Video: The Future of Transportation

When I’m in the television studio next week, I plan to shoot a video promoting 2GreenEnergy’s relationship with Dan Sturges, to facilitate our telling his story as a transportation visionary/futurist.

Let’s start with a tough question: Who says we need to be pro-active in evolving transportation? Don’t industries evolve on their own as R&D makes incremental improvements in adding features or reducing costs?

Put another way, is there anything truly broken about our approach to transportation? Well, it depends on how you define “broken.” If you mean, “Can the average person in a developed country buy a car, put gas in it, and drive it?” the answer is generally yes, and thus one could conclude that there’s nothing wrong here. But if you mean, “Will the world’s bulging consumer population in 2030 be able to behave the way it does today?” the answer is clearly no.

There is no doubt that the world’s current approach to transportation is horribly unsustainable. It’s redundant, heavy, bulky, and reliant on a dwindling supply of oil. As a result, it’s unaffordable in every sense of the word – both to the individual consumer, and to society as a whole; it’s expensive financially, and ecologically as well.

In the video, I’ll explain how Dan and his team study the “existing scene” in a certain region: demographics, traffic flow, commuting patters to work, personal errands, package delivery, as well as transportation to and from airports and rail stations. Then, they overlay notions of adding different forms of mass transit, car-sharing, ride-sharing, micro-rentals, small/light urban transportation, and urban redesign to encourage walking and bicycling.

The result? Reductions in car ownership, total miles driven, consumer spending on transportation, and environmental impact.  But are there things that increase? Yes: health, safety, and overall satisfaction.  Everyone wins.  It’s a story I can’t wait to tell.