December 2, 2009. Copyright 2009, Graphic News. All rights reserved

Could robot-controlled cabs prove a trailblazer for the 21st century commute?
By Susan Shepherd

LONDON, December 2, Graphic News:  Imagine a journey to work which didn't involve precious minutes waiting at a bus stop or tube station; where congestion charges were a thing of the past, and the once-daily worry about finding a parking space was just a memory. For commuters across Europe, the reality of safe, smooth and stress-free travel is slowly coming closer. A European Union initiative to free up the traffic in cities across the continent has just resulted in the first of what is hoped will be scores of ingenious alternatives to the taxi, the bus and the car, with a small, driverless cab system at London Heathrow's Terminal 5. Business class passengers can now be transported from their airport car park to the terminal building via a fully-automated pod, which can carry up to four people and their luggage, guided along a designated route with the help of ground-level sensors. Unlike existing driverless systems, such as the magnetic monorail Maglev or the fast-moving walkways now common at international airports, the Terminal 5 project, named "Ultra" by its British developer, ATS, is tailored towards individuals or small groups of travellers. It is transport on demand: a bank of computer-steered electric vehicles, summoned and operated as simply as possible to make moving from A to B child's play.
 
A similar idea is behind the construction, in Rome, of a fleet of so-called "cyber cars" to carry visitors to and from a new exhibition centre being built in the Italian capital. Meanwhile, the Spanish city of Castellon is creating a special traffic lane, right through its centre, for a driverless bus.  The three projects are being funded to the tune of some 40 million euros as part of the EU's "Citymobil" enterprise. Other schemes are in the pipeline. In all, companies and research institutes from 10 European countries are working on parallel solutions. Professor Martin Lowson, the Bristol-based inventor of the battery-powered pods at Heathrow, insists this is the way forward for urban travel; a means of cutting down on car use, rather than replacing it completely. "The reason cars don't work is that they get snarled up in traffic, and then you've got to park them," he says. "With our system that doesn't happen. Cars are going to continue. What we can do is provide an alternative."
 
If it proves successful, the British Airways Authority at Heathrow plans to bring in the computerised cab system across the entire airport, replacing all its buses and, eventually, connecting to nearby hotels. The move would cost an estimated £200 million.
 
The United States is watching with interest. The land of the automobile knows that carbon emissions from millions of exhaust pipes are contributing to the environmental problems topping the agenda at this month's summit of world leaders in Copenhagen. Europe's efforts to move forward with cleaner public transport systems, based on high-tech robotics, could literally lead the way in the next decade. What might still look a little like a James Bond film set at Heathrow today, could be a familiar and welcome sight tomorrow.
/ENDS