Following on from my column on traffic last week there have been some developments that may provide an answer.
No, I am not talking about the flippant comment I made about electric air taxis, if they happen, they will be the preserve of the wealthy. I am talking about Robo-cabs!
Robo-cabs, or self-driving vehicles, have been under development for quite a few years now, indeed I wrote my first column about them in June 2017 when I predicted that the world would be full of self-driving cars and Robo-cabs within 10 years. Hmmm. Maybe a bit more time yet.
However, a significant development this week was Elon Musk’s mega pay deal. If you did not read about it, the shareholders of Tesla have agreed to a 10-year deal which could see him earn more than $1 trillion.
There are some very demanding conditions to be met and one of them is that Tesla has to have one million self-driving taxis (Robo-cabs) on the road within the 10 years.
The implication for you and I, and little Bahrain, could be enormous.
Taxis in Bahrain are quite cost effective, particularly since Uber entered the market. However, the biggest cost of operating a taxi is the salary of the human driver and if you take that away then the costs of getting a taxi journey will fall dramatically.
Just think about it. That two-tonne hunk of metal sitting in your driveway which cost BD10,000 to BD15,000 sits idle for more than 80 per cent of the day, you use it to go to work and come home and the rest of the time it gathers dust.
How much money would you save if you got a taxi to work and back and a taxi to the shops and back?
No more loan payments, no more service costs, no more insurance, no more petrol, no more car parking fees. Just an app on your phone, much like the Uber one, which delivers a car to your door within minutes and whisks you off to your destination while you play Candy Crush in the back.
By taking a significant number of cars off the road the traffic flow eases up and suddenly we get to where we want to much quicker.
When you are dropped off at work you do not need to find a parking space. This will free up valuable land in town centres for development as we will not need the parking space. It’s a win-win scenario.
But, I hear you ask the perennial question, how safe will self-driving cars be? The answer is a lot safer than human driven cars. Let’s face it the vast majority of traffic accidents are caused by human drivers speeding or not following the road regulations. Robots will follow them. Yes! Robo-cars will have accidents, it is inevitable, but they will have far fewer accidents than the humans do.
Roads will get safer, less people will be injured and die, society will not need to spend as much money on accident and emergency services. Again, win-win.
Now that we have the indomitable force of Elon Musk behind it then self-driving cars are our future and not too far into it and not too far away.
There are currently pilot programmes with Robo-cabs happening right now in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Riyadh … so watch out, there will be three along in a minute.
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