8 Technologies that will change Transportation forever

I dreamed of air travel as a kid. The sky! The engineering! The tiny Coke cans! Then I grew up, and realized I much preferred trains (how European, I know). And, regardless of time and place, I believe crisscrossing the country in a car was, is, and will remain… too dull.

What’s interesting about the above statements is that travel technology hasn’t changed much in the past 30+ years. Sure, the trains got faster, the planes got safer; but compared to the technological jumps we saw in other industries, it’s surprising we haven’t come up with new and better ways of going from point A to point B.

This is about to change. From hydrogen-propelled vehicles to quantum transport optimization (and much more in between), we are seeing new ways of getting around emerge. Faster, safer, greener… these game-changing technologies will revolutionize transportation as we know it.

1. Ion-propelled UAVs

Smart / autonomous cars aren’t the only upgrades the City of the Future will offer. SciFi writers have long made us dream of flying cars. But what few had really thought about is just how loud propellers or turbine blades can be, essentially making them unusable in urban areas. So we had to come up with a solution with no moving parts : Ion-propelled UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles).

Ion propulsion is easy. Instead of regular fuel, a Special Gas (xenon) is used. Electricity is generated in the engine to give Tiny Kicks to the xenon atoms. They lose an electron and become Positively Charged, becoming “ions.” These ions are then Pushed out of the back vehicle at very high speeds, thanks to an electric field. This works particularly great in space, where a lack of resistance ensures an object can go far with very little xenon (which is already very dense) on-board.

Things become a lot harder on earth (due to air resistance and gravity). Ion-powered vehicles must be very light to fly. As such, they would not be able to go very high, and may not be safe at first. However, as shown in the video below, there is a world in which ion-propelled UAVs become a reality. A silent, carbon-conscious reality. Wouldn’t that be nice.

Why Ion-propelled UAVs are important

There are a lot of reasons to be excited about ion propulsion. First off… it’s green. Ion propulsion systems produce minimal emissions compared to traditional jet or internal combustion engines. If we’re ever going to survive as a species, this is the direction our thinking needs to be taking.

Secondly, such UAVs would in theory be mechanically simpler than the alternatives due to fewer moving parts (easier to build, cheaper to fix), potentially allowing for their democratization.

Finally, these vehicles would be silent. And if you live in a major city, you know how much value this will have for citizens in the long term. According to the European Environment Agency, noise is responsible for 12,000 premature deaths and 48,000 new cases of ischaemic heart disease every year.

• More on Ion-Propelled UAVs here [Undefined Technologies]

2. Hydrogen transportation

Obviously, hydrogen is not a method of transportation. It’s a fuel. A fuel that we will use to power propulsion systems within land, sea and air vehicles.

If you mix hydrogen (the most abundant element in the universe) with air and set it on fire, you get a lot of energy, which can then be converted into electricity (or other sources of propulsion power). Water is the only other by-product of hydrogen power (you may recall that the H in H2O stands for hydrogen).

There’s already been many announcements around hydrogen transport… and one hopes this is just the beginning.

There are challenges, however: making green hydrogen (from water or other natural gas) takes energy, which may not itself be green. Additionally, storing and transporting hydrogen is laborious; it’s such a thin particle that nothing can really contain it efficiently! There’s been many promises, with little results so far.

Why Hydrogen transportation is important

Hydrogen propulsion is a great alternative to combustion power. It may allow for long-distance, zero-emission travel; buses, trucks, ships, planes… it’s all in play.

The Paris Agreement, along with local regulation in Europe, the US and China, will have a gradual but dramatic impact on the decarbonization of transportation, making future zero-emission mobility a must. Despite heavy investments in battery electric vehicles (BEVs), it is likely we will need alternatives. Hydrogen may yet prove to be the best one.

• More on Hydrogen Transportation here [EU Science Hub] or here [Wired]

3. Robot knowledge sharing / Swarm intelligence

Whether they are in factories, in warehouses, at home or on the street, robots are impressive… yet profoundly stupid. Every new situation is likely to stump and/or break them, which tends to be very expensive. “Robot Knowledge Sharing” technology will improve this state of affair by letting our AI-driven electronic friends share information with one another.

