The daily nightmare for drivers to find parking spaces is becoming unbearable since there is no serious planning for village parking facilities, partly because drivers expect free spaces.
No serious planning of central car parking complexes is obligatory on licensed developers, once permits are issued for them to erect more flats, showrooms, hotels and restaurants. A heavy reliance on cars is linked to the convenience of using personal vehicles – this is undeniable right. Notice, how temperatures are rising, and pressures are mounting on commuters due to the constant ubiquitous traffic that has wiped out any trace of tranquillity, we once knew.
Property barons do not want to understand, or pretend not to understand, that we collectively need a new way of doing things. We can no longer afford the convenience of those few who want to be able to park (or even double park, a common occurrence) their cars right outside the address they visit. In China, the USA and some cities in northern Europe, this new technology is taking to the roads, and people are not sure what to make of it. Is it safe? If slowly introduced here – how will it get accepted along with other road users in Gozo? Will it really shake up the way we commute?
These questions are being asked today about autonomous vehicles (AVs). Countries including Australia, China, India and the Philippines expect developers to create adequate parking spaces whenever they put up a new building.
Hardware, but autonomous vehicle developers have also been working on electric vehicles, you might have seen them in sci-fi movies. In accordance, with genre conventions, robotaxis of the future tend to look like small shuttle buses with sliding doors on each side and feature no driver controls. Seating is usually arranged conference-style, and the passenger capacity ranges from four to over a dozen.
Typically, Waymo’s driverless cars are already offering 150,000 rides on Jaguar IPace models in San Francisco, Phoenix. Waymo has recently run tests in winter weather in Michigan and upstate New York. That solution would be like Alice in Wonderland for Gozo. Any long-term solution for an island with more than 62 cars imported daily (added to a fleet of over 430,000 ICE vehicles) highlights the need for a serious study such as the one Transport Malta financed three years ago with the publication of a Mass transit underground solution (costing over €6 billion) and now Vision 2050.
Typically, everyone realizes that the mass transit dream was just that… smoke and no fire. Realistically, we are at a stage where traffic congestion is no longer an annoyance but a crisis – and crises can only be solved with some difficult decisions.
In the recent past decade, the island has witnessed a sudden explosion in population, there has been a cascading increase in daily commuting rides – hence locals are showered with more carcinogenic fumes (electric vehicles are still expensive accounting for a mere 7% of the fleet – as more charging points are needed). Is the future introduction of Robotaxis alien to Malta? Exactly the same questions were posed when the first motor cars rumbled onto the roads.
Now AVs are poised to rewrite the rules of transport. Traditionally, islanders tend to join late in any new transport revolution and since the lobby group of ICE car importers is powerful, one may see some resistance to change. However, Malta Enterprise needs to speed our understanding of this wonder car at a juncture that daily commuting is coming to a standstill. Vision 2050 challenges the mentality to change. Wonderful algorithms guide such AVs to travel smoothly from point A to point B but, more importantly, optimise overall traffic by allowing robot vehicles to interact with vehicles driven by people. Such algorithm teaches robocars to optimise traffic flow by communicating with each other.
The collective system of AVs aims for smooth traffic flow even as each individual car seamlessly decides when to enter an intersection based on its immediate environment. There are many levels of sophistication in such cars and for a start Level 4 is defined as one that can do all driving, without any input from a human driver, within a limited area. A Level 5 vehicle (something that is still under study) is one that can in theory drive anywhere, like a human driver. The upshot is that advanced AVs on the roads today operate within specific regions of particular cities. Can Malta’s chaotic driving patterns adapt themselves for AVs to navigate safely and avoid accidents? The answer depends on the density of AVs on the road.
Studies have found that when robot vehicles make up just 5% of traffic in a simulation, traffic jams are eliminated. The combination of autonomy and ride-hailing, together with a switch to electric vehicles, seems likely to suppress the urge to own one’s own car.
In summary, it is never too late for Transport Malta to consider a gradual introduction of Robotaxis as an alternative solution.
