One of the best uses for autonomous transport will be taxis (more here). Inner cities could replace driven vehicles with robot taxis that drive in a safe and predictable manner.

We’ve already seen that taxis could have virtual occupants, so that gives us the possibility of a care without a driver carting about a non-visible, non-local passenger.

Taxis are a great fit for MapMerge, because their journeys reflect where people most want to go. The parts of the map that need the most frequent updating are being traversed by taxis with cameras that can help update the maps.

The equipment used to create 3D maps of cities is fundamentally sensors, and with time sensors are becoming cheaper and smaller. Eventually the key cost to mapping will be travelling, and if vehicles are already travelling for another purpose, then that cost is negated.

Once we have enlisted delivery drones, NowSpecs, autonomous taxis, regular cars, telepresence robots and surveillance cameras – constantly updating and remapping the environment might not be too hard to achieve.