We are at an inflection point. This moment is not dissimilar to when we embraced the horseless carriage at the turn of the 20th century, which forever changed how we move people, goods, and services. The works presented here are meant to be catalysts for conversations about how we might live in the future. They raise questions of how we will share our streets, and how we will move people, move goods, and even move less sometimes—if that is the better option. Over a century since the automobile's invention, urban gridlock has become intolerable worldwide, and transportation has emerged as the country's number-one source of carbon pollution. At the same time, the rapid convergence of data and technological innovations is making transportation safer, more efficient, and increasingly customized to our on-demand needs. Ridesharing and self-driving cars and trucks are part of this story, and, along with electric vehicles, will significantly alter the ways we use land, configure our streets, and manage congestion. Cities could become less noisy, more pedestrian focused, and bicycle friendly. With e-commerce transforming buying habits and door-to-door deliveries, the efficient management of freight transport is needed now more than ever. While no one really knows where these mobility transformations will take us, this particular juncture offers profound design opportunities. How might we evolve more equitable and accessible mobility options that benefit everyone? It's time to imagine connected systems in aspirational ways that truly address how we want to move and where we want to go.
Since the dominance of streets by cars at the beginning of the 20th century, American designers have persistently envisioned a future of better-designed cities navigated by futuristic vehicles. Donald Deskey’s designs for a monorail at MacArthur Airport proposed a freight and passenger network that better integrated the utility airport with existing Long Island traffic and facilities. Transporting passengers by day, the monorail concept would move freight at night, which would be efficiently delivered to terminals and dispersed from there.
Since the dominance of streets by cars at the beginning of the 20th century, American designers have persistently envisioned a future of better-designed cities navigated by futuristic vehicles. The production and distribution of frozen food was only just beginning in the 1960s, and designer Earl E. Hoyt, Jr. explored the topic as a student before joining Donald Deskey Associates. The special needs of transporting frozen freight may explain Hoyt’s exploration of this unusual form, likely designed to transport flash-frozen foods to supermarkets.
Since the dominance of streets by cars at the beginning of the 20th century, American designers have persistently envisioned a future of better-designed cities navigated by futuristic vehicles. This concept car design presents an elaborate aircraft fantasy, a popular 1950s motif in designs for dream cars that never reached mass production. Visions of flying cars fostered fantasies of escape and freedom. With jets streaming fire at the vehicle’s rear, this design also demonstrates automakers’ potential to master still unknown technologies.
Since the dominance of streets by cars at the beginning of the 20th century, American designers have persistently envisioned a future of better-designed cities navigated by futuristic vehicles. This drawing is part of automotive designer George Lawson’s proposal for Hub Cities, an urban design concept that envisioned a restructuring of cities across the U.S. to create better living through safer, more efficient transportation. To relieve congestion, innovative Mini-Max cars could safely transport one or two drivers traveling short distances—the small cars could easily be rounded up and returned to the center via double-decker buses or “tug and transit car platoons.”
Since the dominance of streets by cars at the beginning of the 20th century, American designers have persistently envisioned a future of better-designed cities navigated by futuristic vehicles. The 1939 New York World’s Fair showed visitors the future of better living possible in the “World of Tomorrow,” which was the fair’s central theme. Henry Dreyfuss’s Democracity, viewed in the Perisphere pictured on the front of this publication, presented a harmonious vision of urban design—a green city center with a perfect traffic system surrounded by industrial and residential towns.
Since the dominance of streets by cars at the beginning of the 20th century, American designers have persistently envisioned a future of better-designed cities navigated by futuristic vehicles. The Futurama exhibit was one of the most popular pavilions in the 1939 World’s Fair. Designed by Norman Bel Geddes, the huge diorama presented a section of the U.S. revitalized with improved and expanded highways. The miniature streets, towns, homes, and vehicles imagined a future designed for a continually improving automobile that would be increasingly important to daily life.
