What if all trips in a city were carried out by a fleet of self-driving cars shared by users? The latest report from OECD’s International Transportation Forum explores the potential outcomes of such a radical upgrade in an urban mobility system. The report concludes that up to 9 out of 10 conventional cars could become redundant under certain circumstances. Vast amounts of public space would be freed for other uses in such a scenario. Take a look:

If you get a chance, visit their website and even better plan a visit to attend the upcoming ITF conference in Leipzig, Germany.  I had the privilege to be a part of this event last year and came away with a lot of very important issues, esp. related to transportation policy, at a global level. It was one of the well-organized and best run events that I got to attend in all of my years as a transportation professional.

Image courtesy: Automoblog

Add this to one of the million other articles you would see around the web that hypes the arrival of self-driving cars and how they are going to change our lives..

Click here to read the accompanying article.

TRB 2015 Annual Meeting – Vehicle-Highway Automation Projects and Programs

Call for Abstracts – Special Poster Session 

Committee on Vehicle-Highway Automation (AHB30)

Committee on Intelligent Transportation Systems (AHB15)

Joint Subcommittee on Challenges and Opportunities of Road Vehicle Automation

Vehicle-Highway automation has generated strong interest within the past year, leading to the initiation of a wide variety of new projects and programs.  Because of the novelty of this field, many of the new activities have not yet advanced to the stage that they can present sufficiently definitive results that would pass the normal peer review criteria for a technical paper.  Nevertheless, the plans and focus areas of these projects and programs are likely to be of significant interest to the TRB Annual Meeting participants. This poster session provides exposure to a wide range of topics and activities in the field of vehicle-highway automation.

Abstracts are invited now. The following topic areas related to vehicle-highway automation are suitable for the poster session:

•  introductions to research centers or programs
•  research agendas
• prospective studies and work in progress
• qualitative research studies

Please note that abstracts will be peer reviewed.  A limited number of posters will be selected for presentation based on the following criteria:

• technical quality
• originality
• direct relevance to the field of vehicle-highway automation
•  appropriateness of the methodology
•  non-commercial nature of the content.

Abstracts are due by September 15, 2014.  Peer review decisions will be announced by October 15, 2014.

• Please submit your abstract by emailing to TRBposter.automation@gmail.com
• Abstracts should be limited to 300 words.
• Abstracts should include:
  • Name, affiliation, and contact information for all authors
  • A descriptive title
  • A short description (300 words) of the proposed poster content

(Source: Reddit.com)

Editor’s note: I haven’t laughed so hard in a long time. Oh, and I’m not the only one who had tears streaming down my face watching this one.  You can see plenty of folks who enjoyed this Gizmo Gone Wild video from their comments on Reddit and also on the source (YouTube) comments page.