Posted March 24, 2017 22:08:31

Photo: Panellists discuss the future of driverless cars and drones at the Brisbane Science Festival. (Supplied: Annie Pullar)

Millennials should prepare for cars without drivers, aircraft without pilots, and skies full of drones.

That's the vision for 2050 that panellists at Brisbane's World Science Festival have painted.

"We will have autonomous vehicles, I can be sure of that," said Chris Luebkeman, global director for Arup Foresight.

The move towards cities with fully integrated and intelligent infrastructure that connects buildings, transport and devices is well under way.

Prototypes by Google, Volvo, Tesla and Uber have already made the shift to automated safety and driving support systems.

"This is just a natural progression," said Rita Excell, executive director of the Australia and New Zealand Driverless Vehicle Initiative (ADVI).

"The community and public want it, whether it's driverless vehicles or drones, it's a consumer-driven initiative.

"Governments, car companies and a lot of industries are saying 'here's an opportunity'. It's simply a groundswell of appetite to be able to do things better than what we're currently doing."

The shift to an automated world is set to bring huge benefits: reduced congestion, increased mobility, and increased safety.

Removing the human factor

Statistics show 94 per cent of road accidents are caused by human error, killing nearly 13,000 people on Australian roads each year.

An additional 35-50,000 people are injured and hospitalised annually.

"If everything was working well we wouldn't be killing people on Australian roads. The standards are lacking," Ms Excell said.

When something as pervasive as the car undergoes a revolution, we can expect a lot of other big changes.

Increased mobility is also a driving force behind the push for driverless transport, potentially helping to improve the quality of life for thousands of marginalised individuals unable to steer the wheel of a car.

"All of our citizens should have mobility, that has to be the bottom line," said Dr Catherine Ball, co-creator of the World of Drones Congress.

"People who are blind can't drive a vehicle, but if they don't need to drive, it means not just somebody who's drunk, but somebody who's physically, mentally, cognitively impaired will have access to personal mobility that most people take for granted."

Australia has been described as the "Goldilocks zone" for emerging driverless vehicle and drone technology.

"In November 2015, we ran the first demonstration of a driverless vehicle on a public road in the Southern Hemisphere, and since that time we have seen quite a significant number of projects launched," Ms Excell said.

"While there's lots of competition, lots of trials happening in different states and countries, Australia and New Zealand's approach is really one that will put us leapfrogs ahead of what will happen in the rest of the world."

They'll save us money

Hugh Bradlow, president of the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering and chief scientist at Telstra, says "there's a quarter of a trillion dollars in capital tied up in cars in Australia".

Eliminating human-driven vehicles could see up to $200 billion of capital redirected to other sectors such as health and education.

Driverless cars will rely on a combination of sensors and sophisticated programming to navigate safely — but how do we want them to handle thorny situations?

It's an exciting and somewhat terrifying future, and raises the question, are we really ready to share our roads, airways and personal space with self-flying taxis, driverless vehicles and consumer drones?

According to Dr Ball, the answer is clear: "Would you get in an old car that has air bags? If people can do that, then they can get into a fully tested, safety-rated, cyber-resilient commercial user drone."

Mr Bradlow says the number of young people learning to drive is already diminishing.

Moving forward, the most important step will be integrating mass transport systems with personal mobility devices.

Without this, Ms Excell said "you'll have some people driving their normal cars, some people on trams and light rails, and then also travelling in pods, everything gets congested and the situation could be made worse".

But do we want drones dominating the skies?

Drones are already making their way into regular business and health and safety legislation.

But do we really want them dominating our airspace, transporting goods and delivering people?

Dr Ball says she's worried that our airspace could be sold if we move towards an autonomous drone travel system.

"Are we going to allow corporates to buy up our view of the sun and our view of the stars at night?" she said.

"It frightens me. But empowers me to start having these important conversations."

This story is part of a collaboration for the World Science Festival between QUT and the ABC.

Topics: automotive, science-and-technology, brisbane-4000