Going Faster, Going Quicker–but where to?

Francisco and Luis Gutiérrez-Poucel

August 16, 2001

Go back to the Gutierrez webpage

Synopsis

The objective of this essay is to explore where the current trends in transport are taking us. We take a day in the life of a transport specialist as he makes his way to a baseball game, while reminiscing about the evolution of transport systems since the end of the 20^th century.

We believe the future will be shaped by technology, economic wants, demographic pressures, and environmental concerns. Communities will tend to be smaller, with most destinations within walking or bicycle-riding distances, and extensively wired, allowing people to work and be entertained at home. Mounting costs of fossil fuels, air pollution, urban congestion, suburban sprawl, urban decay, and violence will leave no other option than to migrate to pedestrian friendly towns.

Globalization will be strengthened by improved transport and communication systems and the trend towards smaller communities. Faster trains, aircrafts, nautical vessels, intelligent devices, robots, and communications will enhance trade, tourism, and bind societies into the pursuit of common goals. As global trade increases, consumption, incomes, and values will become more homogeneous, giving rise to a new style of global politics. International institutions will be the only organizations strong enough to stand against global market trends. Internationalization will be reinforced by economic, economic, social, political and environmental concerns. The 21^st century will witness a gradual erosion of the nation state.

The 21^st century will also see the end of the automobile as we now know it. At first, built-in intelligence will let automobiles tune themselves to their drivers and cooperate through integrated traffic systems. The appearance of driverless automobiles will be next. People will set the onboard computer to their destination and relax in digital surroundings. This is where our story takes off.

A day in the life of a transport economist

I am a transport specialist living in Acapulco in the year 2075. I am in the middle of my second cup of Blue Mountain coffee. Today I plan to go to the stadium in Chilpancingo to watch the Yellow Jackets from Arizona take on the Red Devils from Veracruz in what promises to be the mother of all baseball games. I simply must go. I voice-activate Lupita, my Personal Assistant (PA), buy my ticket, and arrange for transport. A driverless vehicle from my usual rent-a-car company will pick me up at 1700 hours. Once the important is out of the way, I plan the rest of my day. I request Lupita to order me a frugal lunch for 1300 hours from Gourmet-At-Home, contact my business partners’ PAs and set-up a debriefing for 1500 hours.

Off to the game

After the meeting, I change into my Red Devil attire, and leave for the game. The car is waiting at my doorstep. My vocal command unlocks the door. The electric engine comes to life with a soft purr. The car’s navigational system gets wind of a traffic snarl ahead, offers me an alternate route and gives me a new arrival estimate to the stadium.

The Cocoyoc-Agreement

As I sit back, I reminisce about how far we have moved away from the oil-based transport systems of the 20^th century. Social demands for less global inequalities and less pollution, coupled with higher fossil fuels’ prices led to the development of cheaper electric, hybrid, and fuel cell vehicles. The transition to sustainable, clean, non-oil-based transport systems officially started with the International Agreement of Cocoyoc in 2022 to achieve better public transport systems and intermodality, the seamless integration of different transport modes, by 2040. This Agreement was nothing more than the recognition of the technological, economic and social trends that had been changing the way people moved. Technology made business communication sophisticated, easier and cheaper, reducing the need for business travel. Fossil fuels and equipment prices ballooned as hydrocarbon reserves dwindled and became more difficult and expensive to find. Also, pollution standards gradually became more stringent.

Today, the smart-computer assisted transport network installed on most of the world expressways prevents traffic to slow down to a crawl, even when the Red Devils are playing. Transport accidents around the world are in the hundreds, which is a far cry of the millions at the turn of the century. My rented car would not have moved unless I had buckled up. The front air bags have given way to surround air bags, significantly reducing casualties, despite the fivefold increase in the number of vehicles.

We can still buy our own cars, but whom in their right mind would, unless one happens to be a techie. I, for instance, have a bicycle and a water bike. Today, in the 60 richest nations on the planet, most vehicles belong to rental companies. These companies are in stiff competition with each other, upgrading their systems constantly. It is just cheaper to rent a car than to own one. This change in ownership has resulted in fewer vehicles per thousand inhabitants, and less parked vehicles relative to moving ones. Most people work or study at home or nearby. Traffic jams are computer avoided on a permanent basis.

Urban centers are smaller. The last city with more than two million inhabitants was Mexico City in 2070, admittedly a lot of people, but much less than the ten million it had at the turn of the century. Communities are designed so that most destinations are within walking or pedaling distance, and interconnected to allow people to work from home. The mounting costs of fossil fuels, air pollution, urban congestion, suburban sprawl and urban decay at the start of the century were sobering to the point of leaving no other choice than to migrate to pedestrian friendly towns. Our present day self-contained towns are highly efficient and socially enriching.

