A drone flying over the “airspace” that we see from our window. A food delivery robot that we met at the door of the house. And an autonomous car that gives us the right of way at the crossroads before entering the subway to leave what will be known as the Madrid Mobility Sandbox.
The city has approved the initial text of the new ordinance for the creation of a 20 km2 space in the Villaverde District where companies will be able to test products related to mobility and the new way of understanding cities in a real environment.
The photography described in the first paragraph is still a bit utopian. For the moment, the text has passed to the public consultation phase but it has already established all the pillars so that this “closed and secure sandbox environment in which technological innovations can be tested in controlled spaces and with a real population before being commercialized or implemented on a massive scale”, in the words of the Madrid City Council, takes place.
The ultimate goal is to relax the rules to offer a space for companies to test, for example, their autonomous robots or food delivery drones, autonomous cars or, simply, “smart streetlights that reduce the intensity of light if they do not detect activity around them”, as explained by Begoña Villacís, deputy mayor of Madrid at the press conference for the announcement.
In addition to seeing the progress of these companies in the streets, this space with more lax rules It will also serve to promote the development of innovations, shortening deadlines and reducing the bureaucracy that would be necessary to launch the tests on the streets of the rest of the city.
An autonomous car that stops in front of the child
This is the example set by Ángel Niño, Delegate Councilor for the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Area in the city to explain the advantages that the citizens of Villaverde should find.
He project Sandbox has now seen its initial text approved, but it has been on the table of the city council for more than two years. Enough time for companies such as Goggo Network to show their interest, which hope to put their new system of fully autonomous delivery robots on the streets or their food truck (also autonomous), a logistics drone from Globalvia and eHang or an autonomous car from the University de la Nebrija and FEM Expert.
Therefore, it is no coincidence that the innovation area focused on this last point, emphasizing the supposed improvement in security that the residents of the district should receive with a project of this magnitude. According to Niño, the choice of the district is marked by the intention to “regenerate neighborhoods” that are not reached by projects of this type because they have “not so high socioeconomic income.”
The question is how these tests of experimental vehicles and artifacts will be accepted in real situations. The Madrid City Council has stressed that this area will only be comparable in the world to those offered in Singapore and California for the development of, among others, autonomous vehicles.
Precisely from California we have received the reluctance of the San Francisco mobility regulators to extend the space for the tests of autonomous vehicles. The question is how the neighbors will coexist with these new agents in land and air traffic or if we will come to see situations as curious as that of that autonomous car that was fleeing from the police.
Foto | Gogo Network
