Our current car-centric transportation system creates incredible
problems for each of us: Safety, Costs, Energy, Infrastructure, Land, Equality,
and Opportunity Costs. In 2014 motor vehicle crashes killed 32,675 and injured
2.34 million people. Every year motor vehicle crashes cost us $836 billion in
direct expenses and quality of life. All the oil we import goes out the
tailpipe of our transportation system. The Transportation Sector is the most
inefficient sector of the economy at an appalling 21% efficient. The average
adult wastes 1 hour and 10 minutes every day driving, out of only 16 hours and
40 minutes of waking time. America’s major urban highways remain congested,
costing us an estimated $101 billion in wasted time and fuel annually. We have
paved 39 million acres, an area larger than the state of Georgia, and the value of that land is estimated at $470 trillion. If you don’t drive you
can’t get to jobs and services, and even have a social stigma.
Perhaps worst of all, our transportation system is blocking
opportunities for innovative new services and devices to make each of our lives
better, safer, less expensive, and more fulfilling. We’ll explore each of these problems a bit
more, but the main purpose of this blog is to explore innovative solutions to
the problems and give you ideas of the opportunities we are missing. For
example, suppose you could have a fresh fruit or vegetable delivered any time
you want; or you could have your medications delivered before you even get home
from the doctor; or you could go anywhere you want even if you can’t drive, and
each for only pennies. We’ll explore these and many more surprising
implications of faster, cheaper, safer, more efficient transportation
innovations.
Safety
In 2014 motor vehicle crashes killed 32,675 of us. [http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/812246.pdf]. That’s like killing every resident of Poughkeepsie, NY this year, and then
next year every resident of Lauderdale Lakes, Florida, and then the next year
North Chicago, Illinois, continuing every year. Motor vehicles have killed more
people than all the US wars -- 2.7 times as many.
In 2014 motor vehicle crashes injured 2.3 million people,
that’s like injuring every resident of Houston and Orlando this year; and then
next year Philadelphia and San Francisco; then the next year Phoenix and
Jacksonville, and so on. After only 3 years and 9 months that adds up to injuring
everyone in New York City.
Imagine the furor and actions that would result if these
were the result of terrorism or some other nefarious cause! Yet we mostly
ignore them.
Story: The first time I was in Japan, our host invited us to
his house, where our host drank freely. When it was time to return to our hotel
in Tokyo, the trains had stopped running for the night. Our host’s wife, who
was not part of the party, had to drive us an hour back to Tokyo while our
host slept in the car. We asked why she was driving, and our host told us that
the penalty for a first offense of drunk driving was up to 5 years in prison.
Alcohol is involved in 40% of motor vehicle deaths, and
accounts for 10% of all arrests in the US, yet we mostly ignore them. One organization that isn’t ignoring them is
Mothers Against Drunk Drivers, and they have made some progress: in New Jersey,
if you are convicted of drunk driving for a first offense, your license is
suspended for 3 months, and the maximum penalty is 30 days imprisonment and a
fine of between $250 and $400; and if you have a well-connected lawyer you
probably won’t even be convicted. Your lawyer would probably advise you not to
take a breath test to improve your chances of conviction, yet in Japan refusing
to take a breath test commits you up to 3 months in jail or a fine of $4,400.
And now texting is growing into a similar problem.
And now texting is growing into a similar problem.
Costs
The direct cost of Transportation to us as consumers is $1.1
trillion, or 10% of Personal Consumption Expenditures, the fourth largest after
Housing Utilities & Fuels, Health, and Food. [http://www.bea.gov/iTable/iTable.cfm?reqid=12&step=1&acrdn=2#reqid=12&step=3&isuri=1&1203=2014 accessed 4/2/2016]. For the US economy as a whole, Transportation is $1.6 trillion, or 9.6% of GDP.
But this is just the “purchasing” side of the story: we also need to look at the
distressing array of indirect costs.
Looking at the costs of Motor Vehicle Crashes in 2010, the Economic
Costs of Motor Vehicle caused deaths, injuries, and property damage is $242
billion. Adding Lost Quality of Life brings this to $836 billion or 5.6% of
$14.95 trillion US GDP in 2010.
Looking at the $242 Billion Economic Cost of Motor Vehicle
Crashes in 2010, we see Property Damage dominating with $76 billion, followed
by Workplace Productivity at $58 billion. Somewhat surprisingly, Congestion and
Traffic Delay comes to $28 billion, and Medical costs to $24 billion.
Time
According to the US Bureau of Labor’s American Time Use
Survey, adults spent 1 hour and 17 minutes each day traveling. You are only
awake 14 hours and 12 minutes, so that’s 7% of your time awake each day. If you
are driving, that time is wasted, unless you try to multi-task while driving,
but that just increases the likelihood of your having a crash. Not only is the
time wasted, but you are using mental and physical energy, and your are cut
off from things you would rather be doing and knowing about.
At $15/hour, than comes to about $1.5 trillion wasted
opportunity cost, not even counting the cost of the car and gas.
One of my favorite statistics: if you drive 5 miles to buy a
lottery ticket, you are more likely to be killed in a car crash than to win the
lottery.
We spend hours and days waiting for delivery or travel to
get something or get somewhere because our transportation system is so slow.
