount of floor space that people consume.