For decades little has changed in the transport sector.

The average car has become a little sleeker, some have become a little bigger, and others are a lot smarter, but on the whole the trends in transport have been fairly predictable and manageable.

However, this is coming to an end.

There is a shift underway from a focus on the type of motor, which was once the real genius in a car, to its smarts… moving the genius, and hence the value, from the ‘motor’ to the ‘technology’, and opening the door for companies like Tesla, Fisker, and the Chinese ‘Build Your Dreams’ (BYD) to take staggering market share.

This will bring a number of real benefits for drivers, ranging from helpful things like automatic windscreen wipers and lights, to lifesaving improvements such as collision detection (even with vehicles the driver cannot see), automated braking and vehicle-responsive cruise control.

However, this is just the beginning.

Now we are well on the way to eliminating internal combustion engines and installing next level technology in vehicles, the focus will soon shift again, from vehicles to the traffic system itself, because a car can only be so smart on its own and the system needs to quickly learn and adapt.

Our research, as part of the Sustainable Built Environment National Research Centre (SBEnrc) and led by Curtin University with Griffith University and RMIT University, suggests that technologies such as Machine Learning and Blockchain stand to swiftly revolutionise transport system operations in ways we are only now glimpsing.

The good news is that these technologies will deliver even greater levels of benefit.

In the not too distant future the technologies stand to enable traffic management systems to do things such as monitor conditions across the network in order to predict areas of congestion and make automatic changes – especially important as we shift to greater shared transit; ensure that should there ever be future road user charges they reflect the actual use of the road system; reward drivers with cryptocurrency for using preferred routes or travelling at non-peak times; allow vehicles to book and pay for parking themselves; and even be able to verify where your expensive bottle of wine has actually come from.

Hence these technologies will soon see a step change in the effectiveness of traffic management around the world and let’s hope Australia is among the early leaders rather than being shocked when it happens.