🚫 👨‍❤️‍👨 💊 How to design cities with robotic transport 🎰 👴 ✝️

This essay looks at the potential big changes in cities as a result of the advent of robotic cars. These changes will come, because these cars will be able to drop off passengers and set off to perform other tasks, as well as independently densely park in remote areas. The need for a large number of parking spaces around commercial buildings should be greatly reduced, especially in the suburbs and areas remote from the center. If the land that was intended for parking could be used for something else, then what could it mean for the city?

One of the most fundamental goals of the city is to provide an opportunity to move around it. Some even argue that in addition to the cost of common infrastructure, the only real goal of the city is to reduce the time and cost of traveling to places you need - to work, to friends, to school and shopping - everyone likes to have these places near you.

Since robotic cars will change transport so much, they will also change cities. The car itself caused a change in cities in the 20th century, led to the development of suburbs and launched other trends.

It is difficult to accurately predict what changes will be made by robotic machines. People can put up with longer trips to work and more traffic jams. They may be satisfied with the school, which is far from their home, or that their friends, themselves and their children can be scattered throughout the city. People can also aim for short and predictable trips to various destinations. Perhaps people will walk less and use robotic vehicles to travel to places of interest for walking.

Given the volume of potential changes, I called on urban geographers to start research in this area. I have a short summary article on urban planning, which lists the potential consequences of the advent of robotic machines in order to understand what we can come to.

Despite the fact that the degree of uncertainty is still high, we can assume what all these consequences will be. Some of them are evaluated negatively - distance and travel of vehicles will increase, people will begin to live like enclaves, and people will also walk less.

But there is an alternative that eliminates problems with walking. It consists in the fact that a robotic car can deliver you to your destination, after which he will go to park or leave himself for long-term storage (or will do other work) until he (or another car) arrives for you.

Nowadays, large sections of cities are allocated to parking areas (as well as roadsides). We demand free parking wherever there is a shortage of parking spaces, and these free parking encourages car ownership.

All this is especially evident in the suburbs. On the shopping streets of the suburbs there is a huge number of parking lots, which is often required by construction standards. These parking lots are not tight, which is why they are either not designed for walking on them or it is unpleasant to walk on them.

Shopping centers inside is a pleasant (subject to cleanliness) all-weather area for walking and shopping, but outside they are surrounded by parking lots - walking to the shopping center or between them is very rare. These parking lots are designed for peak demand, which usually falls on holidays. On the remaining days, these parking lots are mostly idle.

More dense city shopping streets are shops located closer to each other, without parking in principle (and if it does, then you will have to pay for it). It’s more difficult to drive to such streets (which puts them at a disadvantage in relation to shopping centers and pedestrian streets), but as soon as you reach them you will see that walking and walking between shops is the norm. Such streets are usually built into densely built-up areas, and people who live in them can walk to shopping areas. In some cases, this is a rather long walk, so houses located next to the shopping block are more expensive, but there is a trade-off between a short walk and bustle.

Design in which such urban clusters are associated with a stop on the main transit line is called transit-oriented (TOP). His promotion and work in this area has become an urgent topic among urban planners. Even without transit, in some areas with low density, there was a desire to create denser areas that would combine retail and residential premises (with houses above shops that used to be familiar, or apartment buildings) to restore an active urban environment. Such areas tend to be upscale and supervised, discouraging other dense elements that are blamed for flooding the suburbs.

Many people, especially families with children, also still appreciate the low density of suburban areas. They need large parking lots and houses, while there should be space between the houses, and they insist on safe conditions and low traffic levels so that their children can play and communicate. Often, they do not allow their children to leave the area until they are older. This, in turn, led to the fact that the residential complexes in the style of strip malls, surrounded by parking lots, became common in areas with low building density.

Let's consider the concept of design oriented to robotic machines (conditionally, let's call it ROP) and draw parallels with the TOP. In particular, we will consider shopping streets with a minimum number of parking lots. Shops and restaurants are located more densely, like on ordinary city streets or in the street version of a suburban shopping center. Also, shops in such streets are not removed from the sidewalk; entrances are located next to it. Potentially, such a street will be narrower, although there will be a place for it to stop robotic cars, where you can land and land without blocking traffic.

