Engineering360: "No More Stopping at Red Lghts"

Today the world has the ability to transport people and freight without the need of humans.

Many of our Military aircraft have been retrofitted with instrumentation which transforms planes and helicopters to near fully autonomous craft. The majority of aircraft today are equipped with computers capable of landing airplanes without human control especially during times of limited visibility. Most of the worlds passenger planes are also being equipped with devices that communicate with each other providing information about their location, altitude, speed, and direction. This information is used to help pilots avoid in air collisions can easily be used to allow the fitting of aircraft to travel autonomously without human control.

Google and other companies along with government have mapped nearly every known inch of the planet we call home. With a few strokes of destination entry, a map with the least time route appears on our cellular phones and many of our vehicles.

We are also building automobiles with equipment similar to what is installed in aircraft. Many of today's cars can, without a major redesign, easily be converted to fully autonomous. Only a destination needs to be provided for those autos to safely carry passengers without a person behind the wheel. In summary, the world is already at the point where autonomous travel is possible with little modification to vehicles we have now. The only thing people will need to know is where they are going, when they want to arrive, the amount room required for travel, and a time when they must be ready to begin their trip.

Waiting for mankind to accept the reality of how advanced we are is our biggest obstacle. When people accept what is already understood and the government allows these specialized vehicles on our land, air and seas the technology will advance further and more rapidly than it is today. This enhanced move toward a more intelligent autonomy will offer more advanced planning, safety, and navigation. In short, we are waiting on mankind to give the government the green light to set the guidelines and change the laws to make these things available.

When I look ahead I see no need for humans driving any vehicle on our roadways, seas, or airways. We will realize a massive improvement in safety resulting from the removal of humans inherent error of judgment. In the beginning, humans will serve on conveyances as a backup to the new and redundant automation systems only as a precautionary measure while the population acclimates to our new autonomous world. Not long after this, the need for human intervention of all kinds will be entirely eliminated. Much of the cost of developing and installing devices to accommodate our autonomy will be largely recovered from savings realized by removing humans from the operation of our conveyances.

Once we take advantage of our present-day capabilities the world will begin a phase where personal ownership of transportation will begin a more rapid advance to shared transportation vehicles. They will carry everything from people to retail goods. The overly tired long haul drivers will no longer unsafely be on our roads. Drunk driving will be a thing of the past and a vehicle needed for an emergency can be any vehicle as it takes precedence over all other traffic without the need for wailing sirens. Shared vehicles will be used to carry one person or several people to the same destination or multiples which are near others much like ride sharing today. Nearly 100% of our traffic signals and signs will be removed leaving our country less littered along all the transportation byways. Predicting arrival times will be simpler than ever before.

The time when we can forget the road rage and instead settle back relaxing to a good movie or using the extra time to get work done allowing an early finish our day job can lead to more family time. Roadways will start to be eliminated reducing noise, congestion, and pollution once our travel shifts to small airborne methods of intercity and town to town travel.

We have a great new world in our very near future, a world that will begin a return to many of the creations of nature than those of men. All of this because we accepted our knowledge and skills to develop and produce automated transportation of the future.