Vehicle hire company Zipcar’s general manager Jonathan Hampson told the Collaborate Mobility conference in London: “I want to see a bold vision for the car. At the moment cities are dominated by them and there is a lot of talk about walking and cycling; but there is no vision for cars in cities of the future. I feel that is a fairly big omission.”

He added that autonomous vehicles “will not be the answer to all our problems” especially if they encourage more people to drive, creating more congestion.

Jonathan – whose company promotes car sharing – went on to ask: “Who is in the driving seat of this urban mobility revolution? Not all innovation is good and cities need to ensure they are in the driving seat. There is a big difference between mobility that is good for the individual and mobility that is good for the city at large.

“I would really like to see the public sector step up to meet the challenges our cities face, be demanding about what kind of mobility future they want and make sure they get the best out of technology companies and mobility providers,” he added. “Otherwise they will be in the passenger seat and get whatever innovation comes their way.”

Also at the conference, KPMG associate director Graeme Brown said he thinks the decline in personal car ownership and “lack of interest among young people in getting a driving licence” will continue over the next decade. He added that autonomy “will happen” and predicted that by 2030 self driving vehicles will be on motorways with autonomous taxis traveling through cities.

But he warned that without Government intervention, travelling by car could become cheaper leading to an increase in private travel and a decline in public transport use.

Cycling charity Sustrans’ director of insight Andy Cope said he can see the appeal of transport technologies that may make it “cleaner, greener, safer and more inclusive” to get around but warned: “The worst outcome would be the restriction of walking and cycling to accommodate technologies.”

He added that talking about automation in the same breath as shared mobility is unhelpful. “There is nothing about autonomous vehicles that makes them inherently shareable, and nothing about (conventional) vehicles that makes them not inherently sharable.” He added that the way some people treat shared resources by not looking after them is an issue that needs to be considered when discussing future mobility.

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