BRITAIN should aspire to be the easiest place in the world to pioneer driverless flying cars, according to a free-market think-tank.
The Adam Smith Institute also wants the UK Government to help commercial spaceflight develop in Scotland and Wales by setting up spaceports.
Its ideas come in a paper called “Five things: Brave policy proposals to bolster Britain”, which urges the government to make Britain a “global centre of technological progress”.
The report, written by institute co-founder and president Dr Madsen Pirie, argues that commercial applications of new advances in flying cars have been proposed by firms such as Uber, but finding cities in which to trial and market them may prove difficult without a strong government commitment to ensure an “innovation-friendly regulatory environment”.
Pirie writes: “The flying cars of the fairly near future will not be automobiles with wings that are flown by humans. They will be people-carrying drones flown by artificial intelligence (AI). They will take off and land vertically, requiring no runways.
"And since the people in them will not be driving them, they will not require pilot’s licences to operate them. They will indicate the required destination, leaving the machine itself to plot a course and deliver people to it while avoiding other machines and obstacles on the way.
“They will be equipped with sensors in a similar manner to today’s autonomous cars, and will be capable of much greater and more rapid manoeuvrability than light aircraft have.”
He adds: “The government should take steps now to ensure that the UK takes an early lead in this technology. UK firms should be encouraged to undertake the development and testing of these vehicles by the putting in place the regulatory framework and the infrastructure."
“The government should set down rules that will govern their operation, and designate areas in which full-scale trials can be held. It should also designate the preferred routes that the vehicles might take between target destinations.”
Pirie also backs plans for what he calls a “CANZUK” free movement zone between the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and the United States.
He says the government should try to negotiate a plan that allows under-30s to migrate freely between these English-speaking states, which have similar legal traditions and levels of development.
Pirie also puts the renewal of Britain’s interest in spaceflight on the agenda, and suggests private spaceports be allowed in Scotland and Wales, along with an exploration of the possibility of manned spaceflight from Britain within the next 10 years.
Glasgow Prestwick is a front- runner in the race for the country’s first spaceport, and a conference in February heard that the first space launches from Britain could be made as early as 2020.
The think-tank's paper also says “growth flashpoints” should be established in the UK’s less prosperous cities, and the countries’ green belts should be rolled out – by giving cities an extra mile of space in existing green belts in exchange for an extra mile added to the outsides.
He argues that this would allow millions of new homes to be built by the private sector and could substantially reduce the cost of housing, especially in the most rapidly-growing parts of the country.
“Whoever forms the new UK Government after June 8, it is important that it should be receptive to new ideas that could raise the UK’s status in the world,” says Pirie.
“Since it will not be part of an ever more integrated EU, it matters that the UK asserts a role that puts it at the forefront of global development. The five initiatives proposed in this paper are designed to do just that.”
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