Alternatively, there may be lanes behind the shops where stopping and boarding will take place. Indeed, there are a number of small zones in small cities that have been designed in such a way as to avoid heavy traffic in search of parking on the main street. Parkings in such areas are located behind shops, or multilevel parking structures are built in them. An example is the suburban business district of Mountain View.

When the world switches to robotic cars, many will use roboticaxis. They reduce traffic and require a minimum of parking spaces. Some people will come by personal robotic cars, and they will want their car waiting for them nearby. Such cars will be able to remain parked at a small distance from the main street, while they will be placed as if they were driven off by a parking attendant, while using only 40% of the usual parking area. If the density is low, then such land will be easily accessible. If the land is expensive, then parking facilities will make more sense, or cars will be able to drive away to places with cheaper land - then people will need to send an advance notice a few minutes before departure.

It should be noted that robotic parking allows city commercial parking zones to distribute the entire parking capacity. Today, since people will not go far from the parking place, each store should have a sufficient number of parking spaces next to it. Shopping centers are more efficient because they share their parking lots. However, the suburban streets, as a rule, give each store enough parking space, which means that it is expected that the customer will not park in another quarter.

Robots can also encourage walking, allowing only one-way trips. You can drive to one end of the city street, and then take a walk to the other, simultaneously making purchases and your affairs. When you get to the end, you won’t need to go all the way again on foot, you just can move on and the car will pick you up at the end of your walk.
You can also meet with your car at some points of your walk to leave packages in it.

The urban center, built according to the principles of ROP, can satisfy anyone, but it will be especially popular among people who live next to it. As before, some will live close enough to get there on foot, but a much larger group of people will be able to move along these streets, using the fast service of robotic machines on demand. If you live a mile away (which is common in cities with a low population density), then you need 2-3 minutes to travel - people in expensive houses who are promised realtors “walking distance to the shopping area” will need more time to walk along this route . If the car service on demand will work fast enough, then the distance per mile will be equally accessible if it were 5 times less. This is good for both homes and retailers.

Benefits for older people and people with disabilities should also be considered, as they are a large part of society. These people not only cannot walk long distances in order to get to the city streets, it is also hard for them to walk around. With the ROP, it will be easier for them to get to such streets, and if necessary, cars will transport them at short distances on demand, even if it is only one block.

It is also important to note that a huge reduction in the need for parking spaces (which will come thanks to the proliferation of robotic cars and taxis) will free up land in all cities except the most densely built up ones. Robotaxis and common cars are not so often parked, which will lead to a sharp decrease in the number of vehicles per person in the city, and private cars can still park in existing parking lots as if they were taken by a parking attendant, or parked in pairs on the sidelines. Old parking lots may become park areas or be built up in accordance with the desired city plan.

Density of residential buildings may increase, as some houses are located away from driveways and garages. While car owners love to protect their vehicles and appreciate the direct access they receive when the vehicle is in the same place, it is difficult to ignore the sheer cost of garages and driveways in terms of the land they occupy. In many suburban buildings, houses have garages that occupy most of their street facade, as a result of which the house moves even further from the street. Front yards are rarely used, and the main rooms are connected to the back yard. If you approach in terms of cost, then this can be resisted. In fact, owners may be happy to have more land for other purposes.The dense accommodation in densely built-up areas allows more people to live within walking distance of a city street - but this is not so valuable if there is a service with robotic cars that can quickly deliver you there. Of course, those who do not want such trips will insist on low density. If the land is expensive, and city plans allow, then the dense construction of houses without garages will be widespread.

Robotic cars can also be a means of promoting a low-density lifestyle in an area with cheap land (or wealthy owners). Many people like the rural way of life when they don’t see neighbors, and for any action you need to go somewhere. Robot machines will simplify all this. Firstly, long trips will become easier (maybe you can sleep at this time), the quality of short trips will also increase. Children can also be taken to school using robotic vehicles, although trips should probably be shorter than adults (who are willing to put up with the road to work). Perhaps the children will ride together in cars of 4-6 people (something like a school bus), since they don’t choose the means of transportation and can enjoy the company,while adults don’t really like to ride with strangers, as well as situations where the route is not on the way.

The delivery bot concept also offers the ability to order anything online and get your purchases very quickly, even if they are perishable. It will cost more than shipping in the city, since the distance can be several miles, but small delivery robots can be light and efficient.

