Toronto-based design company Aprilli Design Studio has come up with an idea for an Autonomous Travel Suite, which is a self-driving mobile hotel room. The concept is so inventive, it won the hospitality industry’s Radical Innovation Award. The tagline is: “Enjoy the freedom of your journey. Autonomous travel suite, your space travelling with you.”
The travel suite is essentially a hotel room on wheels. It contains facilities for sleeping and working as well as a bathroom. There’s a washroom, bed, desk, windows, and natural light. The travelling suite allows users to be productive while travelling from one location to another.
The mobile hotel room is operated by hospitality professionals and is intended for long-distance travel. The designers believe the travel suite is a good alternative to regular autonomous commuter cars because of the amenities it provides.
The Autonomous Hotel Chain oversees the travel suite. This network of stationary facilities contains charging services for the travel suites as well as a spa, pool, gym, meeting room, and food and beverage options. Travellers can dock at the Autonomous Hotel parent units to use the amenities and receive fresh batteries or room services.
The travel suite has many benefits over traditional transportation and hotels. The website boasts that it offers “flexible travel schedules, lower costs, privacy, and, above all, comfort.” Instead of the transfers and check-ins required by air and train travel, the travel suite acts as your personal rental car and hotel room combined.
According to the Aprilli Design Studio, the travel suite is cost-effective, particularly if more than one person is travelling. The price of renting it covers airfare, hotel and local transportation such as a taxi or rental car.
Travel time between two major cities usually takes a minimum of six hours due to the time spent getting to or from the airport or train station as well as a potentially long check-in process. Plus, train and plane schedules are fixed. The travel suite avoids many of these inconveniences and is thereby a “competitive option.” There’s no need to check in, wait in lines, and transfer between different modes of transportation. Users choose when and where they want to go without having to submit to available schedules. Flight delays are a thing of the past.
Designers believe the travel suite can easily be integrated into the existing highway infrastructure.
“As a new way of travelling, the Autonomous Travel Suite will become a strong competitive form of inter-city travel option, impacting the conventional transportation and hospitality industry,” according to the website. “Along with future technologies including Artificial Intelligence, robotics, drones, among others, the Autonomous Travel Suite will become your companion, changing your journey into a destination.”
