Driverless Landscape

How will driverless cars change our roads and city spaces?

Some scenarios see driverless cars becoming a public utility – for instance, a city could have a constantly circulating fleet that anyone can use. We could also see people renting out their privately-owned cars as service to others while they're at work or home for the evening. Need to get somewhere? Just call up an app, and the nearest available car will make its way to you.

In short, we'll need far fewer cars, and the ones we have will work a lot harder.

Urban planners believe one of the first things to be affected will be motorways and freeways – as these are what our current-generation autonomous cars have had the most practice at navigating. With self-driving cars able to safely travel closer together, motorways should become smaller and less congested.

The average vehicle is parked for around 95 per cent of the time

In urban centres, the biggest impact will be felt in parking. The average vehicle is parked for around 95 per cent of the time. If it could be circulating on the roads, transporting other passengers, then not only would we need fewer cars – but a huge number of parking spaces would become redundant too.

This could be huge. Around half of the average road is taken up by parking space – not to mention all the massive car parks and multi-storeys that could be repurposed into something else.

Our Cities could become up to 25% 'bigger'

By some counts, our cities could become up to 25% 'bigger' - without any increase in land area. What could be done with all this extra space? Planners have put forward a number of different ideas, from new businesses to parks and public areas, but what's certain is that there'll be a lot of it.

Another aspect to this is that parking will no longer be an issue for customers or businesses – so restaurants, shops and entertainment complexes will have much more scope to open up in new places, without worrying about providing parking facilities nearby.

Traffic lights, street signs and road markings might evolve to become more easily readable by a cars' sensors – or disappear completely, to be replaced by local hubs that communicate all information wirelessly.

The UK could have a completely automated fleet by 2050

The driverless future may seem a long way off – but it's definitely coming. In early 2016, the Institute for Mechanical Engineers predicted that the UK could have a completely automated fleet by 2050. As the world prepares for a new era of motoring, our environment will keep evolving in new and exciting ways.

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