Great update, thanks for sharing! Am curious to your thoughts RE: informal transportation and how this relates to private micromobility providers. Especially in Asia/SE Asia where companies like Grab, Gojek, Gogoro or any of a dozen other micromobility startups are becoming more and more widespread, do you think governments will start to see them as part of the overall transit network and work to incorporate them (e.g. scooters/bikeshare docks placed at train or bus stations) or do you think they'll remain relatively separate entities in terms of governance and planning?
Hey Max, good question. I guess the answer depends on the particular country or city's capacity to govern and plan transportation. Better yet, it's the capacity to innovate at governance and planning.
Informal transportation is an emergent phenomena and has the qualities of complex, dynamic systems. (Individual agents. Non-linear relationships.) So, even cities or countries with strong insititutions are challenged if they apply simple command-and-control approaches.
The tech platforms can allow for more distributed, adaptive control ---BUT because the platforms are driven solely by profits, there is no space for system level goals that benefit communities as well as individual users.
I notice governments are trying out cashless fare collection via apps (mainly because the apps have moved from solely transportation to fintech platforms) at the expense of getting any real data about how informal transportation is working. No data= bad planning, bad management, bad governance.
Makes sense, agree that there's a mismatch of goals between public/private actors, but would love to see the same analytical rigor and technological innovation that private companies use to drive profits, also be applied in the public sector to do things like bring mobility to underserved areas, maximize ridership, etc.
Great update, thanks for sharing! Am curious to your thoughts RE: informal transportation and how this relates to private micromobility providers. Especially in Asia/SE Asia where companies like Grab, Gojek, Gogoro or any of a dozen other micromobility startups are becoming more and more widespread, do you think governments will start to see them as part of the overall transit network and work to incorporate them (e.g. scooters/bikeshare docks placed at train or bus stations) or do you think they'll remain relatively separate entities in terms of governance and planning?
Hey Max, good question. I guess the answer depends on the particular country or city's capacity to govern and plan transportation. Better yet, it's the capacity to innovate at governance and planning.
Informal transportation is an emergent phenomena and has the qualities of complex, dynamic systems. (Individual agents. Non-linear relationships.) So, even cities or countries with strong insititutions are challenged if they apply simple command-and-control approaches.
The tech platforms can allow for more distributed, adaptive control ---BUT because the platforms are driven solely by profits, there is no space for system level goals that benefit communities as well as individual users.
I notice governments are trying out cashless fare collection via apps (mainly because the apps have moved from solely transportation to fintech platforms) at the expense of getting any real data about how informal transportation is working. No data= bad planning, bad management, bad governance.
Makes sense, agree that there's a mismatch of goals between public/private actors, but would love to see the same analytical rigor and technological innovation that private companies use to drive profits, also be applied in the public sector to do things like bring mobility to underserved areas, maximize ridership, etc.