With the internal combustion engine falling increasingly out of favour, how will we be getting around the cities of the future? Motoring journalist Richard Aucock is keen on electric ‘pods’ – “little one-seat city-focussed creations many auto makers are showing as prototypes. There's huge potential here, I feel, to ensure private motorists can still have a ‘car’ in the future, but for it to be an urban-friendly one. They take up less space, are easy to park, easy to drive… They could be a viable alternative for those who still don't believe public transport fits their needs.”

“We'll see an increase in short-range electric vehicles. We'll see an increase in the proliferation of different fuel types, maybe hydrogen technology for public transport and for personal transport, and also the use of Big Data to try and predict and mitigate congestion patterns in big cities.” Nik Pearson, Toyota spokesman

Toyota spokesman Nik Pearson explains the Toyota mobility roadmap. “For short range point-to-point we see electric vehicles playing a role, particularly for urban commuting. Then, in this mid-range we have a couple of technologies, one being hybrid technology where we have a normal petrol engine supplemented by an electric motor, which lowers the impact on the environment, and also plugin hybrid technology. We see those two as the mainstay for at least the next 10 or 15 years. “For long-range distances we see hydrogen playing a role. Effectively, what hydrogen does is it gives you the convenience of a more conventional car – low refuelling times for example – but with the range that you don't get from a full electric vehicle. We see that as a technology for the future.” A further question is the degree to which we’re likely to relinquish control of our vehicles in future. Despite seeing an opportunity to take human error out of driving, Pearson doesn’t think driverless technology will land any time soon. “At this stage in time a driverless car needs a lot of infrastructure to be able to know where it is on the road, and know where other cars are on the road. We've got a lot of roads that would need to be retrofitted to be able to have a fully-working network for driverless cars.” David Stevens, COO at Admiral Group, agrees that driverless technology won’t be available in the very near future. “Technologically, it's one thing to take a few demonstration models in specific areas and to drive them without accident. It's another thing to overcome the barriers to take-up from people. Will they feel comfortable in driverless cars? Will they appeal immediately? How do driverless cars and driven cars interact? Lots of work needs to be done on changes to the law and how we actually legislate for transport. Whose fault is it when a driverless car crashes?”

“A lot of people still might want to drive themselves – driving for pleasure out in the countryside… But no-one really enjoys driving around in the city. We expect the safety would be far greater, and the consideration shown to other road users would be much greater from a driverless car.” Chris Peck, Former campaigns and policy director at CTC

Chris Peck, former campaigns and policy director with cycling charity CTC, thinks it’s possible that fully-driverless technology may eventually become standard. “It could be that the driverless car will actually supplant the taxi – it’ll become the standard mode of short trips by private motor transport in cities.”

Andrew Davis, CEO of the ETA Trust, is enthused by the prospect of driverless vehicles. “They're rather like being in your own train if you think about it. You're sitting in a vehicle that is just going where you want to go. You don't have to watch where you're going. It would be a great help for older people and those with poor eyesight, they can now drive again. At the moment we ban a whole class of people from driving, people below 17, and you could argue that is a problem. Imagine anyone can drive that car… They don't need to learn to drive, they don't have to worry about medical conditions – it will change our society!” Howard Moorey, founder of hojomo Group, sees that connectivity between vehicles will have a wide impact. “You’re going to find that connected cars, connected trucks, connected buses and everything else leads to far more data being available on how they’re being used, who’s using them and when… From an insurance point of view, there will be telematics readings available that have never been available before. If that’s the case then you’ll find that the whole insurance industry will change its model from an annual premium based on a range of users to individual pricing menus that will be tailored around your particular lifestyle and the use you make of your car.” David Stevens thinks telematics technology could be effectively plugged into city infrastructure. “There are opportunities for cars to ultimately talk to each other, to fully understand where they are, and to tie into a system so that you could route vehicles more sensibly to try to minimise the negative costs of congestion. Ultimately, there could be linkage between the connected car and the traffic lights, the bus lanes – so you can use the bus lanes when no buses are using them, but the cars get out of the way when the buses are using them.”

“Transport for London is considering installing lockers at railway stations, where people can pick up supermarket deliveries. In Philadelphia, the local public transport operator there – which is called SEPTA – links its commuter rail stations with farmers’ markets. It makes the station a bit more fun!” David Crawford, contributing editor of ITS International