2017 SEMINAR SERIES PROJECTION 2037
Coordinators: Prof. Anjali Mittal Prof. Rajiv Bhakat Prof. Abhishek Bhij
CONNECTED AND AUTONOMOUS Panels and Installations Research and work by: AV Dipen Kumar Kunal Humagai Saket Prakash Alvira Shrestha Mohammed Saifiz Shubham Singh
Come 2037, the culture of ownership will have changed dramatically and people will simply not buy the way they do today. Products will have evolved into services, and this shall reflect in the mobility sector as well. This sharing economy will be enabled by the Internet of Things giving rise to a transportation internet, where every individual will own a ride rather than a vehicle, among other developments with respect to mobility and daily commute. This seminar aims to uncover and account for the effect of such developments on the built form, where shared value is the key deciding factor. How does the Internet of Things of transportation affect built form in a scenario where products evolve into services? WORKING OF 2037: PROJECTION – EVOLUTION OF PRODUCTS INTO SERVICES Although the extreme scenario of a person owning nothing seems to be fictitious at best, yet the scenario of a person having access to services without ownership looks like a reality by 2037. Using mega-trends (EY, McKinsey, Frost and Sullivan, Quantumrun projections) as a source to project 2037 based on current analysis, it is essential to notice an increased demand for service-based organizations. Simply put, customers are changing the way they acquire technology, mainly focusing on individual services a product provides rather than the product itself. In short, everything that was considered a product, will eventually become a service. This will open doors for people to utilize their liability as an asset through incentivisation, which will in turn speed up the move towards a circular economy rather than the current system of a linear economy. DEVELOPMENT IN TRANSPORTATION Transport when seen in its basic form, deals with movement from one point to another. Thus, the primary intent is to reach the destination, and the act of transportation itself becomes a secondary and more importantly, a derived need. Therefore, ownership will no longer be a primary need, but rather a liability when one considers factors like time and financial investment throughout the time of ownership. Considering that a vehicle can also be constituted as a mass-produced industrial product, the fact that there will be no ownership associated with it implies a change in the way transportation is handled by individuals from a social and economic viewpoint. Due to the increasing role of AI and Internet of Things within various sectors, there is going to be a development known as the ‘Transportation Internet’ or “Connected Transport”. But what is connected transport? Quite simply, connected transportation
involves outfitting vehicles with Wi-Fi or other sensors to enable Internet connectivity during travel. With driverless buses and cars all the rage at the moment, there are plenty of signs to suggest that this is well underway in becoming a smooth success by 2037. Uber has latched onto the idea of driverless cars to eliminate the cost of their drivers’ salary (which accounts for 75% of what you pay when you call an Uber) when offering transportation services. With more competition with other companies, ridesharing will become affordable and thus, the norm. In a driverless world, corporations will never again be constrained by labour shortages and operating demands shall be easier to satisfy. Furthermore, businesses can expect to become increasingly dynamic and have faster and uninterrupted operation cycles. Also, with the deadly and financial costs of human error noticeably diminishing, if not permanently removed, it is justifiable that the integration of driverless tech substantially changes the equation of the world’s logistics system. Added costs, fear of use, lack of experience, emotional attachment—these factors just won’t be shared by profit-hungry corporations. For that reason, we may see driverless trucks and planes become the norm on highways and skies far earlier than we see driverless cars cruising around urban streets. Post 2037, the arrival of fully automated navigation systems for ground-based vehicles will set the stage for fully automated navigation systems for flying vehicles (or more accurately passenger drones). However, the catch isn’t the projection of driverless or electric cars, because the finance associated with suggests that not everyone would be able to afford it. It is the implementation of such technologies w.r.t IoT.
HOW DOES THE TRANSPORTATION INTERNET AFFECT DAILY MOBILITY Emergence of ride owning, not car owning; IoT as the enabler Taking precedence from countries like Switzerland, UK and Bhutan imposing taxes and setting standards for fossil fuel driven vehicles, owning of personal vehicles itself will be phased out. Hence the idea of ride sharing becomes more prominent than ride owning. Anthony Eskinazi, CEO of JustPark, which helps users rent out their empty driveways, said: “Participation in the sharing economy shows no signs of slowing, and it’s easy to see why – it offers consumers cheaper, more flexible alternatives to traditional business models, while providing an opportunity to generate income from underused assets.” Paris, for example, launched an electric-car sharing program called Autolib in 2011 that can reserve public parking spaces in the city. Programs such as this make use of connected vehicles to gather valuable data on how drivers operate their cars and where they travel, and smart cities use this data to better plan their roads. By extension, people can find underused parking spaces helping the commuters to find a better deal on their parking, while in a way allowing property owners to maximise the value of their spare land. Even though there will be a shift from fuel driven cars to electric driven, owning an electric car shall be costlier than owning conventional fuel driven ones. Hence, governments and the vehicle manufacture sector shall come up with different business models that will aid leasing of vehicles for a period of time depending on different needs and demands.
