Electric Autonomous Transport System

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Markets

Transportation
Location

Southeast Asia
Client

Confidential

Atlas Fung

Associate Director - Transportation and Water, Asia contact form+65 6675 0933

Our client was developing a vision for Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) which focuses on reducing car ownership, tackling traffic congestion at peak times, and reducing manpower requirements for conventional commercial transport modes.

Southeast Asia is supporting AV technology development, testing and trials across a wide range of use cases, including fixed and scheduled services, point-to-point on demand transport, freight and utilities. The intention was to develop and demonstrate AV technology and look to its initial deployment on the wider public road network by the early 2020s and longer-term mass adoption within a wider urban planning and transportation vision to 2040.

As part of this wider government agenda, our client was developing concepts for Car Lite Development which aims to plan future neighbourhoods around enhanced accessibility to mass transit, walking and cycling for first- and last-mile connections and the deployment of AVs to reduce car ownership and the spatial footprint given to roads and parking infrastructure, and hence contributing towards a net zero transport system.

Within this context, our client commissioned a Design Competition to develop a Car Lite Development master plan for a new urban residential district based on future mobility principles. In its successful response to the Design Competition, AtkinsRéalis prepared a Transport and Mobility Strategy. This envisaged the neighborhood being designed on car-lite principles for residents and visitors from the outset, with an ambitious car free aspiration in the future. Commuters will get more convenient, accessible, and comfortable public transport options to get to their destinations and local trips will be well served by sustainable distributor modes and an enabling environment which supports active travel on foot or by cycle or Personal Mobility Devices (PMDs).

Above all, the area was envisaged as going beyond the conventional elements of urban planning to deploy disruptive technologies and operating models in redefining urban mobility. The accepted distinctions between private and public transport would break down through presenting mobility less in terms of infrastructure and physical assets and more in terms of a service offering different levels of multi-modal access and entitlement based on user preference, need and ability and willingness to pay. Travel options would become demand-responsive, with the user at the heart of the transportation offer, and with technology and data deployed as the interface with infrastructure managers and service operators.

As part of this approach, AtkinsRéalis saw this area as being an early test-bed for AV deployment at the neighborhood level through the Electric Autonomous Transportation System.

This system will initially be developed as a low-emission neighborhood shuttle bus circulator, connecting to the rail network, other onward public transport interchanges and key car parks. However, as the technology develops, this system will evolve in terms of:

Power source, with inductive charging at interchanges and stops en-route, delivering zero emissions and noise on street and sustaining the public realm;
Autonomy, with no requirement for a driver except in an emergency, freeing up manpower to assist passengers in more active ways;
Demand-response, linking via Mobility as a Service, to offer a scheduled service on defined routes during peak times and become fully on-demand responsive at the request of a smart app in the off-peak and with personalised pods able to serve user on a door-to-door basis; and
Vehicle type and size, ranging from midi-shuttle buses for scheduled routes to personalised pods for individual or small group on-demand trip-making, all enabled with community information and access to e-services.

This transport system would share space with pedestrians, cyclists and PMD users and would reach a significant number of destinations. Reduced reliance on private cars would allow a substantial downscaling of road and parking infrastructure, and hence contributing towards a net zero transport system.

Electric autonomous transport system

Atlas Fung

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