Driverless Car Transit Hub

Abstract

The world is moving towards automation, and manual labour is quickly becoming obsolete to avoid unnecessary human error in complex processes. As an example of this evolution, in twenty to thirty years, a new era of driverless technology will revolutionize modern transportation systems. This technology will not only change road systems themselves, but it will also alter the way people live their lives. Urban planners will exchange the need for parking lots for a new requirement for drop-off zones. Such change will transform the workforce commuting paradigm. It is up to the architects and urban planners to create innovative plans to design city systems that bring citizens from point A to point B in the urban metropolitan regions seamlessly without sacrificing the flexibility of where citizens may need to go. An additional challenge in this driverless shift is to use the existing cityscape and public transit infrastructure to accommodate the new transportation technologies as the fixed form of an established metropolis prevents immediate mass reconstruction and rebuilding. This thesis presents the case that an inter-modal transit hub can effectively integrate driverless car technology into a city’s public transit system to improve efficiency and flexibility while maintaining the city’s traditional legacy of transport networks and urban built form.