AUSTIN, Texas — There's constant conversation in most major cities, including Austin, about what to do with congestion on roads. While people at South by Southwest (SXSW) discussed the possibility of a Hyperloop or autonomous cars on Tuesday, there were some different types of conversations Wednesday that involve flight.
The panel "Death to Roadways: Ending Traffic with Flying Cars" touched on a lot of different topics related to driving on the road. The key point of discussion was taking our transportation off the roads and into the sky with flying cars.
The four panelists featured Aarti Shahani from NPR, Shivika Sahdev from McKinsey and Company, which helps companies create economic growth for cities, Jaiwon Shin from NASA and Michael Thacker from Bell Technologies, Inc.
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These four talked about growing congestion on roads and the hours of lost productivity for drivers.
In Austin, they said the average commute is 25 minutes a day, compared to 90 minutes a day for Mumbai. They also presented an everyday, air-based transportation system that would theoretically be ready to manage traffic through the air.
From a product perspective, Shin said, NASA along with other companies is working to develop the vehicles that could be a part of this system.