Small rural towns will continue to exist. They rarely have parking problems (if there are no tourists there) and the need for parking spaces will decrease.

Robotic taxi services will exist in the countryside, but probably will not offer a quick arrival of the car to the place. Owning robotic machines will be more common, and there is enough land to store them. Robotaxi services will work great for planned trips and will be good as an alternative to a second car or a car for teenagers.

Will we see the ROP?

In a few decades, when most cars will be robotic, it is unlikely that new business areas will want to devote most of their land to parking lots, while it seems that cities will not force them to do so. Moreover, during the first decade of driving robotic cars, the owners of the plots will see that their parking will be less in demand. If the price of land increases, then there will be a need to develop (“fill in”) these parking spaces and make trade areas out of them, and if possible fill these areas up to the sidewalk (in case of increased traffic along the sidewalk). There will be some parking lots for people-driven cars and parking robotic cars waiting for their owners. The situation in which your robot car is waiting at the store is attractive - you do not need to call it in advance,just leave the store and he will immediately approach you. But as Robotaxi grows in popularity, parking spaces will be vacated and used differently.

In the case of retail travel, a mobile device is likely to be used as a payment method. This will make the car understand that the owner will need it without any action on the part of the owner, and this will allow the cars to leave themselves in storage for a minute, while being at the door on time.

New developments will also take into account the techniques from the ROP, or such will be the requirements for development. In addition, zones designed for TOP can be transformed using a mix of ideas from TOP and ROP, although landing / disembarking zones may not be so conveniently located. If the transfer at the transit station is faster than a road trip due to traffic congestion, we can see a lot of people who want to travel to the transit station by robotic machine, but these cars will not need to wait for passengers there, as such trips will be longer.

What will happen to business districts?

Business districts are the core and heart of many cities. Central transit hubs are located in business districts, and transit is the easiest way to get there, and sometimes this is the only place that is easy to get to. In these areas, there are skyscrapers and expensive parking infrastructure, rather than huge parking areas. Depending on the city, either no one lives in these areas, and outside of working hours they are a ghost town that lives only during working hours, or they have many apartment buildings, and life is in full swing there. At the end of the 20th century, cities switched between these modes.

Even before the advent of the Internet shopping era, business districts (or parts of them with lower rents) were a key place for specialty stores that could not exist outside the big city. Rich corporations (like banks) are represented in these areas, and although parking is expensive and traffic turns into a nightmare, many services are provided for employees, and if visits to companies located in central business districts are part of your working day, then you can walk between them. There are also many non-office venues in the central business districts, including movie theaters, theaters and stadiums. Conference rooms, tourist centers and luxury hotels are also often located in these areas. As well as local government.Robotic cars will make us think about the reasons for placing objects in business areas. There are factors that push companies away from these areas - high rents, expensive parking, heavy traffic, as well as crime and homeless people in some cities. People are attracted by other factors: the atmosphere, the convenience of walking, high traffic capacity during peak hours, interaction with other areas of business and easy access by public transport.interaction with other areas of business and easy access by public transport.interaction with other areas of business and easy access by public transport.

Robotic cars can solve parking difficulties and to some extent deal with traffic problems (for example, you can work while standing in a traffic jam). They will reduce the importance of convenient public transport, because as much space will be available for travel as is available for robots. Destinations like stadiums, convention centers and movie theaters will come into synergy with other venues in the central business districts and will not receive much benefit from this. If you are going to the movies, you can simply prefer a convenient movie theater that is near you and your friends. Ultimately, robotic machines can eliminate a lot of congestion, making business areas more attractive.

Making predictions about the hotel and conference center business is harder. Many people want to stay in the center. This is especially important for tourists, as tourist destinations are likely to remain in central areas, especially in old cities. However, it is possible that tourists might prefer a room for $ 100 per night and a 10-minute drive to their destination instead of a $ 300 room in the city center. Many cities (especially new ones) are already becoming polycentric and contain many small business districts. Robotic cars facilitate the movement between zones, encouraging such a model of cities. Polycentrism has its advantages, since the model of a large city, all of whose services are concentrated in its center, is ineffective.