This immersive 3D sound experience presents three scenarios that prototype how cities might sound in the future as new technologies arrive in public spaces. How might journey-specific digital information enhance passengers’ experiences of transit? Will cities become quieter and calmer as street design, informed by sensor data, allows for greener spaces? Is the future of electric vehicles (EVs) necessarily a quiet one?
The Next Stop interactive asks visitors to imagine the future of mobility through a series of ten questions. Understanding how technology innovations might change behavior is essential for future planning and design. Visitors submit answers through a scanner portal, which are added to the digital interactive. Next Stop uses analytics to reveal patterns in the scanned responses to visualize visitors’ collective hopes, dreams, and anxieties about our urban future. Created for The Road Ahead: Reimagining Mobility
These interviews are excerpted from the forthcoming film Life on Wheels, which brings together some of the world’s transportation experts for a fresh conversation about an entire industry and infrastructure on the edge of disruption. Akin to the computer industry during the 1980s, new mobility technologies are coming online faster than people can figure out how to apply them. No one knows the rules yet, but these videos give insight and urgency to the transformation. Full-length film to be released in 2019.
Virgin Hyperloop One is prototyping an ultra-fast, on-demand, affordable, fully electric mass transportation system. It is designed to deliver airline speeds connecting cities in minutes, as if they were metro stops, for a ticket price less than the cost of gas to drive the same distance. The passenger/cargo pod’s high speeds are attained by magnetic levitation (maglev) and propulsion along an enclosed low-pressure tube. Cleaner and quieter than current mass transit, it is designed to be built on columns or tunneled to safely avoid intersections. Section Diagram 2018 Route Estimator Map 2018 Video: The Virgin Hyperloop One System 2018 2:30 minutes
Part of a citywide effort to use design as a driver for equitable development, Detroit Equitable Mobility 2030 explores innovative neighborhood mobility proposals. Autonomous mobile pods bring 21st-century curriculum directly to youth in each neighborhood. Larger mobile units transform daily commutes into tailored place-based entrepreneurship training and mentorship for the neighborhood’s young adults. Mobile health units collect relevant data to generate nutrition plans and menus. Service Design Model 2018 Acrylic This model presents four service design concepts: soft skill education (yellow), student outcome (pink), care exchange (green), and heath data collection (blue). Each icon on the model represents a service point, which informs the designer where to enhance the customer/ provider experience. Scenario Design Diagram 2017 Digital print This drawing illustrates three long-term, equitable mobility design scenarios—Entry Point, Place-making, and Care Exchange—that aim to improve the work prospects, youth retention rates, and health outcomes for under-served Detroit neighborhoods in the future.
This design concept proposes a new American dream, trading ownership for sharing, where freedom and opportunity derived from access, density, proximity, and seamless mobility can restructure the American city and surrounding region. Using Boswash—the transportation corridor between Boston and Washington—as a test case, the Shareway proposes a new mobility platform for the sharing of and switching between transportation options. It enables a new linear settlement pattern no longer bound to a city’s center or sprawling periphery. Model 2018 Wood, acrylic, paper This model describes the Shareway an urban fabric that combines new physical infrastructure and intelligent networks. Crescents, the leftover spaces determined by Amtrak’s long curves and I-95’s undulating highway, are filled with transit-oriented, mixed-use buildings. Hubs facilitate modal switching between car, train, bike, bus, and ferry. Video: Shareway 2012 2:25 minutes Produced by Höweler + Yoon with Squared Design Lab (Culver City, California, USA) Courtesy of Höweler + Yoon
Public Square reclaims road space as useful public space for pedestrians. A range of interlocking plug-and-play modules allows for a range of uses—from retail stands to gardens—enabling cities and communities to reimagine their streets and incrementally transform the city. Replacing just 5% of on-street parking in New York City would add the green space equivalent of one new Central Park. The modules reduce heat retention and storm-water runoff, which is critically important as cities face unprecedented storm events. Model 2018 Acrylic, foam, foam board, paper Floor and wall diagrams 2018 Digital prints Video: Public Square 2018 3:06 minutes Produced by FXCollaborative with Sam Schwartz Engineering and Mental Canvas Courtesy of FXCollaborative
Reducing dependency on carbon-emitting vehicles and the widespread use of electric public transit requires changes to existing urban infrastructure. Streets are prime real estate for embedding smart technology systems, including wireless charging along bus routes like the Wireless Advanced Vehicle Electrification (WAVE) charging pad. Designed to be mounted unobtrusively on both the underside of a bus and flush within the road pavement, the WAVE system is currently being used in several cities.
