The rising cost of fuel has become a big matter of concern these days. Adding up to this is the increasing amount of pollution in the city, all of which contributes to depleting the quality of air. Based on Department of Transport (England) 55 percent of UK emissions results from cars and taxis, while the remaining from coal burning as well as lorry exhaust. To deal with such situations, OPTI driverless taxi intends to create another mode of transport that not only reduces emissions but transports people within city environments. This project has been proposed for people commuting to London. The concept is pretty simple. This vehicle, acting as a taxi or bus, would have hire points at central bus as well as train stations. Lithium ion batteries located within the chassis floor is the main source of power for the vehicle. The shape of the vehicle is small as to accommodate for short voyages. The seating position has been designed to be upright instead of laid back to design a smaller vehicle.
Designer : Paul Piliste
Another interesting feature of this vehicle is that, it is equipped with satellite navigation, proximity lasers, parking sensors as well as cameras, which make the OPTI, available 24 hours a day. The payment method appears to be via credit or debit card, generally verified using 3G. This purges robbery of the vehicle. Perhaps, the 3G is used to check the vehicles location for safety purpose. Even though OPTI driverless taxi is intended for 2025, but I hope that it arrives here sooner.
Tuvie has received this project from our ‘Submit A Design‘ feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their design/concept for publication.
Fantastic! I'm assuming there would have to be manual overides inside the vehicle for safety and other reasons such as heart attacks, pant wetting and the classic "I've just seen a beautiful women who I must talk to!"
Fantastic! I’m assuming there would have to be manual overides inside the vehicle for safety and other reasons such as heart attacks, pant wetting and the classic “I’ve just seen a beautiful women who I must talk to!”
awwww THIS IS REAL COOL love courtney young 😉
Gadget camera – Yes there is a large emergency shutoff button in the middle of the dashboard, and the vehicles passengers are monitored from a HQ so if someone did have a heart attack on their own, a surveilance operative could remotely shutoff the vehicle, or even change the destination it to the nearest hospital.
Courtney young – hello 🙂 email me
Why London, why not cities worldwide, Neat concept.
Stephen Russell – I used London as it is the nearest large city to where I studied during the project. I found that creating an entirely new mode of public transportation (e.g. guideways or monorail) can prove to be very expensive in a city with established architecture, that why it was decided to integrate the OPTI to the road network. This concept can work in other citys, providing that GPS satellite coverage is adequate. To accomodate for different citys some of the components would have to change slightly in size, this is due to the vehicle being designed to closely suit the UK and US anthropometric data.
How much would it cost for one those to be in the streets? I suspect is a lot and hence it will be an expensive to hire one of those and not affordable for everyone. If that the case then I think it wont be available widely (not many hire points..) and people will have to walk or wait longer. also I think it will be good idea if you could hire it in advance, for Instance you book it online, that the vehicle should be at your work place at your launch time. Otherwise I think it's a great concept, I hope I see one of those in my street soon.
foto chop