The second major change is the autonomous drive which is already being partially installed in production vehicles in the form of space managing cruise controls and autonomous parking systems. With both of these elements in the same vehicle most of the autonomous hardware is built into the vehicles (speed, braking and steering servo control along with the speed and vehicle near proximity spatial perception). The rest of the Autonomous control can be a retrofit from that hardware status.

For me the merging of the VW XL1 and autonomous control represents the ultimate freedom from the tyranny of driving, and it achieves this with a fuel efficiency that is a quantum leap improvement in fuel consumption/cost and CO2 emissions. Furthermore this vehicle weighs in at 800kg (half the resources required for production) much of which is composite (Carbon as the main resource consumed) for the body and aluminium (readily recycled) for the engine complex. Should the Envia battery of some other comparible prove successful then the addition of 50kg will give this vehicle an electric capacity over 20Kwhrs which will give it a very substantial all electric range in future versions. So you get the very best of range, fuel flexibility, minimum energy consumption, solar energy compatibility, CO2 emission reduction and commuter functionality. Furthermore the XL1 is a narrow vehicle which will provide advantages in both road space and parking.

Now rethink those figures in comparison to busses and trains and we are looking at a very different possible future world. Once the miniturisation of commuter transport gets a foot hold, and as fuel prices continue to rise, the SUV ballon in vehicle sizes will be arrested. Family vehicle will remain a feature of the future but they will begin to reduce in size, I predict.

The other feature of Autonomous Control is that there is the very real prospect for driverless taxis and mini busses. One of the failings of our public transport is the complete lack of mini busses in favour of the “one size fits all” 12 tonne buss. It is way past time that got a rethink.

I for one look forward to 8 or 10 seater driverless all electric microbusses which can be called at will by text message to my phones location and pay for that trip with an Octopus type debit card. This is a very real prospect which could be in use in 6 to 8 years. This is the best future for local public transport interlinking with long haul or underground rail systems. I see this as being fully compatible and commercially viable beside the VW L1 class personal commuter vehicle.

If only…

but when we’re considering whether to introduce new transit services, we must grapple with average emissions per passenger-km (more specifically, average emissions/pkm on the new service being considered).

generally, i think we should be more seriously grappling with the inevitibilty that moving people consumes energy, and if we’re serious about emissions reductions, sometimes the best policies will be those that encourage less travel

If the marginal user tips the need for an extra service, you’re still looking at average vehicle occupancy of over 50 per cent, which is probably much higher than the all day average of most Australian PT at present. So there is probably considerable potential for putting more people on existing services at zero marginal cost, at least in off peak times.

Certainly vehicle/km of service is a strong predictor of patronage; more vkm (especially bus) are needed for serious increase of PT use; but that by itself won’t necessarily increase average vehicle occupancy.

But there are things that a well run PT system can do to increase patronage independently of vkm – real time information systems, better network design to support’anywhere to anywhere’ travel within the same total vkm budget; infrastructure to improve the speed and reliability of trams and buses.

These things will tend to increase average vehicle occupancy. They are more likely to happen in an environment of increasing PT use.

Provided, that is, you’re not the marginal passenger who tips the need for a whole new bus, or worse, train! Best to think in terms of ‘average marginal (energy etc) cost’, I think. This is getting into the “if the plane is going anyway is it OK to use it?” debate (which is not a bad thing).

Since the interst of the comparison is in assessing options for change, the marginal user is more important than the average user.

The comparison with respect to the marginal user is likely to be much more favourable to public transport since:

- as car use increases, energy use per person/km is likely to increase because of congestion;

- as public transport use increases, energy use per person/km is likely to decrease because of better average vehicle occupancy; and because of the efficiencies of things like bus lanes reducing congestion for buses, which are likely to go with increased PT use.