The mass benefits and adoption of electric vehicles depends on an expansive network of convenient charging stations. ChargePoint’s Charging Stations have already saved millions of gallons of gasoline, and additional efficiencies are planned through mobile apps and navigation systems that offer flexible pricing, scheduled charging times, and opportunities to customize recharging messages. ChargePoint is committed to producing 2.5 million charging places by 2025.
With the development of smart cities comes opportunities to rethink the function and design of street furniture. The GO OutdoorTable is a 21st-century communal table designed to plug into a digital network. As a platform for outdoor activity, it is a gathering place and a drop-down work surface with access to data and power on or off the grid. Its canopy provides shade and an integrated solar panel for powering LED lighting. Chipman Stools 2015 Designed by Robert Chipman Manufactured by Landscape Forms Powder-coated cast aluminum
To counter transportation’s history of dividing communities, polluting air, and causing traffic congestion, this street design manual envisions a future where cities benefit from new transportation technologies in the age of autonomous vehicles (AVs). The illustrated guide outlines best practices for cities to create safer 21st-century streets. The guidelines represent an opportunity for cities to reduce the 1.3 million yearly traffic deaths, repurpose streets when driving lanes or parking spaces are no longer needed, incorporate mass transit, and ensure equitable economic benefits for all.
Solar Roadways is a modular system of solar panels that transforms street surfaces into smart, energy-generating infrastructure. LED lights create lines and signage without paint so that streets can easily change lane configurations to maximize traffic flow. Microprocessors allow the panels to communicate with each other and connected vehicles—by flashing messages to drivers alerting them to cyclists and vehicles they may not have seen, the panels could make streets safer for people using all modes of transportation.
Streets cover over 80% of public land in U.S. cities. The advent of connected and autonomous vehicles (CVs and AVs) provides cities an opportunity to reimagine this public space by exploring designs that transform what has primarily been a means of conveyance into safer, more resilient, less congested, multi-modal, people-centered streetscapes. This video demonstrates how designers reimagined the street in three locations. Video: Loop NYC, Pathway to Community 2017 3:00 minutes Produced and courtesy of EDG (New York, New York, USA) for Driverless Future Challenge (New York, New York, USA) Video: City Data Analytics: Modes of Travel & Commuter Walking Times 2017 1:39 minutes Produced by Zaha Hadid Architects (London, UK) with data analysis by Habidatum (London, UK) Courtesy of Zaha Hadid Architects for Walkable London exhibition at the Building Centre (London, UK) Video: Build the Queensway 2015 1:35 minutes Produced by EcoDeo (New York, New York, USA) Plan by WXY (New York, New York, USA) and DLANDstudio (New York, New York, USA) Phase one design by DLANDstudio Courtesy of The Trust for Public Land (San Francisco, California, USA)
A collaboration of architecture students from UCLA and transportation design students from ArtCenter College of Design explores the potential changes in vehicle design and infrastructure as we transition to autonomous vehicles (AVs). By uniting transportation and urban design in a case study of Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, the programs challenged students to consider how these two design disciplines could work together to create sustainable solutions for the future of transportation. The Artists' Incubator 2018 University of California, Los Angeles (Los Angeles, California, USA, founded 1919): Jiahe Chen, Miao He, and ArtCenter College of Design (Pasadena, California, USA, founded 1930): Gautham Varma The Artists’ Incubator proposes using the advertising funds generated by Sunset Boulevard’s iconic billboards to provide young artists with studio spaces. Housed in round buildings with a webbed frame, the studios would also provide surfaces for advertisements to drivers on an elevated motorway. Separate spaces for cars, pedestrians, and transit would allow people to switch between these transportation modes easily. Model Museum board, 3D-printed plastic Exploded Axonometric Drawing Digital print Animation Video 1:00 minute The Urban Diorama 2018 University of California, Los Angeles (Los Angeles, California, USA, founded 1919): Sweta Elizabeth Joseph, Nikita Kumar, and ArtCenter College of Design (Pasadena, California, USA, founded 1930): Anshul Malhan The Urban Diorama imagines a future where the smart technology of self-driving cars allows people and vehicles to share the street in harmony, moving simultaneously through an open space. Imagery of the city’s billboards and architecture punctuates this shared landscape. Model Medium density fiberboard, foam board, mat board, acrylic, resin, photoluminescent pigments, 3D-printed plastic, UV LED strip Perspective View Digital print Animation Video 1:13 minutes
