A newspaper report has set out its idea of of how driverless vehicles could impact the Britain of the future.

Tim Wallace, the Telegraph’s Deputy Economics Editor and his colleague Matthew Field, the Senior Technology Reporter have penned an article which suggests: “A million drivers out of work. Public transport collapsing. Migration down as delivery jobs dry up. A property market upended as desirable spots near railway stations lose value and remote spots boom.”

The article says the “potential upheaval from the arrival of driverless cars knows few limits”.They say the technology could prove to be truly seismic and quote Dara Khosrowshahi, the chief executive of Uber as telling the World Economic Forum in Davos that “It could be 20 years from now that driving will be like horseback-riding – people who are fans of a certain type of transport that used to be the predominant type of transport will do it for fun.”

Discussing issues that have been featured in ITS World Congresses for more than a decade, the article looks at how jobs will be affected, alongside property and parking, and freight and logistics.

And while Steve McNamara, General Secretary of the Licensed Taxi Drivers Association tells the reporters robotaxis are little more than “a novelty, a tourist attraction” in Los Angeles, and would struggle with London’s clogged roads, they conclude by saying technology “has a remorseless logic of its own and the allure of the driverless car may prove difficult to resist”.

Read the full article here (paywall).

(Picture – Olga Gonzalez)