Urban planning for a driverless future
面向无人驾驶未来的城市规划
广州汽车翻译公司：卡茨：优步的无人驾驶出租车试点计划在匹兹堡市启动之际，世界各地的市政领导人必须提出两个重要问题。
Last week in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, mayor Bill Peduto became the first ride-hailing customer to summon and ride a driverless taxi, marking yet another milestone in the rapid development of “autonomous vehicle” technology.
最近，宾夕法尼亚州匹兹堡市市长比尔•佩杜托(Bill Peduto)成了首位召唤无人驾驶出租车的顾客，这标志着“自动驾驶汽车”技术快速发展的又一座里程碑。广州汽车翻译公司。
As Uber’s pilot programme kicks off there, leaders in cities around the world must ask two important questions. First, how will widespread deployment of the self-driving cars on display in Pittsburgh affect how we build cities? And, second, how did Pittsburgh — a midsized former steel manufacturing city that suffered through severe deindustrialisation in the late 20th century — become the research lab and test bed for this revolutionary technology?
随着优步(Uber)的试点计划在该市启动，世界各地的市政领导人必须提出两个重要问题。第一，匹兹堡展示的自动驾驶汽车如果广泛采用，会如何影响我们建设城市的方式？第二，匹兹堡这座在20世纪末经历了深度去工业化的中型前钢铁重镇，是如何成为这项革命性技术的研究实验室和试验台的？
Certainly, the shape and operations of cities today may seem anachronistic if autonomous vehicles soon dominate personal vehicular transport. Mobility for the young, elderly and people with disabilities will increase dramatically. Parking infrastructure — which by some estimates covers one-third of the downtowns in many US cities — may be extraneous, opening up huge opportunities for development on valuable land. City streets will be narrowed, pavements widened. And a full fleet of electric self-driving cars could serve as the platform for a distributed energy grid, providing needed storage to support a robust renewable energy system.
如果自动驾驶汽车很快主导个人出行工具，如今城市的建设和运转或许就过时了。孩子、老人和残疾人的机动性将显著提高。停车场设施——某些人估计，美国很多城市的停车场占了市中心三分之一的面积——可能变得多余，开启开发宝贵土地的巨大机遇。城市街道将会变窄，人行道将会拓宽。整个自动驾驶电动汽车的车队可以作为一个分布式能源网的平台，为支撑一个强大的可再生能源体系提供必要储能设施。广州汽车翻译公司。
There are some caveats. Funding streams for municipal transport and other local services — fuel taxes, traffic fines or parking fees — will dry up, requiring a rethinking of how we pay to maintain our cities.
问题也是有的。市政交通和其他地方服务的资金来源——燃油税、交通罚款或停车费——将枯竭，需要我们重新思考如何为维持城市运转买单。
But the future is coming. Forward-thinking urban planners and city officials should already be charting a course that takes full advantage of the transformative potential of autonomous vehicles.
但是未来即将到来。具有远见的城市规划者和市政官员应该已经在绘制一条道路，充分利用自动驾驶汽车的变革潜力。
The full economic benefits of breakthrough technologies, of course, accrue to those few cities that have the capacity to invent them. To date, the rapid development and deployment of driverless cars has been interpreted as a fierce competition between Uber, traditional auto companies like General Motors and Ford Motor and new rivals such as Alphabet and Tesla. Yet the research and development of new general-purpose technologies, such as the artificial intelligence and big data analytics that enable self-driving vehicles, will also remake the competitive geography of regions, with a select few “first mover” cities grabbing a significant share of new markets and the jobs and investment that go along with them.
当然，只有少数有能力开拓创新的城市，才能摘取突破性技术的全部经济果实。迄今为止，无人驾驶汽车的迅速发展和应用被解读为一场激烈竞争，参与方包括优步、通用汽车(General Motors)和福特汽车(Ford Motor)等传统汽车公司、以及Alphabet和特斯拉(Tesla)等新竞争对手。然而，使自动驾驶汽车成为可能的全新通用技术的研发——比如人工智能(AI)和大数据分析等——也将重塑地区竞争版图，少数脱颖而出的“先驱”城市将抓住新市场的重大份额以及随之而来的就业和投资。广州汽车翻译公司。
Not all cities can compete. Cities first need the right ecosystem, a critical mass of research universities, labs, private companies and venture capital with the necessary competencies. General-purpose technologies also require density of activity because they are often invented at the intersection of multiple disciplines and at varying stages in the innovation cycle — from scientific discovery to new firms to adoption and scaling by large companies.
并非所有城市都有能力加入竞争。参与竞争的城市首先需要合适的生态系统、足够多的研究型大学和实验室、具备必要胜任能力的私营企业和风险资本。通用技术还需要一定程度的活动密度，因为它们往往在多学科交叉、在创新周期的不同阶段——从科学发现和新公司，到应用和被大企业投入量产——涌现出来。
In Pittsburgh’s case, the foundation for autonomous vehicles was laid by Carnegie Mellon University, which houses one of the nation’s leading robotics research units (the National Robotics Engineering Center ) and produces 12 times as much research on artificial intelligence as the national average. Out of this research ecosystem grew a number of start-ups, including Carnegie Robotics and Ottomatika, which took the first step towards commercialising the hardware and software required for driverless cars.
在匹兹堡的案例中，卡内基梅隆大学(Carnegie-Mellon university)为自动驾驶汽车奠定了基础。该大学拥有全美领先的机器人研究机构（国家机器人工程中心(National Robotics Engineering Center)），在人工智能方面的研究成果是全国平均水平的12倍。这个研究生态系统孵化了卡内基机器人(Carnegie Robotics)和Ottomatika等多家初创企业，这些企业向无人驾驶汽车所需硬件软件的商业化迈出了第一步。
Recently, larger companies have been moving in to the city, acquiring smaller firms or talent as a way to tap into the ecosystem.
近来，大型企业不断入驻匹兹堡，收购较小公司或招揽人才，以便发掘该生态系统的潜力。 (Advanced Technologies Center)，开始从国家机器人工程中心聘请数十名员工。
