The public transportation of the future could be shaped like a square

Our public transportation systems are long overdue for a revamp (just ask the sad commuters in New York City), and now, a solution may finally be on the horizon. A new partnership between Next Future Transportation and Globetouch Inc. promises to “deliver next generation municipal transportation solutions.” At the Connected and Autonomous Vehicle Conference in California’s Silicon Valley this week, the two companies announced their grand plans to implement a smart transportation system in the cities of the future.

Next, which is already working on what the company calls an “advanced smart transportation and goods movement system,” has a network of modular self-driving vehicles that can be joined together to create a bus-like environment. When combined with Globetouch, a company focused on global connectivity services for the connected vehicle and the Internet of Things (IoT) market, the results could make for major improvements over existing public transport methods.

As cities around the world become more densely populated and require more efficient methods for moving people from point ‘A’ to point ‘B’, partnerships like this one may be the key to urbanization.

“Modernizing the world’s ailing ground transportation system is both one of the most significant challenges and opportunities of the 21st Century,” said Emmanuele Spera, CEO of Next. “NEXT and Globetouch Inc. will identify strategic projects that will accelerate integration around multimodal transportation solutions and ultimately help cities alleviate congestion.”

John Jiang, President of Globetouch Inc. echoed these sentiments, noting, “As we enter a new era of information-centric transportation, connectivity is right at the center of key opportunities. Our unique global virtual ecosystem of network operators will support the Next’s autonomous fleets and associated IoT infrastructure around the globe.”

While it’s still unclear exactly how this partnership will manifest itself, the combined capabilities of these two companies could spell something exciting for our future.