Widespread taxibots would provide todays mobility with 10% of the cars

Self-driving shared vehicles could take 9 out of 10 cars off city streets. Fleets of “TaxiBots” and “AutoVots” can deliver today’s mobility with significantly fewer cars–new study. A fleet of self-driving shared cars could make 90% of conventional cars in mid-sized cities superfluous, according to a study published by the International Transport Forum at the OECD. Even during peak hours, only one third (35%) of the current number of cars would be needed to provide the same number of trips as today. ITF researchers used actual transport data from Lisbon, Portugal, to modal the impact of two concepts: “TaxiBots”, self-driving vehicles shared simultaneously by several passengers (ride sharing)and “AutoVots”, which pick-up and drop-off single passengers sequentially (car sharing). The largest reduction is achieved where a fleet of TaxiBots is complemented by a subway or other high-capacity public transport. But even in the least effective scenario, 50% of cars would no longer be needed (AutoVots without subway)

36 page report, Urban Mobility System Upgrade – How shared self-driving cars could change city traffic

The need for on – street parking spots could be totally removed with a fleet of shared self – driving cars in all scenarios, allowing the reallocation of 1.5 million m² (20% of road space) to other uses . While the number of cars is drastically lower , total kilometers travelled increase . This is due to detours for pick – up s/ drop – off s , repositioning and a shift from bus trips to shared cars. The additional travel could increase environmental impacts, if the fleets use d conventional engines. If a fleet of electric vehicles were used instead, a TaxiBot fleet would need only 2% more vehicles , however, to accommodate battery re – charging times and reduced travel range.

TaxiBot system in combination with high-capacity public transport uses 65% fewer vehicles during peak hours. An AutoVots system without public transport would still remove 23% of the cars used today at peak hours. However, overall vehicle-kilometres travelled during peak periods would increase in comparison to today. For the TaxiBot with high-capacity public transport scenario, this increase is relatively low (9%). For the AutoVot car sharing without high capacity public transport scenario, the increase is significant (103%). While the former remains manageable, the latter would not be.

Reduced parking needs will free up significant public and private space

In all cases examined, self-driving fleets completely remove the need for on-street parking. This is a significant amount of space, equivalent to 210 football fields or nearly 20% of the curb to-curb street space in our model city. Additionally, up to 80% of off-street parking could be removed, generating new opportunities for alternative uses of this valuable space.

Previously Nextbigfuture had analysed reduced car usage with skyscrapers and other technology

There are technologies and policies which can reduce the use and need for automobiles. These would need to be combined with urban design and planning to reduce the usage of automobiles.

The USA has about 809 cars per 1000 people.

There are some modern countries and cities in Asia and Europe with 300-500 cars per 1000 people.

Hong Kong has 77 per 1000 people and Singapore 149 per 1000 people.

Hong Kong and Singapore achieved good wealth per capita and low car usage with a lot of skyscrapers and high rises and high costs to own a car (parking spaces have massive costs in Hong Kong and Singapore has big fees for buying cars).

More skyscrapers could be achieved with lower cost factory mass produced skyscrapers

The Sky City design is a 200 story building that would cost about as much as an 80 story Trump Tower Chicago.
There is a design for a 600 story Sky City. A 600 Story Sky City could hold 250,000 people and have 2000 to 5000 square foot condominiums inside.

Currently the biggest car free areas and populations are in ancient cities like Venice. Generally 80,000 people or less.

There are car-free movements. There is a case for going car free or reducing cars per person to improve the environment.

China’s Broad group built acomplete 57 story skyscraper in record 19 days which means 3 floors in a day. A 57-floor 2-million-square-foot (180,000-square-meter) skyscraper fully built with energy-efficient, factory-produced Lego-like blocks. They are now building these at a record three floors per day.

Cable free magnetic elevators could be built to go between and inside buildings

Operating on the basic premise of a circular system, such as a paternoster, MULTI consists of various cabins running in a loop at a targeted speed of 5 meters per second, enabling passengers to have near-constant access to an elevator cabin every 15 to 30 seconds, with a transfer stop every 50 meters.

Schierenbeck said, “Per year, New York City office workers spend a cumulative amount of 16.6 years waiting for elevators, and 5.9 years in the elevators. This data provides how imperative it is to increase the availability of elevators.”

Increased bicycle usage helps cities reduce car usage

Uber and car sharing can reduce the amount of cars

Self driving cars would boost the trend to Uber

Tesla is providing autopilot for its cars.

SOURCES – Youtube, wikipedia, international transport forum