An overview of a roadmap for changing current outmoded transportation systems to a better, more intelligent and starter eco-system
by Frost and Sullivan
Globalization, for better or worse, is a dominant feature of our world. As barriers between continents, countries and cities have diminished, and a surging population has urbanized, economic growth and prosperity have become inextricably linked to accessibility; accessibility to markets, to production materials, to services, to food and to culture, which are all preconditions for human survival. The increasing density of urban living, however, can slow the movement of people as well as goods; therefore, accessibility is dependent on an efficient and intricate global network of air, rail, road, and water links between and within our population centers of cities and megacities.
Our aging transportation system is threatening to restrain globalization as current systems are struggling to meet the needs of this highly urbanized planet in which the business of moving goods and people from one place to another typically generates toxic byproducts and lost productivity. Ground-breaking innovations in transportation technology are difficult for the current system to accommodate, and the system itself has yet to evolve to meet the changed set of fundamental needs and demands placed on it.
Whereas the system has not yet completely gridlocked, we clearly need something that is smarter, more efficient, and better than what we have now. We think the answer is a new ecosystem that marries information technology to the global air, rail, road, and water transportation networks. Key technical achievements have been fundamental in helping to achieve today’s globalization levels and have laid the foundation for an ecosystem that allows the seamless movement of large volumes of goods around the world.
The majority of today’s transportation systems are a by-product of systems that were designed and established in the 20th century. However, our increasing demands are pushing them past their intended capacity and operational life span. In recent years, we have seen the start of new transportation systems being developed, which require massive infrastructure works and are inherently dependent on information and communication. These systems, however, require significant planning, funding, governmental backing, and construction activities as they are being designed for decades’ worth of use. It is crucial for the transportation industry to understand why our transportation needs are changing in order to best design and implement new systems so they are robust and flexible enough to take us into the 22nd century.
Drivers for change
There are four fundamental factors that underlie the need to change the transportation ecosystem: a rapid population expansion, hyper-urbanization, globalization, and pervasive information and communications technology.
Rapid population expansion
One of the most well-recognized root causes of transportation system congestion is the relentless growth
of world population. At the dawn of the 20th century, when many of the current transportation systems were being planned, the global population was approximately 1.6 billion. In 1950, it was roughly 2.5 billion, and by then end of the 20th century, it was 6 billion strong. As we closed out the first decade of the 21st century, the global population was estimated at almost 6.8 billion. While the number of people has increased an average of 1.5 percent per year over the past 60 years, and is expected to average 1.0 percent over the next 20 years, demand on the transportation systems is expected to increase at double that rate over the same period3.
Hyper-urbanization
The complexities involved in meeting the transportation requirements of high-density cities, as well as newer forms of community arrangements, drive the need for a next generation transportation ecosystem. Considering the physical growth restrictions cities across the world have, we find that urbanization is moving in two ways: the formation of ‘Mega Cities’ and the appearance of ‘compound communities’. By 2020, it is expected that developing economies will lead the way in forming Mega Cities to accommodate their rapid population expansion. We already see that the boundaries of Johannesburg and Pretoria in South Africa are merging into a Mega City that is commonly known as “Jo-Toria.” Current transport infrastructures anchored primarily by roadways are largely inadequate to effectively move people and things around these Mega Cities. Considering another example, it is expected that planning in densely populated cities such as Sao Paulo, Brazil, and Chennai, India, will evolve to develop compound communities. Here, offices and homes will move adjacent to one another to form areas where people live and work in small compounds. The short-distance travel and transportation needs of these community compounds will be based in personal mobility, as well as the transportation of goods within them (e.g., food), which are not readily accommodated by current transportation systems.
Globalization
In the often-cited Thomas L. Friedman concept of a ‘flattened’ world, the blurred national borders impacting trade, outsourcing, supply-chains, and politics have, for both better and worse, changed the world. The impact of globalization on transportation has been to increase the traffic across all types of transport between urban centers, and charged demands for increased speed, security, and reliability. The next evolution of the transportation ecosystem must deliver something from point A to point B, with a high level of service, regardless of the distance traveled, the borders crossed, or the number of steps in between.
Pervasive ICT
Although the basic modes of transportation technology – road, rail, air, water – have evolved, the rapid spread of information and communications technologies into every facet of life is driving change in the global transportation ecosystem. Sensors and microchips are pervasive across the system. Transmitting the data that they gather to processing and analysis points can enhance the capabilities of the current system, as well as lay the digital foundation for new infrastructures. From infotainment, tracking, and telematics applications for vehicles, to real-time scheduling and notification for air travelers, to security monitoring and threat detection for shipping containers, information and communications technology is a strong catalyst in an evolving transportation ecosystem.
Transportation systems of the future must adequately account for the macro changes that we are seeing in these four core areas, at the same time as minimizing the inefficiencies that we can see in today’s systems.