How will you get to work in the year 2030?

Imagine a future where New Jersey adopts mass public transit and on-demand jitneys; Boston becomes hyper-dense and walking becomes the primary means of transport; Atlanta disperses even further and relies on solar power, electric cars and Google connected technologies to manage mobility; and Los Angeles tries autonomous cars, but finds the transition difficult, and its gridlock even worse.

These are the scenarios proposed in a new study by New York University's Rudin Center for Transport Policy and Management. The report, which proposes scenarios rather than making predictions about the future of transportation in the US, repeatedly points to connected car technologies, autonomous cars and logistics networks as driving forces in regional mobility solutions.

The study argues that while the way that transport operates in the US is a function of Eisenhower's interstate highway system today, the future will be defined by cellular information networks and private enterprise.

"In lieu of large civil infrastructure projects, transportation systems are increasingly being augmented with a range of information technologies that make them smarter, safer, more efficient, more integrated," states the report, authored by senior researched at the Rudin Center, Dr Anthony Townsend. "We call this process reprogramming mobility."

The report is full of ideas worthy of debate and further study, including whether the examples cited could be applied to the transportation futures of the developed and developing world.
Here is a link to the report's website where you can download the study, and complete the worksheet attached to the bottom of the report that asks you to create and evaluate your own future transport scenario.

By Karl Smith