Transit in the new age of experience

Op-Ed: Transit in the new age of experience
Transportation systems are becoming dynamic environments that sense, respond and evolve alongside the people who use them.

Hunter Tura
Feb. 27, 2026




For most of the 20th century, the future was signified by fantastical visions of transportation. 

We are certainly all familiar with the flying, glass-domed cars of The Jetsons or the multi-tiered, mechanized city of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. In these optimistic, or sometimes dystopian visions, progress was always visualized through new modes of movement—personal spacecraft, ultrasonic trains and cities characterized by perpetual motion and movement. Transportation became a symbol of innovation and the promise of a better world.

And yet, the question remains: despite the technological innovations in transportation over the past 25 years, have engineers, planners, policymakers and designers fully realized the bright future they once envisioned?

While the answer is an ambiguous not exactly, there is a new paradigm emerging for how we think about transportation. Today, the great advances in transportation are not being defined by Waymo-esque self-driving cars or Hyperloop-style bullet trains. Instead, it is marked by a more fundamental transformation: a revolution in the experience of movement itself. .........................(more)

https://www.masstransitmag.com/technology/blog/55359932/op-ed-transit-in-the-new-age-of-experience