AUDI 25th hour project predicts cities of the future without congestion

on average, drivers spend around 50 minutes per day at the wheel of a car. as such, AUDI is investigating how new technologies such as self-driving vehicles, ride sharing and smart traffic management will change our everyday life for the better. this on-going study, named the ‘25th hour’ project, is already generating conceptual and realized designs like the ‘aicon‘ and even the ‘A8‘ series model.

all images courtesy of AUDI AG

AUDI’s ‘25th hour’ project involves their designers proposing and predicting questions such as will we continue to spend almost an hour in the car, and can time be used better in an autonomous car? to do so, the brand has teamed up with traffic experts at the karlsruhe institute for technology and mobilitypartners to formulate and analyze research. a traffic model for ingolstagt – the german city where AUDI is based – has been built in order to predict the results for which their designs aim to solve.

‘the results suggest that autonomous cars, mobility services, and networked infrastructure can significantly reduce congestion and road space. at the same time, more young and old people can travel safely and conveniently. in this way, the quality of life in cities will be improved dramatically,‘ explains melanie goldmann, head of trend communication at AUDI. on typical commutes, a lasting reduction in travel times can be achieved. this is mainly through self-driving cars – with their computers maintaining distance and speed – but, even more so, solutions like smarter traffic management and higher occupancy rates per car will also reduce congestion. connected, automated and shared vehicles can help use and reallocate space, even freeing up public space for pedestrians and bicycles instead.

‘these findings encourage us to continue our investment in the future: in self-driving cars such as the AUDI aicon, services like AUDI on demand, or networked technology such as AUDI traffic-light information,‘ goldmann concludes. analyzing different situations help aid AUDI in designing the mobility of the future. these technological solutions, such as autonomous driving, are already bringing significant benefits to our lives – just take the ‘A8’ for example, which was released in 2017. its level 3 autonomy provides a more enjoyable experience when stuck in traffic jams. and, looking at their concepts such as the ‘pop.up next’, issues like road congestion won’t exist in the future AUDI is designing.