In today’s world, one of the greatest irritations of humans is traffic congestion. In Los Angeles, people spend on average 102 hours per year in a traffic congestion (Mentalfloss, 2018). Cars are getting much less useful as a means of transportation due to the crowded streets, where public transport is more convenient. Nevertheless, the lack of futuristic mindset leads to the traditional transportation methods.
Uber sees opportunities of taking over the aerospace ridesharing within the next four years. At the second Uber Air summit in 2018 Dara Khosrowshahi elaborates that it is a “big bold bet, that it will not be easy but also not impossible”. The aim of the new ridesharing service is an on-demand network, where all aircrafts are working together on a massive scale together with the technicians in place who surveille the aerospace. Eventually, the goal is to have 200 flights an hour, where take-off and landing occur every 24 seconds. The new elevation should link all forms of transportation through which transference should be eased. The commercial flights are planned to occur in the summer of 2023, where the demonstration flights should already start next summer 2020 (Uber Elevate, 2019).
Apart from Los Angeles, Detroit and Dallas, Melbourne will host trials flights for Uber Air that will implement “Skyports” on rooftops to shuttle customers. This all will take place with the aim to reduce traffic congestion, which today costs Melbourne around $16.5 billion a year (The Guardian, 2019).
The new air-riding service is an attractive method of transportation; ecologically it is beneficial as the drones fly electrically, however, it does pose quite some jurisdictional and ethical problems. Especially in the Netherlands, people are quite cautious for change. It is very difficult to introduce new technologies and product in a country where democracy overrules and people stick to their traditions. Richard van Hooijdonk, a Dutch trendwatcher and futurist elaborates on this where he mentions that people nowadays struggle dealing with change. This happens both within organizations but also in a technological way. The technology is going faster than we humans can deal with (van Hooijdonk, 2019). Therefore, these new services like Uber Air will pose problems due to regulations that are not (yet) in place for these systems, and ethical obnoxiousness of human kind that are not (yet) ready for futuristic technologies.
It is important to start accepting and appreciating the technological change because the substrate is there, it is only matter of letting the technology be part of our life. Furthermore, we should embrace uncertainty because that is the world of the future. Through exposing ourselves to uncertainty we will be able to develop and acquire more technological changes that will lead to a more efficient and sustainable situation.
Uber Air is an example of how we should embrace uncertainty since it is something where no one knows how it will take place, but everyone knows that it will solve a large deal of the traffic congestion problem we are facing today.
“Aerial Ridesharing at Scale” Uber Elevate, 2019, https://www.uber.com/nl/nl/elevate/uberair/
“Here’s How Much Traffic Congestion Costs the World’s Biggest Cities.” Mental Floss, 11 Feb. 2018, mentalfloss.com/article/530705/heres-how-much-traffic-congestion-costs-worlds-biggest-cities.
Martin, Lisa. “Uber Air Announces Melbourne as Trial City for Flying Taxi Service.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 11 June 2019, www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jun/12/uber-air-announces-melbourne-as-trial-city-for-flying-taxi-service.
Richard van Hooijdonk 2019, Big Data Expo 2019, Jaarbeurs Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands, 18-19 September 2019.
Hey Sam,
Interesting post! The world is indeed sceptical about changing, we should actually embrace technologies.
I do, however, think that flying cars are not something we will see so soon in everyday life. Maybe in 10 or 20 years, but not in 4 years. Because of that fact that regulation is difficult and people don’t trust technology.
Do you agree with the vision of Uber?
Hey Tom, I also wonder whether time will let us embrace the aerospace. I think there are countries where it will be more acceptable than others. Let’s see if the near future will bring us a revolutionary transportation method.