Urban waterways like rivers and canals have gone from essential travel and trading corridors to urban afterthoughts. They’re used by freighters or limited ferry services, but are otherwise mostly forgotten and largely untouched by the millions who live on their shores.
A new autonomous urban boat design concept suggests a future where these urban rivers—from the Thames in London to the East River in New York to the canals of Amsterdam—can be reintegrated into the way people live in and move about cities.
Orb, the omni-robotic boat, is an autonomous podlike watercraft with room for six passengers. Designed specifically for dense cities, Orb cuts through the water on hydrofoils that allow it to maneuver around the typically larger vessels found on many urban waterways. Like an on-demand car service for the water, Orb makes water-based travel more easily accessible since it doesn’t require the large land-based infrastructure of a ferry or bigger passenger vessel.
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