New technologies may provide solutions to the negative consequences of travel. Four major technologies under development offer promise of a better transport system if managed well:

• • electric propulsion

• • digital navigation

• • digital platforms

• • autonomous vehicles.

The following chapters will discuss how these new technologies could improve the present transport system, including how they might influence our travel planning and behaviour. These new technologies will themselves create problems that governments may need to anticipate, not least the longer-term implications of choices that are made today. An important question is whether to adopt a reactive or a proactive approach to regulation of the new technologies to achieve societal benefit while mitigating potentially harmful outcomes. Should governments allow new technologies space to develop creative approaches with minimal regulation, or should they regulate to head off undesirable investments?

There are many examples of innovative technologies currently being developed and deployed. My aim is to elicit the key features, both technological and economic. To this end I will focus on the leading exemplars of each kind of innovation, but will also indicate the range and variety of competitors.