We could soon be living in a world where your hotel room drives you places. Buzz60’s Maria Mercedes Galuppo has more.
Traveling across the country is often made complicated by check-ins, connecting flights, and crowded airplanes and trains. But an Autonomous Travel Suite (ATS)—a concept for a driverless, mobile suite that won this year’s Radical Innovation Award—would combine the cost and functions of transportation with a hotel room. Rather than calling a cab, booking a flight on an airplane, and reserving a hotel room, travelers could simply use an ATS to reach their destination.
Designed by Aprilli, a Toronto-based design studio, the mobile suites would allow travelers to use their time and spend their money more efficiently, while also being able to get work done and be more productive as they are transported in comfort between their home and their destination.
Described as a cross between a hotel room and rental car, the ATS is designed to pick travelers up right at their front door and take them wherever they need to go. The Suites would provide basic amenities such as a bed with a memory foam mattress, a bathroom equipped with a mini shower and toilet, and a workspace with digital equipment. A minibar, compact refrigerator, and multifunctional couch intended for entertaining or relaxing are also included in the design of these hotel rooms on wheels. To ensure that travelers have enough natural light, the suites are designed with large front and back windshields along with panels of glass along both sides. Photovoltaic panels would generate electricity from sunlight, and an intelligent balancing system provides stability to the suites.
Lodging Magazine, excerpt posted on SouthFloridaReporter.com, Nov. 23, 2018
Video by Buzz60/Maria Mercedes Galuppo