This sharing ability could be applied in many situations, from the simple knowledge that an obstacle has appeared on a road, to the math needed to “see” and avoid a new complex shape. This is especially relevant when it comes to transport. Trial- and-error learning is not an option for cars; “oh wow I hit a pedestrian, now I know not to do it” isn’t a great sell. Ants and bees do it… why not cars.

This is necessary because a city’s street are not only very complex, but also ever-changing. Once the technology is up and running, it can allow the fast deployment of autonomous vehicles without having to map a city’s every single nook and cranny.

It will be difficult to achieve : scalable swarm intelligence necessitates the use of sophisticated tools like orchestration management and agent-based modelling. Beyond the technology, most car-makers and governments will need to agree on having the same architecture. Finally, we will also need to allow data collection at a ever-before seen scale, which raises significant privacy questions.

Why robot knowledge sharing and swarm intelligence are important

Obviously, allowing all cars to learn from the knowledge gathered by all other cars will lead to safer and faster decision-making, which itself will lead to safer streets (41,000 death deaths caused by traffic crashes in 2023 in the US alone).

It will also decrease the cost of training algorithms, lowering production cost for car-makers and making safer vehicles more easily accessible for the masses.

• More on Robot Knowledge Sharing here [Univ. of Southern California]

• More on Vehicle Swarm Intelligence here [Bosch]

4. Quantum transport optimization

Quantum computing is “a type of computing that operates on the quantum state of subatomic particles to address problems with vast combinatorial complexity”. In everyday words, it looks something like this:

• Normal computers do math by turning switches (bits) “on” or “off”

• Quantum computers are magic and have Special Switches (qbits) that can be both “on” and “off” at the same time (superimposed)

• In quantum computers, switches are also connected (entangled): what happens to one impacts the other

• If you have a huge maze to solve, a regular computer will use brute force to look at each possible path, one at a time; a quantum computers can try all paths at the same time; it’s much faster

The maze analogy isn’t a coincidence: it’s famously difficult to plan transport / delivery routes between 100+ points, while accounting for time of day, weather, traffic, regulations, refueling stops…

Why quantum transport optimization is Important

Being able to better plan out routes will make the world greener in two ways. First, routes will be optimized to reduce road-time. Second, better planning will mean less traffic, which itself is a big driver of noise and particle pollution in major cities.

If we can make it happen, that is: the technology is far from mature, and experts agree we may not see this technology be used before the decade is over.

• More on Quantum transport optimization here [Quantum Computing Inc.]

5. Intuitive Mobility

Unlike Ions and Quantum, Intuitive Mobility is easy to understand.

• You build a Machine Learning algorithm

• You train it with the data from millions of transport decision taken over the past years (wide-spread use of transport cards, european-style, helps)

• You get it to spit out passenger movements predictions through pattern analysis (and maybe a lil’ bit of Gen AI?)

• That knowledge can be used to anticipate needs and provide the right level of service, at the right time, in the right place

Many cities currently do this, but AI can push the concept further by identifying little annoying trends that could easily be fixed. If a lot of people walk from one station to another during specific summer weeks, for example, a bus could be put in place to transit between the two, and traffic could be lightly diverted.

Why Intuitive Mobility is important

This is not a massive change in the way we do things. But it is realistic. If we are able to gather the relevant data and fund city infrastructure, we may all be more willing to take public transport. And that’s good for everyone, Americans be damned.

• More on Intuitive Mobility… nowhere (not a big topic of academic study today, sadly)

6. Hypersonic aircraft

Some aviation fans may remember the Concorde, a super-sonic French plane that travelled from London to New York in 3.5 hours (versus c.8 hours today). It flew in the 80s and 90s… then was retired (for safety reasons, sure… but mostly profit reasons, as is often the case).

