The Future Of Transportation

One of the things that we have seen wild developments in, in the past couple of decades is transportation. We are the species that a long time back invented the wheel. Today, we have accomplished simply mind blowing things because of that. Cars that could go 300 mph, trains that could annually take up to 1.7 billion passengers at speeds of up to 275 mph, and vehicles that could fly. With what we see the transportation industry doing today, it is pretty common to come up with questions like, “Is this it?”, “Is this the future?”. But really, let us take a look at what the future could be like.

Self Driving Cars

The name very well suggests what the car could do. The self driving car uses a lot of sensors to detect its surroundings and drive itself. This might seem like a magical thing when you hear about it, but our cars have already been doing some of the driving themselves. The anti-lock braking system or the ABS does the brake pumping which prevents the brakes from locking and leading to the car getting into an uncontrollable skid. Earlier, the driver had to do this and had a higher chances of error. A car could reduce engine power if it detects a crash and there is less time to prevent it through braking, and ultimately if the car detects that that the crash cannot be prevented, it prepares the airbags and tightens the seat belts. All that by itself. You can imagine how close we are to driver-less cars. In fact, they are already there, but there are some problems that the technology still faces. For instance, the maps have to be measured down to centimeters for the accurate functioning of the technology and also the cars cannot react at par with the speeds of sudden happenings, like a person appearing out of nowhere on a bike or a child running and accidentally ending up in front of the car. There is even a recorded case of a woman dying because of crashing with a self driving car, while she was walking her bike across the street. But hopefully, we can see these cars on the roads once the technology becomes even better and more robust.

More And More Electric Cars

Electric cars are cars run by electric motors and batteries instead of the common combustion engines and fossil fuels. On knowing this one can make out that these cars do not produce harmful emissions for the environment, which is exactly the thing. But why don’t we still see more electric cars on the roads than the normal combustion engine cars. Electric cars were first produced in the 1880s and gained a lot of popularity back then. But the popularity fell with the production of cheaper gasoline and betterment in the combustion engine. But about a decade back from now, production of electric cars caught some speed due to increasing air pollution and awareness about it and other environmental issues because of emissions from vehicles. Also the technology of the electric cars was improved. But an electric car was still more expensive than most of the combustion engine cars. The Lithium ion batteries are the biggest expense for these cars. But in 2019, the costs of these batteries have drastically dropped from what they once used to be. Electric cars also faced the problem of catching fire really easily on crashing. Manufacturers worked and solved this problem too, they designed voltage systems to automatically stop in case of airbag deployment.

The electric cars are heavier than the conventional cars because of the weight of their batteries. It is a good thing as it provides more stability while driving and also reduces the chances of the car rolling over. With the technology getting better by the day and the increasing environmental concerns, It is pretty safe to say that this technology is going to get cheaper and is going to make its way to more and more roads in the near future.

Maglev Trains and Hyperloop

Magnetic levitation, also known as Maglev, is the technique of suspending an object using magnets, with no support other than the magnetic field. This technique has been dominantly harnessed in trains. Magnetic levitation completely eliminates the train’s contact with the platform over which it runs, what it does is it makes the ride frictionless and thus, faster, quieter and smoother. Though the train still faces drag due to air, limiting its speed to the highest recorded of up to 375 mph. But if the air is eliminated, which can be done by developing vacuum tunnels, the train could go up to 4000 mph, up to almost 10 times more. Yes, that is a jaw dropping speed. What it also means is that if an accident occurs somehow, things are going to be nasty.

Let us now talk about the famous Hyperloop. Hyperloop is nothing but Elon Musk’s Maglev train in a vacuum tunnel, yep the insane speed thing. Though it has got a luringly thrilling speed, there are some drawbacks to it which might make you want to reconsider booking your tickets. Firstly, it is going to be really really really expensive, predictions show that it can reach up to $100 billion to construct the tunnels and they are going to be very difficult to maintain, any leakage no matter how small, is going to lead to fatalities. At this point one might start having second thoughts on whether it is going to be worth it or not. The tunnels are going to be highly vulnerable to earthquakes and other seismic activities, which could again lead to major accidents. The steel tunnels are also predicted to expand due to heat, which again makes it a bad idea. The Hyperloop is also argued to be very vulnerable to terrorism as the tunnels could be easily breached.

Looking at all that, it gets clear that it is not all rainbows and unicorns just yet. Everything except for speed and Elon Musk seem to be against Hyperloop. It might or might not be a good idea. With Elon Musk, we can’t quite say. The man is known to do the seemingly impossible. But, let’s just hope for good and wait for the future.

Flying Taxis

It’s not an uncommon thing to own a car anymore. We also know how densely populated our cities are and we all see how congested our roads are, of course. If you can go on the roads without cursing, congratulations you have attained inner peace. Keeping that in mind there is a concept of flying taxis, and the good thing is, it seems pretty feasible. A flying taxi is going to be a sort of a helicopter or a drone which would run on batteries and carry passengers. Well it seems like a revolutionary idea and the best one among the things we have talked about so far. The idea is simple, practical and does not show much drawbacks. The taxis are going to use electrical motors and batteries, which would make them cheaper, less harmful for the environment and mainly affordable for the people. Right now Uber is acting as the face of the development of flying taxis. Uber claims to test a flying taxi in 2020 and make the idea into reality by 2023. Uber has partnered with NASA for its air traffic control systems, and a lot of aircraft manufacturers to design models for its network. The prototype of the taxi has already been made by the Canadian company “Bell”, and is called “Bell Nexus”.

Conclusion

With so many ideas in the bucket, the future of transportation seems pretty interesting to talk about. Some ideas are wild, some are simple, some are quite impractical some are perfectly practical. I guess it is going to be really staggering to witness these ideas come to reality. One thing that is clear is that the future is fast and it’s coming. Tell me in the comments which of these ideas, you think, is the best.

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