Today, 75% of people walk or bike over short distances. For medium distances, public transport is used 65% of the time, while most of the remainder is absorbed by rental companies. Seventy percent of people take automated electric and fuel cell powered land vehicles to destinations less than 300 kilometers away, at average speeds of 120 km/hr. For longer distances, 60% fly in tiltrotors, at speeds up to 750 km/hr, burning hydrogen with engines 80% fuel efficient. Tiltrotors take off like a helicopter and fly like an airplane. They have a capacity of 20 to 40 passengers, and fly in regulated air corridors, enhancing air safety.

Fast trains and sea freighters maintain and promote global trade. The coordination of land, air and sea cargo transports boosts productivity and reduces costs. Local synchronized pipeline distribution grids on most urban towns act like a moving warehouse. The integration of transport and distribution systems can deliver vital parts and goods within days of purchase, rather than weeks.

The growth of the tourist industry has led to a dramatic increase in air travel. Air surveillance and communication systems have been integrated and harmonized. Airport capacity in Europe is now four times that of 2000. This extraordinary growth has been enabled by rising incomes, subsonic travel at speeds of 1,000km/h, and the use of telematics and intelligent software that allows aircrafts to fly closer to one another, especially near airports, with total safety.

Rail transport has increased almost twofold during the last seven decades. The use of fast and technologically advanced train systems began decades ago with the adoption of magnetic-levitation (maglev) trains. These travel on air instead of steel rails, achieving faster acceleration, lower maintenance costs and noise levels than high-speed rail trains. Another feature of the maglev train is the use of a synchronous motor that provides linear rather than rotational motion.

In the last century, the weakest links in the supply chain were the container ships –freighters hauling their cargo in spacious metal containers traveling at speeds of 23 knots at best, and barely 17 knots in rough weather, only a little faster than a running man. Today naval vessels are propelled by water jets, modeled after the power turbines of hydroelectric plants. Flowing water drives a generator in a turbine, while in the case of water jets, the process is reversed: A separate engine spins the turbine blades producing powerful streams of water that propel the ship. Water jets are ideal for high-velocity cruising because, unlike propellers, their efficiency increases with speed. The design of present day vessels allows them to slice through the waves and float above the ocean’s drag at an average of 55 knots (100 km/hr). It now takes four to six days for most sea freight to travel door-to-door between Europe and North America, as compared to the seven to twelve days it took at the start of the century. With improved satellite surveillance, global tracking systems, smart robots, and automated computer systems, today’s typical freighters have a total crew of four people, helping to reduce the transport cost-tag. Sea transport costs today 30% less, it is twice as fast, and carries four times more cargo than at the turn of the century.

Space travel was very complex and expensive. For instance, sending a copy of the Economist into orbit in the year 2001 would have cost £400 to £1,400. Today, it cost about £40 in constant 2001 pounds on a spacecraft that takes 2½ hours to fly from London to Tokyo over the North Pole. This breakthrough was made possible by new lightweight composite and heat resistant materials, and smaller but highly efficient, rocket motors. Before, about half the cost of an expendable launch vehicle could be attributed to the several inspections and tests required to ensure that its one and only flight went exactly as planned. Developments in propulsion efficiency and new materials resulted in reusable single-stage spacecrafts. Dozens of relatively small engines are arrayed asymmetrically. This geometry allows steering to be done by throttling individual engines to achieve varying amounts of thrust. The widespread adoption of graphite-fiber composite materials has reduced structural weight by 20%, which in turn has saved on fuel. A pound less taken into orbit reduces the propellant needed by nearly eight pounds. Less propellant meant smaller tanks, which in turn led to further savings in structural weight, and so on. In the end, the redesigned spacecraft was lighter by 30 pounds for each of the original pounds saved.

Globalization and transport

Globalization has been strengthened with better, faster, and cheaper transport and communication systems. As global trade increased, consumption patterns, incomes, and values became more homogeneous, giving rise to a new style of global politics.

With the advent of smaller and self-contained towns, personal and community ties strengthened, marking the end of the proliferation of huge urban conglomerates. Also, with the increasing exchange of goods, services, and ideas, supranational institutions gained ascendancy over national ones. The only forces significant enough to prime against global market trends were international institutions fed by global economic, social, political, and environmental concerns.

A new wave of global politics took seed, driven by the collective human conscience electronically interconnected. With the increase in human cohesiveness of small communities and the ease of travel and communications, people’s true loyalties became more driven for what-they-believed rather than where-they-lived. The global transport and communication developments of the 21^st century have been the centrifugal forces that have weakened the basis of the nation state.

Back to the game

Yes, we have come a long way from the start of the century, but we still have a long way to go. There are still poor people and global inequalities, fortunately less now than before. Developments in transport and communications have strengthened global consciousness at the expense of state sovereignty and authority, which is not a bad thing in itself. It will probably take the rest of the 21^st and part of the 22^nd century to manage a transition to a more rational, global, political, and fairer society.

Well, I just arrived to the stadium after a 43 minutes ride, 112 kilometers and two cold ones. I am now ready to enjoy what promises to be the mother of all games.