Future of public transport: A case for the emergence of a transit-based pricing system, demand based routing and personal rapid transit Many cities have already begun smart transportation initiatives to optimize their public transportation routes, create safer roads, reduce infrastructure costs, and alleviate traffic congestion as more people move into cities. Since driverless buses or ride sharing cars are ultimately cheaper and can carry more people. 20 years from now, nearly every passenger car will become a pseudo-bus. The EU is even funding an automated transportation system across Europe called CityMobil2, in collaboration with brands such as 2GetThere are already operating under it. In 5-10 years’ time, these buses will serve low-demand routes and time bands which will free up funds for more manned buses which can be redirected to high-demand routes. The driverless buses’ individual or collective services will complement main public transport networks in Europe. In the end, individually-owned driverless cars won’t be more convenient than driverless buses. Major technology-based transit solutions such as the evolution of technologies akin to Road Pricing System implemented via RFDI chips in Singapore shall be implemented, where movement is recorded via sensors at transit locations which detect and track, for instance, the RFDI chips to ascertain where you have travelled and how much money needs to be reduced from your linked payment system. Also, what would be the state of other modes of daily based commute? For example, in
an Indian context, how would rickshaws and autos evolve? Currently, they are one of the few major modes of transport services in our day to day life. After all, an increase in metro stations will result in a higher demand for vehicles for short distance transit. Frequency and usage will increase due to which economic value will decrease. Therefore, it is easy to position an argument for the development of efficient electrical vehicles akin to today’s electrical and auto-rickshaws. There is also a possibility of a more personalised mode of transit (apart from cycling), which will alter the landscape of short distance transit. To account for travel between point A to point B, specific infrastructure for personal rapid transit (PRT), also referred to as podcars, a public transport mode featuring small automated vehicles operating on a network of specially built guide-ways, could also come up in specific locations where the conditions for its operation are conducive. EFFECT ON BUILT FORM With the realization that congestion cannot be tackled by simply adding on to the network of roads, sustainable mass rapid transport modes are being given higher priority. Due to this shift, it is essential to also look into the transit mode’ future in terms of its built form. Advanced facilities can be sought out through passenger information system (PIS), where information of each passenger is fed into the system so as to cater to personal needs. This may allow some future bus stops to be less of physical forms, and more of a pick and go systems. This would be a demand-based system allowing greater efficiency on roads as well as bus-waiting systems. The rise of sustainability issues has amplified the scope for electric vehicles in the global market. While India has not embraced the trend completely, it is growing steadily. 2015 saw sales of 16000 EVs in India, while in 2017 it jumped to 25,000 units. The country is projected to have 7.30 million EV sales by 2030, and 30.81 million by 2040 (Oberoi, 2017). This calls for a major shift from petrol stations to EV charging stations.
stations in span of 40 years. As per new analysis by auto giant and EV manufacturer Nissan, EV charge points will overtake traditional petrol stations by August 2020 (Murray, 2016). Thus in 2037, the integration of these charging points would be a dominant street characteristic in the form of street furniture. This may not drastically change the built form of a city, but shall greatly impact the pedestrian experience. Moreover, the need of charging would require multi-story parking systems, integrated with IoT, spread over various neighbourhoods. This will lead to parking transforming into a fully progressed built typology, instead of a mere function of a building. With more and more parking stations rising, the aesthetics aspect of the typology shall also be prioritized, instead of being basic in design like in the current times. One of the more direct impacts on urban design will be due to the change in the approach to transportation. With an onus to design liveable cities, future streets are also being touted as a transportation solution. For example, Microsoft has collaborated with a German electric utility company EnBW for a project on street lamps. They enable an intelligent infrastructure for electric-vehicle charging stations, Wi-Fi and buttons via a cloud-based network and can also sense pollution, noise, temperature, humidity and traffic congestion which can be used to reroute traffic and improve air quality. This has already been deployed in four countries. Due to the role of transportation and IoT in affecting the built form, urban design has to brace itself for the change it will undergo in the next 20 years. With a focus on denser urban scenarios, the implementation of density tax, replacing the concept of property tax will also probably take place. A density-based property tax provides a financial incentive for people who choose to live in more densely populated areas. Solutions like this encourage more equity in the market as young professionals and families would be able to afford cheaper housing right in the core of the city. However, due to large scale job loss scenario, the future will also look at providing mass affordable housing solutions for those affected. This further accentuates the argument that mass transit systems and ride owning/sharing shall be of paramount importance.
Cities in the United Kingdom are foreseeing the decline of about 75% traditional petrol
INSTALLATION GAME BOARD
The effect of the confluence of mobility and IoT on built form is born out of the most fundamental of arguments where the culture of ownership of products has essentially evolved into services.
To highlight the flexibility in choices that IoT offers in terms of modes of transport and their respective efficiencies, the installation was a game board where any single player at a given time would have to commute from point A to point B through a transport network with varying distances connected through nodes. A prefixed score is associated with each mode of transportation in terms of speed and fare, and the network chosen by a player results in a corresponding score. The lowest score resulted in maximum efficiency.
PANELS AND INSTALLATION From L to R AV Dipen Kumar, Kunal Humagai, Saket Prakash, Alvira Shrestha, Mohammed Saifiz, Shubham Singh