This article was taken from the November issue of Wired UK magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online
The full Digital Cities package:
Networked information will reshape our cities
'Sense-able' urban design
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Your neighbourhood is now Facebook Live
Birmingham's Intrago Mobility "city port" is an interchange built on waste ground below the M6. When you drive into the port, your long-range Zipcar is directed to a parking space. You get out, stretch your legs a little, and then start the next phase of your journey by getting into a 20mph Toyota iReal (a three-wheeled, one-seat, personal-mobility concept vehicle) and driving it up onto the elevated Velo-city, which leads out of the port. This dedicated new network of cycle tubes criss-crosses the city - connecting city ports with commuter towns and city-centre attractions. Its low-friction surface allows cyclists and light electric vehicles to travel at surprising speed, while its enclosed nature protects them from the elements.
The city looks very different from the days of the car. At street level, gone are today's railings segregating pedestrians and vehicles - the highway is level and open, without kerbs or street clutter. It functions like a river, with the fastest traffic (trams, delivery vehicles) in the centre, and the slowest (pedestrian shoppers) closest to the buildings. Where parked cars used to line the roads, today restaurants and cafés have spilled out, unconstrained by kerbs. Coffee shops have bikes and small vehicles parked in front of them, while some shops no longer seem to have defined thresholds - their frontages are open, allowing people to ride small vehicles right inside.
Surprisingly, pedestrians and small vehicles seem to be sharing the same space without crashing into one another. At the end of the Velo-city ramp you realise why. The iReal's onboard Wi-Fi receives a message that it is entering a public-priority zone, limiting its maximum speed to 10mph. Turning off the ramp, you see the City Port logo above a newsstand, but turning towards it you come to a sudden stop. A pedestrian has stepped directly into your path. The iReal's proximity sensors reacted before you noticed, bringing the vehicle to a halt and thus avoiding a collision.
Instead of struggling to find parking, arriving underneath the City Port's sign you find a docking station and move the iReal into a free bay. Five of these have been built at this station, along with 15 docking points for bikes similar to those of Paris's Vélib'. Once docked, the iReal's front glows red to show the battery is being charged, and when you step out your iPhone beeps to signify your rental has finished.
This scenario is not far-fetched. It's actually a combination of existing concepts: Intrago Mobility LLC's on-demand transport system, Chris Hardwicke's Velo-city and Toyota's iReal. Their interaction shows how digital technology will change not only the vehicles we drive, but in turn the city's very appearance. Indeed, the main impact on city planning will be mediated through transport infrastructures, freeing up road space as it does so.
<img src="http://cdni.wired.co.uk/659x425/o_r/roads_inline.gif" alt="Four cities where transport has arrived"/>
Dan Sturges, president of Intrago Mobility, and other leaders, such as MIT's William J Mitchell, still believe there's a role for the car, but propose linking it into a system with small urban electric vehicles and other forms of public transport. The "glue" that holds such systems together is digital technology - allowing users to find where vehicles and services are, reserve them, locate stations to return them to, and authorise their own identity.
Programmes such as IBM's Smart Cities - which collect data from sensors in infrastructure to understand where demand will arise, and then combine this data with automated vehicles that can move themselves around cities to meet this demand - are tying together vehicles, buildings, spaces and power-supply in a scheme less inflexible than in the era of the automobile. Walking in cities will becomes easier as segregating barriers in streets are no longer needed to prevent humans and vehicles colliding. Far from removing control from the average citizen, vehicles and journeys will become more varied, quicker and cheaper.
The car will cease to dominate, or be the sole form of powered private transport in the city. New types of buildings, new services and citizens themselves will fill the resulting space - which over time will completely redraw the hierarchical order and look of a city's streets. In Birmingham the National Trust will become custodians of Spaghetti Junction.
Joe Simpson is a researcher at The Movement Design Bureau
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This article was originally published by WIRED UK
