HSE specialist: unmanned vehicles in Russia will become a reality within 15 years 
a reality for 15 years. Such terms were named by Konstantin Trofimenko, director of the Center for Research on Transport Problems in Megalopolises of the Higher School of Economics (HSE). His words are quoted by the authors of the project “New Society”
“Moscow is already thinking about this today, but not only Moscow. Large cities with a population of over one million will be able to afford it in some time, ”he said. According to the specialist, it is quite feasible financially, since in some cases it will not be necessary to replace the entire fleet, but to install additional modules.
“Infrastructure will change, but this is a complete analogy to when cars appeared a hundred years ago. The cities were adapted for pedestrian traffic and cabbies. And then, when there were a lot of cars, reality began to rebuild for cars, the streets began to be asphalted, a curbstone appeared, markings appeared, and somehow it went away – not that someone said that it was necessary that in twenty years there was asphalt everywhere “, – he reminded.
Russia already has plans to develop unmanned vehicles. “It will move normally in this direction, and, by the way, one of the goals of introducing all smart technologies is ecology, because if our transport system is an order of magnitude more manageable, then its work can be built in such a way as to cause less harm. “, – said the specialist, explaining that with free movement of traffic, the level of emissions into the atmosphere is lower.
In Moscow, unmanned transport can become a part of everyday life in about ten years, said Deputy Mayor for Transport Maxim Liksutov however, some modes of transport may become widespread even earlier. The deputy mayor announced the emergence of unmanned trams: testing will be organized together with Yandex. The IT giant is also going to launch unmanned taxis to transport passengers as early as 2021, and in the future will increase the fleet of unmanned vehicles to a thousand cars.
The issues of greening transport have become one of the central topics of the New Society cycle – a large-scale project “ Lenta.ru ”, dedicated to the changes that have already begun in Russia or will occur in the coming decades. They talk about the attitude of Russians to the environment, consumption processes, work schedules and the impact of society on climate change.