Witness the drive for same-day, or even 1-hour delivery by Amazon and other
retailers, costing them billions of dollars, and even the threat of drones
doing the delivery. This will only lead to more congestion on our overcrowded
roads.
Energy
The Transportation Sector uses 28% of the total US energy,
yet produces only 15% of the Effective Energy Output. At 21% efficiency, it is
the least efficient sector of the US economy; by contrast, the Industrial
Sector is 51% efficient. If we could increase Transportation Sector efficiency
to 51% we could eliminate oil imports for energy. We anticipate the innovations
we describe should achieve significantly higher efficiency than even that.
We imported 2.7 million barrels of oil in 2014 [https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_impcus_a2_nus_epc0_im0_mbbl_m.htm Accessed 4/3/2016], at an average landed cost of $88/barrel [http://www.eia.gov/petroleum/marketing/monthly/pdf/pmmtab1.pdf Accessed 3/24/2016], for a total of $237 million. The cost of securing our access to Middle East oil is estimated at $50 billion per year. According to the National Defense Council Foundation, the economic penalties of America's oil dependence total $297.2 to $304.9 billion annually. If reflected at the gasoline pump, these “hidden costs” would raise the price of a gallon of gasoline to over $5.28.[http://www.iags.org/costofoil.html Accessed 3/24/2016]
Infrastructure
The
American Society of Civil Engineer’s 2013 Infrastructure report states: 32% of
America’s major roads are in poor or mediocre condition, costing U.S. motorists
who are traveling on deficient pavement $67 billion a year in car repairs; 42% of America’s
major urban highways are congested, wasting 1.9 billion gallons of gasoline and
an average of 34 hours per person in 2010 due to congestion, costing the U.S.
economy $101 billion in wasted time and fuel annually. One in nine of the
nation’s bridges are rated as structurally deficient, while the average age of
the nation’s 607,380 bridges is currently 42 years. [http://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/a/#p/roads/conditions-and-capacity
accessed 4/26.2016]
Land
We
have paved 39 million acres, an area larger than the state of Georgia – imagine
what we could do with all that area, especially in urban areas: parks,
recreation areas, green space. The average value of all that land is estimated
as $470 trillion. [https://www.bea.gov/papers/pdf/new-estimates-of-value-of-land-of-the-united-states-larson.pdf Bureau of Economic Analysis, April 3, 3015.
Accessed 3/24/2016]
Those highways produce runoff of rain and polluting
chemicals, and collect heat. What if we could hide all those ugly, noisy
polluting highways, and reuse the land? The innovations we present have the
potential to both hide the roads and make that land available for a variety of
other uses.
Equality
Story: I vividly remember when my father finally gave up
driving his car – it was a long and traumatic struggle. The last time I rode in
the car with my father driving, he seemed to control the car ok, but every five
minutes we had to remind him where we were going, not a confidence building
experience – I drove back on that trip. The biggest obstacle to stopping was my
step-mother: she didn’t want to be without all the benefits our society
reserves for people with their own cars. This was in spite of their community
providing free shuttle service around the local area, and modest charges for
longer trips. My father remembered only too vividly when he had to take the
keys away from his father: Grandpa picked up my father at the airport, and did part of the drive back home on a sidewalk.
Our car-centric transportation system limits access to
activities, jobs and services, and even attaches a social stigma to those who
can’t drive. Many seniors can’t or shouldn’t drive, and this is a rapidly
growing segment of the population in US – 41 million people, or 13.5% of the US
population, are 65 years old or over. Youth aren’t allowed to drive, so they
must either use mass transit or get rides from others, soccer moms, or can’t
do activities – 61 million people, or 19.8% of the US population, are under 15
years old. People with various disabilities often need more transportation than
others because they can’t walk on their own, can’t drive, or shouldn’t – 32.4
million Americans, or 10.5%, age 18-64 have some type of disability. Poor
people can’t afford to own a car, so they are often excluded from jobs and
services and pay higher prices – 26.5 million, or 13.5%, Americans age 18-64. Many others have long commutes over congested highways, and thus are at a disadvantage with families and free time. Thus,
potentially over 50% of Americans are significantly handicapped by cars being
their primary mode of transportation available.
Opportunity Costs
The following dozens of blog entries explore the innovation opportunities
available with new approaches to transportation. We will explore small
Autonomous Vehicles that can provide fast, safe, inexpensive transportation for
all of us, including people with mobility, age, and other challenges, and can
deliver everything from pills to pizzas, and artichokes to zucchinis. Then we’ll explore larger and higher speed
Autonomous Vehicles that can take us farther faster and move larger items,
while being faster, cheaper, safer, and cleaner than today’s transportation
system. Then we’ll explore innovations to make those Autonomous Vehicles even
more efficient by Nesting smaller Autonomous Vehicles inside, and by an
innovation we call Continuous Convoys and En Route Sequencing allowing you to
get all the benefits of local and express service in the same Convoy of
Autonomous Vehicles. We’ll explore turning our ugly, wasteful, polluting roads
in Autonomous-Ways, or A-Ways, that further improve performance, safety, and
economy. We’ll explore how those A-Ways enable an entire new infrastructure to
be installed, operated, upgraded, and replaced fast and inexpensively. And
through all that we will be exploring how these innovations can improve all
aspects of our lives, our economy, and our society. Hope your enjoy the
explorations!
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