Just a few years ago, the sci-fi stuff, autonomous cars is fast becoming a reality, with companies like Tesla, Google’s Waymo, and several others vying to be the first to market with a truly autonomous vehicle.
Whichever company wins the race, technology will fundamentally remake the auto industry. While the initial disruption is likely to be most acute for freight forwarders and taxi drivers, ultimately autonomous cars will affect nearly every industry, and travel is no exception.
Dusting off our crystal ball, we forecast some of the big changes vacationers are likely to see in the decades to come.
The holiday season trip will be a lot less horrible
What does Thanksgiving mean to you? Turkey, parades, time with family … and probably nose-to-tail traffic for hours on end. Every year is the same, with car lines stretching for miles on the roads of every major city in the United States.
One of the great promises of self-driving cars is a significant reduction in traffic congestion and accidents, the leading causes of traffic jams and delays on our roads. Autonomous vehicles will continuously monitor the traffic around them, allowing them to travel faster and closer than any human driver could safely do.
They also don’t need the same safety margins as we do, allowing for narrower lanes and therefore more cars on the same stretch of road, at least once human drivers have been completely eliminated.
Tracking conditions along the entirety of your planned route, self-driving cars can adjust for road works, bad weather, accidents, and anything else that makes travel slower than expected. This will happen invisibly and automatically, removing vehicles from problem areas and helping conditions return to normal more quickly.
Ultimately, the vehicles will likely make travel suggestions even before you’ve started packing for your trip, perhaps suggesting that you leave sooner or later to avoid potential problems. Don’t you want to hit the road at 2am? Don’t worry, it’s much less of a problem if you can put it off for a few hours while the car drives for you.
Airlines are going to feel the pressure
What’s the worst part about going on vacation? For many of us, it is the flight that takes us there. Flying on a vacation weekend is rarely anything but a pittance, but even traveling off-peak is far from enjoyable.
Invasive searches, frustrating baggage restrictions, long delays, narrow seats, bad food, the list of annoyances is as long as the security lines. However bad it is, for most vacationers spending a dozen hours behind the wheel is preferable.
That equation will change in the next two decades, at least for trips that currently involve a flight of less than three hours. In addition to the reduced delays in traffic, as mentioned above, autonomous vehicles bring other benefits for long-distance travel.
Since cars will no longer need a driver’s seat, they can be redesigned for comfort and flexibility. They could have flat beds similar to business class airline seats, for example, or rotate to allow passengers to chat or play.
Even for those who do not own their own self-drive car, on-demand transfer services will provide door-to-door service. This could be for a group traveling together or for a series of solo travelers and couples heading to the same general area.
The prices of autonomous vehicles are expected to drop steadily after introduction, and with them, the cost per trip. Once you can be picked up at your doorstep at night, get a good night’s sleep, and get up in the middle of the country the next morning, all for less than a plane ticket, the dynamics of travel. vacation begins to change significantly.
And of course, as more people choose to take the car rather than fly, it will shorten the lines for those of us who still decide to go to the airport. Well, until the airlines start cutting capacity, at least.
What about the great American road trip?
One of the victims of the shift to autonomous vehicles will be that summer staple, the great American road trip, at least as we know it today. While it will likely be a few decades before we see a complete switch to autonomous vehicles, there is little doubt that the days of driving across the country are finally numbered.
Insurance premiums for human drivers will start to rise as the lower accident rate for driverless cars is taken into account. Since interstates and other major highways are easiest for machines to navigate and have the greatest ability to move large numbers of people when moving freely, they will likely be the first places to ban human drivers.
Traditional vehicles will be relegated to cities and back roads where conditions are less predictable, but even unlikely to last forever. Eventually, many years from now, it will probably be illegal to take a non-autonomous vehicle on the road without a special permit, or maybe even not at all.
Of course, while you will no longer be able to guide your convertible through a series of reversals, or revel in the sudden burst of power as you plant your foot on the open road, there are advantages to letting your car do the road trip grunt work.
Without having to keep their eyes firmly glued to the road, former drivers will be able to enjoy the scenery and views much more. Driving long distances is exhausting, so removing all that extra concentration from the equation means arriving at your destination feeling refreshed.
The safety aspect is also a factor: there will be no more accidents due to tired drivers, ignorance of local conditions or too many beers at the lunch stop. For the sick or elderly who no longer feel safe behind the wheel, or for people who never got their license, driving back to a computer reopens the option of taking a road trip where it didn’t exist before.
Do any of the benefits make up for the loss of the traditional road trip? That is up to you to decide. However, as is inevitable, it would be advisable to make the most of the experience while it lasts.
A generation or two from now, steering wheels and gas pedals will likely seem like a quaint relic of the past, as outdated as floppy disks and transistor radios make it today.
