By Andy McCue, 26 January 2006 16:15
NEWS
The UK's transport infrastructure will be radically changed over the next 50 years by RFID tracking tags, embedded sensors and an artificial intelligence network that will reduce congestion and pollution, according to scientists from the government's Foresight think tank.
The Foresight report looked at four possible transport scenarios for 2056 ranging from a return to an almost tribal agrarian existence, dominated by local communities and little travelling, to Minority Report-style high-tech cities with driverless cars.
At the Minority Report end of the scale the report predicts a "network cloud" that will control traffic flow and speed on roads.
The report said: "In the longer term, artificial control systems, with control algorithms tuned over millions of hours of simulated and real driving, will have the advantage over humans. Eventually we may come to prefer automated rather than human control."
RFID tags, sensors, GPS technology, 4G networks, wi-fi and artificial intelligence will be embedded into vehicles and the transport network to create an "intelligent infrastructure", according to the report. This would inevitably be central to the government's already announced road-user charging strategy.
The report said: "Vehicles will incorporate hundreds of network nodes to manage fuel efficiency, security, passenger monitoring and passenger comfort, as well as inter-vehicle distances and optimal vehicle speeds."
That could spell the end of motorways jammed with heavy goods lorries, with ad-hoc wireless networks using adaptive networking technologies to co-ordinate "flocks of unmanned aerial vehicles for goods transport", according to the Foresight scientists.
The report also looks at how technology could reduce the amount of travelling people need to do - and in particular the increasing use of technology for flexible and home working - and examines how the changing nature of society may cut down the amount of time spent travelling.
But roads minister, Stephen Ladyman, warned that the individual's control over their travel options could be severely restricted because of pressure on fuel resources and environmental and pollution factors.
He said: "Unless we develop new technology it's evident we won't all be able to travel where we want, when we want. In one scenario there would be huge restrictions on where people can travel."
Comments
There are 13 comments. Join the discussion
1. anonymous
Why seek new ways of hashing a system that is incapable of sustaining the current growth. Until people realise that only by ditching their cars and using public transport and bikes will congestion be beaten.
2. Keith Armstrong
Has anyone cxonsidered the railway train?
3. Graham Coles
The govenment are a bunch of idiots. We already know this.
Why am I having flashbacks to Top Gear and the Mercedes demonstration of the driverless braking system that automatically slows your car and prevents it from hitting the one in front. Well, perhaps it only ever worked under lab conditions.
Are we really stupid enough to go for this?
I can see it now, having to read the 200 page software licence agreement indemnifying the manufacturer for any damage, loss of life/limb etc due to failure of the software in piloting the vehicle.
I can see the warning stickers now, ‘this vehicle may not function correctly in the vicinity of mobile phone masts or other sources of electromagnetic radiation’
Marvellous; these people should be retired to a rest home for people with terminally stupid ideas.
4. julian aston
Do you really think the Government is going to give up all that Speed Camera revenue for such an efficient system
5. anonymous
These people really ought to spend some time in software development before they support such crazy ideas.
There would be carnage within days.
6. anonymous
Ten years ago, RFID, wi-fi and 3G were distant future technologies - why do these people think that the technology we know of today will still be around in 50 years time?
We might be teleporting by then. Beam me up, Scottie...
7. Miles Bennet Dyson
it won't affect me as I will be living in a city on the moon, wearing quasi futuristic clothes and having a whole meal in pill form.
Of course what happens when the cars get bored driving us to and from work? I'll tell you what - judgement day and the rise of the machines. You may laugh; it might be driverless cars now, but just wait until you get a cyberdine system t1000 knocking on your door at 3 am. Beleive me saying "I have no idea who sarah conner is" won't help you.
Good god, why does the governement never think these things through properly.
8. anonymous
I seem to recall that the Mercedes test vehicle, RFID equipped crashed into the wall of the indoor display venue because it had a problem with such areas.................
The so called government are ill equipped & seemingly incapable of dealing with IT & technological matters.
They tend to believe every mad nutter who manages to escape from his playpen.............
9. Chris Goodman
Like it or not, the car or what it will evolve into, as an individual transport nodeis here to stay.
The inadequacy of the universally badly designed and inadequate road system is the prime cause of congestion, not helped by prioritised roadways such as bus lanes and roundabout created gridlocks.
Until a public transport system passes EVERY door in EVERY street, picking up and putting down as needed, then it will not be acceptable as an alternative.
With an aging population and the resultant increase of disabled and infirm, the walk to and from a bus stop is not a practical proposition for many.
I feel that a starter should certainly be the identification of the cause of all regularly occurring gridlocks and tailbacks (get the road planners off their backsides and out to see where jams and delays occur) and solve it - or go to work elsewhere!!
For many years the main road from Fareham to Gosport is always at a virtual standstill every evening and the planners have not solved the problem to keep the traffic flowing smoothly.
10. anonymous
Oil companies will be begging us to buy their products by 2025. I've been in the RFID industry for 2 years now and I've learned that the efficiencies with RFID go way beyond exponential. Why are we forced to re-learn the same data everyday when you can have tags teach the d-base rythms and patterns? The world is about to dramatically change over the next 15 years.
11. Dave Lentz
2056 !!!! WHATTA JOKE! If we don't have autonomous vehicles by 2020 (mandated by insurance companies and Big Brother), I'll go lie down in the highway. No imagination whatsoever. 2056 does not even imply a linear rate of progression, let alone the exponential rate we will see. The UK is beginning implementing GPS tracking on all vehicles, and all US vehicles equipped with OnStar already have it. Lexus (and others) are experimenting with collision-avoidance systems for introduction Real Soon Now. Look at the progress in 2 years of the DARPA Grand Challenge, over terrain with no roads and significant driving hazards. Fifty years from now, and this is all they can project? Hahahahaha!
12. anonymous
But what energy source will be available after 2050 to power any kind of cars? None, nor for farm tractors either.
13. D Wilson
Flying cars by 2056 are unlikely. We have had the ability to fly aeroplanes at supersonic speeds for at least 50 years but today there is no commerically available supersonic transport (the only one that used to be available, Concorde, was expensive and now defunct). So why does this think tank expect us to have flying cars in 50 years?
By the way BMW already has "active cruise control" as an option in its 5- and 7-series. When this cruise control is active the system automatically slows the car down when the braking distance between it and the next car is too small, and accelarate when the distance increases.