Design competition organiser Blank Space has partnered with government authorities in New York to seek a feasible long-term strategy for the city’s response to driverless cars.

“Entrepreneurs, innovators, designers, engineers, architects and futurists” are invited to enter The Driverless Future Challenge and pitch concrete design solutions for the cities of the future, which “will be populated with robotic cars chauffeuring their dozing or web-surfing occupants around town.”

“The challenge seeks proposals that actively shape. It’s not about the cars themselves, but everything else: from parking solutions, to new uses of roadways, intersections, and sidewalks,” said Blank Space in a statement.

“What tools can be built to increase the accessibility and use of autonomous mass transit? How can shipping and logistics be improved? How can new business models and software tools be leveraged to shape our surroundings?”

“Our goal is nothing short of envisioning the impact of autonomous transportation in one of the most complex cities in the world. After all, if autonomous cars can make it here, they can make it anywhere.”

Companies such as Tesla and Google have been developing driverless cars, which detect their surroundings using radar, laser light, GPS, odometry and computer vision. While the vehicles have not yet been legalised for public roads, Blank Space predicted we’ll see them in cities and on highways within the next two decades. When this happens, it said they will “generate an enormous impact on society, the environment, business, and the fabric of urban mobility, both locally and globally.”

The technology also promises strong leisure implications, such as the possibility that a fleet of cars or commuter pods could travel the city, collecting people and taking them on city tours, or to visit city museums, sports stadiums or retail zones.

By May, competitors must submit a three minute pitch video that encapsulates their proposal. Four finalists will be selected to present their visions to the city’s top government officials and leading technologists in June 2017, before a final winner is announced.

Blank Space is working with new York’s Department of Transportation, the Taxi and Limousine Commission, and the Economic Development Corporation to help the winning team build their ideas into working products and services.