The mobile app, Whim, promotes “Mobility as a Service” (MaaS). Both subscription-based and pay-as-you-go, the app charts multimodal travel routes with seamless connections between public transit, bikes, taxis, and car sharing. Focusing on the user’s needs and the convenience of a network that combines different modes of transport will hopefully inspire people to be less dependent on private car ownership and use alternative means of transport. Whim is currently used in Birmingham, England, Helsinki, and Antwerp. Interactive, Whim 2018 Roope Kolu and Apaar Tuli MaaS Network Visualization 2018 Digital print This generic city map shows multimodal ways in which people can use Whim to plan their day-to-day travel needs.
The ultra-compact electric vehicle (EV), i-ROAD, provides a nimble, personal mobility experience. Regulations are essential to prevent road chaos, but such micro-mobility options might be among the game-changers in the future of flexible mobility. Users can also customize the i-ROAD by 3D printing body parts with colors and surface designs of their own choosing.
This lightweight electric scooter is an environmentally friendly transport device. Its innovative foldable design addresses the frequent challenge of finding a secure, convenient place to either park or store it.
CanguRo represents a new relationship between people and their vehicles in the era of artificial intelligence (AI). Akin to a mechanical horse, this self-driving personal mobility vehicle functions as a loyal robot. It is equipped with the latest robotics and AI technologies that enable it to serve as an autonomous assistant that responds to commands, functions as a communications terminal, accompanies its owner shopping, and carries loads. It can also transform into ride mode to transport its user.
Most transportation networks do not accommodate the needs of people with physical, cognitive, and sensory disabilities. In New York City, only one third of the subways are wheelchair accessible, severely limiting people’s mobility. The VeloPlus wheelchair bike was designed for people to be transported in their own wheelchair and the platform tilts to become an on/off ramp.
Accessible Olli is an electric autonomous shuttle bus accessible to people with physical and cognitive disabilities. With a retractable wheelchair ramp, software that can process sign language, and displays that offer simplified information and reminders for individuals with memory loss, the shuttle offers new independence in movement for the 15% of the U.S. population living with a disability. Vehicle Section 2018 Original design by Edgar Sarmiento3D-printed carbon fiber acrylonitrile butadiene styrene blend, vinyl Each Olli vehicle is 3D-printed, allowing Local Motors to adjust digitally the design of an Olli file to suit the needs of individual clients. Accessible Features 2018 Digital print
Ultrahaptics technology uses ultrasonic waves to create invisible forms and textures that can be felt on the skin. In buses, buttons and cords are not always easy for passengers to access to request a stop. In a collaboration with Accessible Olli, Ultrahaptics designers combined their technology with gesture tracking to create an invisible stop button that comes to a passenger’s hand when he or she is in range. The button is accessible from a much wider area and requires less force and fine motor control to operate than traditional controls.
The electrically powered Starship autonomous delivery robot offers a new way to deliver local goods. In 2013, Skype co-founders Ahti Heinla and Janus Friis designed a soil sample retrieval robot as part of a NASA contest. Afterward, they looked for a way to apply their concept to a last mile delivery vehicle. The resulting robot delivers goods to customers within a two-mile radius, traveling on sidewalks at a pedestrian pace to ensure safety and alleviate curb congestion. Nine cameras and sensors help the robot navigate obstacles in real time, and a lock secures the robot’s contents until delivery.
