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Breakthrough
Page 37
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SC PACE fiction has become a reality in a decade. Yet concurrently road traffic congestion has increasingly become the most backward feature of modern times. Development in space flight and lack of develdpment in resolving road traffic problems are in such stark contrast as to make any comparison seem a futile if not ludicrous exercise. Yet is there nothing road transport can learn from the prodigious accumulation of expertise on what is, after all, just another form of transport?
Implicit in such a question is automation. Its application to transport was discussed by the Institute of Transport in Oxford last weekend, as reported on page 116. Understandably there were doubters as to the potential in road transport for automated control systems. But already automated factories are demanding transport services to match changed working shifts. Soon an electrified and automated rail system will be in operation promising faster and more reliable services.
Road transport cannot stand aloof. It must retain its inherent flexibility and personal service. But it must also exploit every worthwhile technical development and automation is no longer black magic.
Already the development of automation is so far advanced that technical feasibility is seldom the barrier to its application. Primarily —and rightly so—it is whether it is "likely to be a commercial proposition by providing a better and safer service at lower cost. As road speeds increase still further human reaction time may prove inadequate whilst vigilance may falter without aid from automated control systems. One factor must never be allowed to become a barrier. It is our inbuilt resistance to change.