Imagine the year 2020. You no longer have a car idly parked in your driveway. Instead you take out your smartphone two minutes before you want to leave, call a driverless taxi to your door, state your destination to the autonomous vehicle and get dropped off at the doorstep of your work or the grocery store.
The future of driverless vehicles and other emerging and disruptive technologies is no longer a far off vision, but an imminent reality, and the nation’s capital has a long road ahead to prepare for such innovation.
Coming at an opportune time, the City of Ottawa is preparing a white paper to assess the potential impacts of new and emerging technologies such as driverless vehicles, solar powered garbage compactors and motion-detecting LED lights, in relation to the city’s transportation network and land use. A white paper is a government report that provides in-depth research and preliminary proposals on an emerging issue.
“The private sector is huge on new and emerging technologies, but our government hasn’t been as supportive as I think it could be,” said Kanata South Coun.
Allan Hubley, who initiated the
staff study of emerging and disruptive technologies.
Hubley said the white paper should be finalized following the 2017 budget negotiations.
Unlike normal advances, disruptive technologies turn existing markets and social patterns on their heads.
These innovations can abruptly create new economic sectors and displace traditional products, shattering existing notions of how things work.
For example, driverless vehicles are expected to rewrite the rulebook for urban transportation.
Hubley said the white paper will encompass emerging technologies related to “autonomous and connected vehicles, alternate vehicle fuels and electrical charging systems, alternative payment and funding solutions and shared mobility.”
A connected vehicle is a car that is equipped with internet access and can be used by devices both inside and outside of the vehicle.
But, like most city-related projects, everything comes down to cost.
“(Driverless vehicles) are coming whether the city wants them or not,” said Kanata North Coun. Marianne Wilkinson.
“Planning for what is coming will save the city from making costly mistakes by putting in infrastructure that would be obsolete soon.”
At an Oct. 24 forum on driverless cars sponsored by the National Capital Commission, guest speaker Robin Chase highlighted the potential of FAVES – Fleets of Autonomous Vehicles that are Electric and Shared – where individuals pay for a seat in an environmentally low-impact car shared by several other people.
Barrie Kirk, executive director of the Kanata-based Canadian Automated Vehicles Centre of Excellence, said at an individual level, an average Canadian family could save as much as $3,000 per year by using driverless taxis compared to owning a family vehicle.
On a citywide level, there will be savings but also decreases in revenues.
Take for example, speeding and parking tickets. Kirk argues that driverless vehicles will be “safer, more law-abiding,” thus decreasing the number of traffic infractions — and ticket revenues. And because these cars would not have to park in expensive downtown locales, revenues from city-owned parking garages and on-street sites would decrease as well.
In addition to the white paper, council recently approved a motion from Wilkinson to make Ottawa’s west-end suburb a national “centre of excellence” for automated vehicles.
Wilkinson said it is urgent that Ottawa begins to compile information on driverless vehicles, because “change is coming quickly and we need to have the support to expand the work already underway in this area and add the jobs to our workforce.”
Federal Transport Minister Marc Garneau announced on Nov. 3 that Canada would be launching a Smart-Cities Challenge.
“Through this investment and others, we will focus on accelerating the adoption of zero-emission connected and automated vehicles,” he said.
Kirk hopes Canada’s capital will embrace the Smart Cities Challenge.
“It would be wonderful to see the City of Ottawa do this because there is a lot of great technology companies around here that can really help create a strong proposal.”
Regardless of the pros and cons of emerging technologies, Kirk said, and even if people aren’t in favour of disruptive change, there’s no stopping it.
“There is too much momentum.”
Produced in collaboration with iPolitics