HorseFly, a truck-launched autonomous drone, has been successfully tested with United Parcel Service and now makes package deliveries to homes in the Cincinnati area. Designed to integrate with online e-commerce, the goal is for cost-effective, sustainable deliveries that reduce extra miles of driving. Once a package is delivered, the drone returns to dock on the delivery truck.
The Zipline drone was designed for on-demand deliveries of life-saving medicines to health centers, ensuring immediate access to fresh blood, insulin and vaccines, which spoil if not used in a timely manner. The drone flies more than 75 miles on a single battery and in 2018, Zipline began partnering with the government of Rwanda on low-cost, last-mile blood deliveries.
Trucks transport more than 80% of all cargo in the United States. To improve efficiency and sustainability, Peloton Technology’s freight system allows a pair of heavy trucks to travel together in a connected, semi-autonomous platoon. Through vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication, the second truck automatically brakes and accelerates to follow the leading truck at a safe distance of 40–60 feet, improving aerodynamics, fuel economy, and safety. Sensors detect when other vehicles cut in, creating greater space between all vehicles until it is safe to platoon again.
Through the use of magnets, this autonomous concept car is designed to hover using a technology known as magnetic levitation (maglev). This eliminates the need for wheels while allowing the Float to travel in any direction. Pods for 1–2 passengers offer expansive views of the surrounding environment, and multiple pods connected by a magnetic band form platoons to transport larger groups.
The Persuasive Electric Vehicle (PEV) is a low-cost, shared-use vehicle designed for autonomous on-demand package delivery and electric-assisted passenger commutes. Designed as a sustainable alternative transportation method, this experimental vehicle was created by MIT’s Media Lab to explore ways to establish awareness, trust, and empathy between the PEV, pedestrians, and others on the street. Lights and mechanical eye contact enable mutual recognition of each other’s presence, while computer vision and machine learning help the PEV learn to be more empathetic to human emotional states. Mapping 2018 On the monitor above, watch what the PEV autonomous vehicle (AV) sees. The PEV’s LiDAR—a pulsing laser light that senses and measures distances to an object—detects and maps its surrounding physical environment for safe navigation. Zone Diagram 2018 Digital print HOW DOES A VEHICLE SHOW AWARENESS, TRUST, AND EMPATHY? AWARENESS: Object Detection Zone Continuous tracking of the location of people and objects surrounding an autonomous vehicle is critical to safety and navigation. The PEV uses LiDAR to maintain a real-time view of its surroundings and to determine its path and prevent collisions. TRUST: Eye Contact Zone Right of way between pedestrians, drivers, and cyclists is typically determined by first acknowledging the presence of the other. Similarly, PEV uses a webcam, computer vision, and eye contact to establish a basic level of trust required for negotiating safe street interactions. EMPATHY: Emotion Contact Zone Understanding human emotions is key to future machine-human cohabitation. Using a webcam and computer vision, the PEV can determine facial expressions, which will eventually lead to more natural, social and intuitive interactions with people.
Transformational technologies, including automation and electrification, are causing a reconsideration of the design of vehicles. Without a wheel or combustion engine, the vehicle may become a platform, with flexible modular spaces for work and leisure. Safer, slower speeds reduce the need for aerodynamic styling or bumpers. Enhanced vehicle-user communication will require a rethink of the interior and exterior layouts and interfaces. This video explores three concepts for how driverless technology might radically change the shape of future vehicles. Video: Aim: A Vision for Healthcare in the Age of AI 2017 1:38 minutes Produced by and courtesy of Artefact (Seattle, Washington, USA) Video: Toyota e-Palette Concept: a Glimpse of Future Mobility 2018 2:50 minutes Produced by and courtesy of Toyota Motor North America (Plano, Texas, USA) Video: Mercedes-Benz Vision URBANETIC: Mobility for Urban Areas 2018 2:44 minutes Produced by and courtesy of Daimler AG (Stuttgart, Germany)
IDEO explores how our future might look and feel in a world with driverless vehicles by visualizing four Future of Automobility scenarios. Moving People looks at how our driverless commutes will radically change when we no longer need to look at the road. Automated package delivery fleets reduce traffic at peak times in Moving Things. Mobile offices meet people where they live in the Moving Spaces scenario. Moving Together explores ways to adapt a vehicle’s interior for ride-sharing, short term car-sharing, or conventional private use.
