In the near future, we may find ourselves driving about town in small electric vehicles (or being driven by them).
Today’s invention is a way to provide more flexible transport, based on a single, cheap motorised unit.
Each unit can accommodate one person or a stack of cargo. It is also fitted with a motor and a set of wheels, the front set being steerable.
These units can easily join up, forming a ‘train’ with continuous or subdivided interior -suitable for family trips or public transport.
The motor units talk to each other to provide the optimal distribution of drive along each train, as well as having the steering of the whole controlled only by the front unit.
Imagine a bus stop composed of up to 30 of these motorised units in a pile. A person could sit in one like a bus shelter. The occupied shelters could be collected by a bigger driver unit on a regular schedule (thus reducing the amount of empty moving space on board conventional, fixed-size buses). Or, if there were enough people waiting they could automatically form their own bus and drive off to required locations in an optimised route order.