AT TIMES it can feel like we are living in an episode of “Travel Futurama”. This week: flying drone taxis.
Dubai,
a city that sometimes seems to inhabit a time zone five years ahead of the rest
of the planet, has embraced another improbable travel innovation, to go
alongside its enthusiasm for hyperloop trains and long driverless metro
lines. This week, the Emirati metropolis announced it is to test
passenger-carrying drones in its skies by July.
The
unpiloted drone taxis won’t exactly replace the traditional earthbound sort,
since they will be able to carry only one passenger, who together with luggage
cannot weigh more than 100 kilograms. And it will have a range of
just 50 kilometres, or half an hour of flying time. But if it works,
the long-term implications are huge not only for Dubai, which has the world’s
deadliest roads, but also for congested cities around the world. While others
sit bumper-to-bumper, a passenger in these new drones will be able to cruise
above the gridlock at an average speed of 100 kilometres an hour.
That
might seem like a desert mirage, but the concept has already sprung up
elsewhere, if only as an aspiration. In June 2016, the state of Nevada, USA,
cleared the world’s first passenger-carrying drone for testing. The craft is
the same one being introduced in Dubai, the Chinese-made Ehang 184, a compact
pod with four dual-propeller extensions that navigates by using sensors.
Pilotless
drones might cut costs by eliminating the need to pay for labour although
people on the ground will monitor the vehicles. It is not hard to envisage a
future in which business travellers use piloted flying cars like Uber’s for
intercity journeys, and trips between cities are taken in drones. Add to the
mix some other innovations—like the aforementioned hyperloop, that could whizz
people between Dubai and Abu Dhabi in 12 minutes, and the driverless
on-the-ground taxis that will inevitably become a reality and a multimodal
transportation future akin to Futurama doesn’t seem so far-fetched. Eventually.
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