Delivery bots

City retail may change with the advent of delivery bots. Such robots can deliver any product (and various types of food) at wholesale prices in less than 30 minutes. Local retailers will not be able to compete with such a business in most categories of goods - what was previously sold in hypermarkets will go even further. As a result, local retailers will begin to sell what people prefer to buy in person. Their business will be highly specialized stores with goods that people will want to see and test before buying. Restaurants focused on atmosphere and communication will continue to flourish, as well as places tied to hiking.

Local sellers can also use bots for delivery, offering delivery in 3 minutes instead of half an hour. However, this will only make sense in the case of premium goods, custom-made dishes, fresh products, small tools, parts, and the like.

For business in such an area, you need products and services that are not “destinations,” but that are important to people as a component of a walk or tour. The dentist or lawyer may not be here (unless they like this location), and the spa may well be. I expect retailers to adapt and come up with new business models in the field of fast deliveries and easy trips that we have not yet seen.

I also expect delivery bots to change the restaurant business. They will help "home" restaurants, where skilled chefs will prepare food from ingredients brought by delivery bots just in time for people who are a few miles from the kitchen. A meal order can be planned in advance, so the meals will be delivered hot. Dinner can be prepared by 4 different chefs, each of whom cooks a large number of evening dishes - a highly efficient scheme without loss of time for the chef and food, as well as low electricity costs for the functioning of robots.

While home-made food will become cheap and quality, up-and-coming restaurants are likely to focus on service and atmosphere. Perhaps they will want to sit on the streets where life is in full swing. In many parts of the world, dining in fine weather can be done outdoors, not indoors.

Board of shopping centers

It is difficult to predict the future of today's large shopping centers. With the help of robotic machines, trips to shopping centers will become easier (because due to these machines it will be easier to travel to all places). They will drop you off right at the door (or even inside) of the shopping center, although not directly at the door of the store, as is the case with a street designed along the ROP. Shopping centers will compete with warehouses that will offer delivery services in 30 minutes. A street built according to the principles of ROP can be a popular destination one or two miles away, while a shopping center can be in the distance and it will take longer to travel, but since you will not drive, this time will hold to good use.

Shopping centers always have a comfortable climate, which is important for cold, hot or rainy places. Theoretically, ROP streets can go under roofs and awnings, but then it will be difficult to distinguish them from shopping centers. Shopping centers are made in the same style and have a guard that does not let homeless and other unwanted people. ROP streets will be more organic, and will live according to city rules.

We will probably see how innovators develop completely different trading and social spaces in the world of robotic cars.

Everything is done for children

I believe that the main driving force behind urbanism and suburban tourism is children. When people become parents, they shift priorities very much to meet the needs of their children.
They feel a strong need for space, security and the best schools for their children. Recently, parents have become even more worried about safety and take their children to school (even if they’re walking nearby). Parents dissuade their children from taking independent walks in urban areas, despite the fact that crime rates are declining.

Although robotic cars suitable for transporting small children will be widely accepted later than unmanned vehicles for adolescents and adults, their appearance will significantly change the situation. It will become possible that a child (after reaching a certain age) will attend school many miles from home, while the child will be easy to move around, and parents will receive a minimum of inconvenience. Depending on how the school is paid (and which schools you can send your children to from public funds), all this can easily lead to the choice of schools in the services market and a departure from the concept of district schools.

Children can also have friends from all over the world - thanks to the Internet, which they already use. Moreover, they will have all the opportunities for communication, except that they will not be able to meet spontaneously, as when meeting in the park or on the way from school. Some families will take positive walks from school home (rural children have been living like this for a long time).

Parents like big houses and courtyards for their children. and they like to be in low-crime “enclaves” in which there are few low-income people and homeless people. Adults without children, in turn, prefer more interesting and walking areas.

Also, robotic cars will simplify the organization of work of nannies, it will be possible to send children to where they will be under supervision. It will also be possible to distribute care responsibilities between members of a large family or friends trusted by parents. All this assumes the presence of a car that is trusted to transport a small child with video surveillance. In this case, the child should not be able to leave the car (except in an emergency). It will take time for the technology to earn that level of trust.

As people change their ability to meet the anticipated needs of their children, areas with cities also change.

The topic remains very complex.

As mentioned earlier, it is difficult for both engineers and urban planners to predict urban development trends.

: — -, 2007 , . ClariNet, Electronic Frontier Foundation Foresight Institute, Singularity University.

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