When Prince George becomes king, part 2

Part 2 – Mobility: How the world will get around
 

Looking back at when George’s grandfather Prince Charles was born in 1948, streets were filled with all sorts of vehicles: handcarts, bicycles, automobiles and even still a few horse-drawn carriages. As a boy, Prince Charles and his family could enjoy weekends at Windsor Castle without the constant deafening thunder of airplanes taking off and landing at nearby Heathrow airport. Back then, only just over 100 planes landed there per day, whereas today it is ten times that number. Globally speaking, according to the car researcher Ward's, there were perhaps 60 million cars on the road in the late 1940s and they were still a luxury most people were saving for. Today, the number of cars has grown to one billion, an everyday thing most people have.
 

So will we have twelve times as many cars in 2078? No. Allianz experts agree that we will be regarding cars differently in the future. As more and more people move to cities and governments try to cope with this influx, regulation increases against car use. The cost of owning a car will have risen considerably due to increased parking costs, city driving tax and other measures that make owning a car or even getting a driver’s license unattractive.

The Hyperloop was recently proposed as a high-speed connection between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Is that the future?

Souce: spacex.com

London still congested but fewer drivers
 

“London during the reign of George VII will probably continue to see congested streets, but the main difference to today will be that these cars will likely be run through car-sharing plans, mainly due to the high price of owning your own car,” says Tim Pitts, Head of Product and Technical Support at Allianz UK. .
 

Allianz experts assume that driver assistance systems will become more and more sophisticated and standard – reducing the rate of car accidents. This trend is already visible today in Europe and the USA, while developing nations are lagging behind. “Dying in a car accident unfortunately is a poverty risk,” says Joerg Kubitzki, road safety expert at the Allianz Center for Technology (AZT). He hopes that a lot will happen in the area of safety standards. In the 1970s, the AZT was instrumental in making the seat belt mandatory in Germany – many countries still need to follow suit and then also enforce their laws.
 

Kubitzki adds that the driverless future will dominate especially in the transport industry, not so much for private travelers. He points to a recent visionary project in California, which proposes a high-speed tunnel for driverless vehicles between L.A. and San Francisco.
 

Fredrik Muentzing of Global P&C at Allianz SE agrees. "Personal mobility could be more focused on leisure activities," he says. In 65 years the need for physical mobility may have decreased. Unlike other experts who predict increasing urbanization, he thinks that since people will be able to work from wherever they prefer to be, the need for living in large urban clusters may diminish. Those traveling might be doing so for weekend trips only.
 

“During the next decades, the automotive industry will continue optimizing the current engines. But one day cars will either be electric or run on emission-free fuel cells. So the good news is: The air will finally be much cleaner when the Royal Baby becomes king,” says Manfred Boschatzke, Market Management Director at Allianz Germany.
 

Read more about the future of technology, energy and climate in the next part of our Future Vision series.
 

Tomorrow Part 3 – Will George have a green future?

Katerina Piro
Allianz SE
Phone +49.89.3800-16048
Send e-mail

Sian Glennane
Allianz UK
Phone +44.1483.465-227
Send e-mail