The Concorde flew at 2 179 km/h (a little under Mach 3, or three times the speed of sound). Current commercial jet aircraft fly slower than Mach 1. At Mach 6, one would be flying at around 2 km per second, which is 7,200 km/h, allowing an aircraft to fly, fuel permitting, around the world in less than six hours (hypersonic).

New technologies (e.g. the EU’s STRATOFLY project) promise to make passengers and cargo travel at hypersonic speeds a reality in five to 10 years. However, given how long it has taken for the Concorde to be built, and how quickly it was shuttered, I have low hope.

Why Hypersonic aircrafts are important

There are many potential advantages of hypersonic flight, including extremely reduced travel times and improved space access for people and goods. It allows the transport of people (including troops or critical supplies for the most relevant use case — war) around the world within just a few hours. Such efficient usage of time is something that no type of transport can provide today.

• More on Hypersonic Aircrafts here [NASA]

7. Maglev trains

A maglev (short for magnetic levitation) is a type of train that uses magnetic forces to lift and propel itself without making direct contact with the tracks. Instead of wheels, it floats above the rails thanks to the repelling forces between magnets. This reduces friction and allows maglev trains to reach very high speeds (480 km/h — for reference, Japanese bullet trains and French TGVs gets up to c.320 km/h).

Maglev technology works by using two sets of Special Magnets: one to lift the train off the track (levitation) and another to push it forward (propulsion). Because there’s no physical contact between the train and the track, maglev systems are quieter, smoother, and require less maintenance than traditional trains (bar for the fairly advanced sub-zero cooling system needed to boos magnet performance). They are already used in a few countries, most notably in China (since 2004).

Why magnetic levitation is important

Let’s be honest. This is not a new fancy idea — having originally been formulated in the late 1960s. But it’s gained traction since green transportation has become more important (for obvious reasons). Aviation, as we highlighted above, is very hard to decarbonize, and conventional high-speed trains are not fast enough to beat the convenience of commercial flights in routes over a few hundred kilometers. Maglev trains fulfill that sweet spot.

Another big benefit is safety. Maglev trains are “driven” by the powered guideway. Any two trains traveling the same route cannot catch up and crash into one another because they’re all being powered to move at the same speed. Similarly, traditional train derailments that occur because of cornering too quickly can’t happen with Maglev. The further a Maglev train gets from its normal position between the guideway walls, the stronger the magnetic force pushing it back into place becomes.

These trains are however pricy… and only make sense for long-distance (>300 km) travel. The only countries that a) have the money and b) care about the environment are in Europe, where travel is often shorter / where the investment is not as warranted. Maybe the US? But I wouldn't hold my breath.

• More on Maglev Trains here [The Australian National University]

8. Airships

A majority of the technologies highlighted in this article are focused on transporting people. However, moving things from point A to point B is just as important to the modern world, if not more.

In that regard, what’s old is new. Airships (AKA blimps), long considered relics of the past, are being reviewed as a potential solution for cargo transport. 

Large cargo airships’ efficiency increases with size, making them suitable for sustainable long-distance transport. They are also are fuel-efficient / emission-free, and are capable of landing in diverse locations, which reduces the need for extensive infrastructure.

They could not / would not replace air or road transport, but may be an alternative to the incredibly harmful large sea cargos currently criss-crossing the seas (shipping emits 1,000 Mt CO2 per year, which is 3% of global CO2 emissions).

Why airships are important

Airships could offer a greener, more efficient alternative for global cargo transport. It would also make the skies a little more whimsical; not everything need be related to speed.

However, airships face challenges, including high initial investment, ongoing maintenance, vulnerability to weather conditions, and the need for stringent safety standards. 

• More on Airships here [The Guardian]

Transportation is poised for dramatic change, driven by the innovations outlined above. While some of these technologies — like hydrogen propulsion and maglev trains — are closer to reality, others, such as ion-propelled UAVs and quantum transport optimization, represent more distant but thrilling possibilities.

What is clear, however, is that the future of mobility will be faster, greener, and smarter than what we know today. These breakthroughs won’t just transform how we travel — they will shape our cities, impact global trade, and redefine the way we interact with the world.

Good luck out there.