Talking cars and self-repairing concrete: the future of driving

Roads that can repair themselves. Pavements that use kinetic energy from passing pedestrians to light up the street lamps. Autonomous cars that talk to each other while they zoom around.

And conventional vehicles skulking in underground tunnels like pariahs.

It sounds like science fiction but many of the elements that would enable this vision are closer than previously thought, according to engineering consultancy Arup.

The London-based agency has presented its vision of how the roads of future megacities could look in 2050, as governments around the world seek to address the challenge of up to three-quarters of the world’s growing population living in cities, compared with just over half today.

Arup uses a series of fictional case studies featuring autonomous, carbon-fibre vehicles that can wirelessly refuel using inductive charging lanes. Drivers pass over a strip of road to pay for the electricity.

Vehicle navigation systems warn the car of icy conditions, prompting the tyres to deploy retractable studs for better grip. Temperature-activated snowflakes painted on the road are, by 2050, a relic from “a decade ago, when the road was open to self-drive vehicles”, the report says.

Arup’s vision comes after the UK government announced its biggest road-building programme for a generation on Monday, with £15bn pledged for improving major arteries such as the A1 and the A303.

Tony Marshall, head of highways at Arup, says: “In the UK there’s a big increase in investment coming in the highway network and it’s essential with infrastructure spending to be anticipating as much of this [technology] as we can.”

The report details exactly how the technology is being trialled across the globe – much of it in the UK. For instance, researchers at the universities of Bath, Cardiff and Cambridge are developing self-repairing concrete that uses bacteria to seal cracks, which can significantly reduce the costs of maintaining road surfaces.

The government will soon announce the results of a competition for three cities to host trials of driverless cars. Milton Keynes will begin a pilot project in the spring that involves “pods” autonomously navigating pedestrian walkways between the city’s station and town centre.

The city is also testing dynamic wireless charging lanes for electric buses – a technology that is also used in pit lanes of the Formula E electric car racing championship.

Nick Reed, senior academy fellow at the Transport Research Laboratory, said: “The way the roads are likely to change in the next 10 years is far greater than in the past 10 years – whereas the plans you make for infrastructure [spending] tend to be for the next 50 years.”

One of the big shifts, according to Arup, will be the increasing use of big data and machine-to-machine technology that will allow cars and lorries to broadcast and receive information on traffic, speed, weather and potential safety hazards.

The rise of connected and driverless cars is also expected to improve traffic flow, since the vehicles will be able to sense each other and travel safely in close convoy.

But many say the transition to fully autonomous vehicles will make conventional driving a dangerous, fringe pursuit, meaning those cars have to be separated from driverless cars.

“Eventually the major risk in the transport environment will be human error,” says Mr Reed.

The Arup report makes clear that “the incredible pace of technological change in transportation makes it difficult to know exactly what changes will occur and how they will play out”.