Moral Machine is an online platform that allows people to explore ethical decisions made by autonomous vehicles (AVs). Scenarios force users to choose what an AV should do in an accident, weighing the number of lives saved and factors such as victim gender, age, and perceived social value. By collecting millions of decisions made by anonymous users around the world, the designers hope to understand geographic differences in attitudes toward these complex moral decisions, and underscore the importance of developing global principles for machine ethics.
Humans safely share the road by exchanging numerous gestures and signals. Self-driving vehicles require designers to consider new ways for cars to communicate this important information. Drive.ai’s autonomous shuttles are fitted with panels that share the vehicle’s intentions through animated messages, helping to establish trust while ensuring that everyone on the road feels safe. By observing the behavior of human drivers and inviting public feedback in town hall meetings, Drive.ai designers continue to refine how autonomous vehicles (AVs) can best communicate with people. Evolution of AV Panel Messaging Design 2018 Digital print Drive.ai designers have repeatedly modified the communication panels in order to provide the clearest messages. Panels at the front, rear, and sides convey different messages, and their locations near the tires and bumpers reflect where people most often look to determine a car’s actions.
How do you teach a vehicle to see and make it safe and easy for people and things to move around? This video recreates how Waymo’s self-driving cars navigate roads using an array of sensors that allows them to “see” 360 degrees, both in daytime and at night, and up to nearly 3 football fields away. The cars learn to anticipate how to behave and determine the safest maneuvers. Waymo’s self-driving cars are currently being user-tested in Phoenix, Arizona.
To manage the disruption caused by expanding mobility options—from dock-less scooters to autonomous fleets—Los Angeles developed a new data standard and language. Through an open source public-private collaboration, LA worked with other cities and mobility companies to create the specification. It requires companies to share real-time data, critical information that enables cities to design safer, more responsive streets and actively manage transportation. Remix Planning Platform 2018 Remix (San Francisco, California, USA, founded 2014) An innovative planning platform used in over 300 cities, including Los Angeles, the platform enables planners to make informed decisions with a city’s mobility data by understanding how streets, public transit, and new mobility work together. Video: Managing Transportation in the Digital Age 2018 2:03 minutes Produced by and courtesy of Remix
City Scanner, a lightweight sensing platform attached to garbage trucks, collects data about the urban environment. Equipped with sensors that include thermal cameras, air quality, temperature, humidity, a WiFi scanner, and GPS, City Scanner could be used to help inform decisions about public health, security, and overall better services for citizens.
CityScope is an interactive tool that helps one visualize two extreme versions of a future with driverless cars. Will we create an ownership society with private driverless cars? Or a world of lightweight shared social mobility robots available to all? In one scenario, streets are dominated by machines and density leads to congestion and anxiety. The other is a more vibrant city where humans recapture streets, and the benefits of mixed use density, creative interactions, and equity increase.
This exhibition features student projects to acknowledge the innovative mobility design work occurring in classrooms across the country. In these designs, students explore how automation might change the mobility of people, goods, and services. Paul Hausch Arizona State University, Phoenix, Arizona Emanuel Papageorgiou University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan Tian Wei Li and Yujie Wang Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts John Almeida, Michael Daniel, James D’orazio, and Jared Torres Kean University, Union and Hillside, New Jersey Sarah Strickler, Claire Kantner, Sara Tieu, Ian Yu, and Cecilia Zhoa University of Washington, Seattle, Washington