Future Transportation Systems - Decreasing Fuel Consumption and Exhaust Gas Emissions in Transportation - page 258

Chapter 17
Future Transportation Systems
Instead of a quick revolution, new technologies will slowly evolve in all sectors of
transportation. However, customers worldwide need sustainable, high quality
transport at a reasonable price [ 1 ].
Figure 17.1 shows the expectations regarding properties of new transportation
systems.
Change in road transportation, aviation, and ship navigation requires a high
investment, a long time interval, and well-coordinated research activities world-
wide to turn to sustainability. There are several possible paths what will be ana-
lyzed in next paragraphs.
17.1 Future Trends of Road Vehicle Technology
Development of vehicle technology can be divided into:
• Methods for short distance travel; and
• Methods for long distance travel.
One supposes that people will use electric vehicles for short distance travel.
Cost-based predictions show that internal combustion engines will retain their
leading position in the near future for both short- and long-distance transport.
Although the price of petroleum products is rising worldwide, there will be an
increasing number of single quality combustion engine cars especially in the low-
and mid-size class; see Table 17.1 [ 2 ].