Reinventing Transport

Could we end the era of mass car ownership without a huge fight ("they're coming to take our cars!") and without draconian policies?  That's the focus of this article and podcast episode (Reinventing Transport #11). It is based on an essay I wrote in 2011 (but unfortunately never published). I speculated about a future dominated by "shared" modes of transport and with much less personal possession of motor vehicles. I was overly optimistic in places and likely wrong on various points. But I hope I was wrong in thought-provoking ways. I think this is still relevant 8 years later to ideas like Mobility as a Service and initiatives such as the " Shared Mobility Principles for Livable Cities " and the New Urban Mobility (NUMO) alliance . But you be the judge. This edition is also a tribute to Chris Bradshaw.  Chris Bradshaw was the person who asked me to write the essay on ending mass car ownership. It was for a journal special edition he w...

Singapore's National Day is this week (9 August). So I decided to share Singapore's urban transport story - or my slightly  unusual take on it .  It is   a unique city in various ways but its urban transport policies are well worth your attention even if you don't live in Singapore. This is a warts-and-all version of the story, and it is my own view, not any kind of official one. It's also a little wonkish in parts. [Hi all you policy wonks!] But I hope to keep your interest with some surprising twists, such as: Why was the bus-only public transport system in an awful state by the early 1970s? If the buses were awful in early 1974, how was Singapore able to impose drastic increases to the cost of motoring in 1975? You will have guessed that the buses must have been drastically improved in 1974/75. But how was that achieved? Singapore urban transport enjoyed success through the 1980s and 1990s but its core social bargain (cars for the rich; decent but bas...

Here is another example of Combined Mobility and a big step towards realising the idea of ' mobility brokers '. This one is from Germany and it is called "mo " . It is being tested and piloted in Munich and features some beautiful design and fascinating innovations to make car-lite living very convenient. mo is a new mobility system - it helps make the city a better place to live. mo subscribers can rent bikes, cargobikes, ebikes and cars or use public transportation with just one card. With mo it pays to be eco-friendly: choose an eco-friendly transport or use your own bike to collect mo miles. The more mo miles the lower your bill. For instance if you mostly ride bikes, renting a car gets cheaper. These two videos explain much better than I could. Introducing mo from LUNAR Europe on Vimeo . mo - mobility for tomorrow from LUNAR Europe on Vimeo . For more details, check out this October 2011 press release about mo . Hat tip:  Treehugger.

I am excited by the prospect of urban 'mobility retailers' or 'mobility brokers'.  'Huh'? What is that, you ask? A mobility broker is a business that handles the retailing, marketing and information end of your mobility needs. It may not even own any vehicles or employ any drivers (and you won't have to either). You could think of it as an urban transport travel agent. Such services would probably be most attractive for people who choose not have a car of their own. Because urban mobility is much more spontaneous and immediate than long-distance travel, mobility brokers will need to handle requests extremely nimbly in real time. Most cities don't yet have such beasts in their urban transport landscape. Not yet. But I think they will emerge out the innovative and vibrant ecosystem of handheld devices, real-time information apps, social media and networking, car-sharing companies, new payment systems, telematics, location-based services, etc.  I t...

Can you help me make this analogy more useful? A household owning a car is like a tiny business hiring a jack-of-all-trades (but master of none ...). Your mobility needs during the course of a whole year can be likened to the skills and labour needs of a new business contemplating its first employee. Having a car gives you a tool that handles most of your mobility needs. It is like hiring a full-time staffer who is a 'jack-of-all trades'. He or she is versatile but not especially skilled or quick at any particular task. There are significant fixed costs too. You have to pay him or her about the same in both busy times and slow periods. In both cases there is an alternative.  A family can refrain from getting a car and rely instead on the various alternatives. That's like the small business putting off that first full-time employee and deciding instead to engage a series of contractors to do tasks that the owner-founder can no longer handle, as and when they ar...

What competition do cars have in your city? I don't mean competition between Toyota, Ford or Hyundai. I don't even mean competition between cars and public transport for this morning's work trips. I am talking about competition between a car-owning lifestyle and a set of alternatives that add up to a whole lifestyle, creating a complete 'mobility package' attractive enough to make car ownership feel optional. In places like Manhattan or Hong Kong or the inner cities of Zurich, Paris, Tokyo or London a lifestyle without your own car is already an attractive option even for wealthy people.   But could we extend the range of places where not having a car is an excellent lifestyle choice? Can we make car use more provisional and less locked-in to our liefstyles and our urban systems? How? Here is a presentation I gave last year which tackles some of these issues in a non-technical way. Under-appreciated and neglected urban transport policy opportunities (and ref...

Recent posts by Robin Chase at Network Musings and Dave at Carsharing.US caught my attention for their expansive vision of car-sharing and its reach. Robin has a broad vision on sharing. It is a theme explored throughout her blog. In a recent post on innovation in transport policy, one of her key suggestions is to: Allow owners of private vehicles to accept money in exchange for renting out their own vehicle, driving other people in it, or accepting money from people ride-sharing. We need to recognize that sharing cars and maximizing the number of people using each vehicle and getting mobility satisfaction out of each car is vastly preferred over the current single owner status quo. Dave at Carsharing.US shows that part of Robin's agenda is already happening - under the name 'Peer-to-peer carsharing and car rental'. His whole post is worth reading but here are a few excerpts: What is peer to peer carsharing? It's traditional carsharing using privately owned ve...