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The future of travel

Ian Pearson, June 98

It is often claimed that future telecommunications will remove the need for travel. People will move out to the country, work from home, shop from home and socialise from home. This is obviously too extreme a view. While the network will certainly allow people to do many things from anywhere, most people will still congregate sometimes in cities and will probably always consider physical get-togethers the ideal. When the distance is too far, the cost too high, or even if it's raining outside, people will often use networking alternatives, but often they will actually travel. Interestingly, it has been found that teleworking reduces local commuting travel, but increases longer distance journeys, with hardly any difference in overall distance travelled.

So if people still travel, how will technology affect their trips?

Thanks to the Global Positioning System (GPS), together with corrections available from the mobile networks, it is possible to find where you are to within just a few metres. Even further accuracy is possible in the future. Combining this knowledge with maps and real-time information about traffic flow, a computer in a car can plot the best route from where it is now and its destination. This is obviously a big improvement over just following a set of directions blindly, running into traffic jams, diversions and so on.

In the near future, further enhancements to navigation tools and traffic information systems will be made. It will then be possible for computers to optimise traffic flow through an area by negotiating with the computers in cars and allowing booking of slots on a road for a particular time. Cars on the road can be driven closer together as on board computers maintain the distances between cars, their speeds, and lock together their braking systems to prevent collisions. In this way it is expected to be able to double the capacity of our existing roads, very convenient when it is also expected that the number of cars will double from today's volume. This technology has already been trialled and shown to be feasible.

Traffic can thus be managed according to the policies of the local authorities, who may want to encourage some kinds of trip at the expense of others, perhaps reducing private car commuting to enable more social use to revitalise cities. Such road management systems may be the only way we can control the traffic density on our roads. While they may seem big brotherish, they would probably be fairly unintrusive once we get used to them and certainly preferable to sluggish traffic and frequent stressful jams.

When we want to go to the theatre, we could tell our computer agent. It would suggest plays within reasonable distance that we might like (knowing our tastes), perhaps show us a preview from a previous showing, negotiate ticket prices and arrange their download onto our PDAs. It would book slots on the roads as required, perhaps qualifying for 'preferred guest' status on the local authority road management system, and arrange a parking place nearby. The computer would make sure we are ready on time and then the car would take us to the parking place, by voice instructions at first, ultimately fully automatically.

In the car itself, we will soon see video panels built in to seat backs, allowing entertainment, internet access and video communications while on a journey. As we pass through areas of interest, local tourist information could be shown to us. Passengers could work or relax with full access to the network. Perhaps the car will not start unless the driver is recognised by the iris scan security device. With road tolling becoming commonplace, the car will be able to engage in e-cash transactions. Apart from tolls, car parking fees could be paid, and maybe even parking meters could work this way. Various drive through shops or banks may also use the system.

Air travel will change too. Getting to the airport will of course change like any other car journey, but improved navigation and booking systems may mean that travellers can leave home at the last minute. With computers and identification devices in the car, electronic signatures, e-cash, and so on, check-in and even identity checks could be performed on the way to the airport. Travellers could be bussed from the car park straight to the plane, with no real need for departure lounges or indeed most of the rest of the airport building.

It is unlikely that airport buildings will be decommissioned though, even though strictly only the runway is necessary. The passengers who still spend time there for whatever reason may navigate through with smart tickets. These could be a polymer display with a significant amount of in-built processing. A passenger may speak to the ticket and it may respond with an arrow showing the required direction, or display some more sophisticated information. It could display information on the flight and remind the passenger when it is time to go to the departure gate. Of course the ticket may also contain vouchers, security functions, tracking capability to locate stray passengers and many other functions.

By 2020, planes that carry 1000 passengers over 10000 km at almost 1000km/h will be just coming on the scene. These will be so large that the best shape may well be just a flying wing. The entire body will act as a lifting surface. These planes will need recreation areas on board to keep the passengers happy. We could expect bars, gyms and even jogging circuits, in addition to a cinema and of course a variety of computer based entertainment. Many advanced materials may be used in their construction, from microflaps that improve airflow over the wing, to more lightweight and stronger materials using principles learned from nature. We would have many more safety features on board. Since huge planes would make ideal terrorist targets, we can expect blasts to be confined to small areas by use of strong energy-absorbent materials, limiting overall damage. Medical care on board would be accomplished by a small operating theatre. The doctors may be on the ground, supervising the care from anywhere on the planet. The operations themselves may be carried out by robot surgeons.

These planes will be needed since by then. Firstly, we will have so many friends in other countries that we will want to meet now and then, so we may travel socially over much greater distances. Secondly, we expect that many more people around the worlds will be able to afford to travel. The cost of using them could be less than today in real terms, and their environmental impact may be much less in terms of pollution and noise. We expect that business travel will be significantly displaced by advanced telecomms, but people may always want to meet their friends and family face to face.

Meals in the air could be less of a lottery, as the passenger's agent could have notified the airline at booking time of any preferences, allergies and so on, as well as preferred seating position and other comfort factors. The computer could even go so far as to make sure the people sitting near each other are compatible, even a matchmaking role is possible.

Nightmares about delays in arrival lounges could be avoided by performing the various checks and clearances in mid-air. Passports could be checked of course, but these may well disappear in favour of iris scan identification. An air stewardess could use a portable iris scanner to verify the passengers' identities.

The hassle of cash transactions on board could also be avoided using the same technology, electronically debiting the customer's account as required. A wallet may be buried away in an overhead locker, but the person's eyes are likely to remain conveniently accessible. It would even work in the on-board sauna.

While some business travel will be substituted, some trips will be inevitable. People often will want to top and tail a business relationship by physical meetings. Time in the air need not be wasted, since the same technologies for business meetings and remote working will be accessible using the satellite networks. Executives can continue working all the way as if they were still in the office - if that is what they want.