Multi-Modal Transport Is Not The Future. Modular Transport Is.
Everyone and their mother seem to be coming out of the woodwork with a kick scooter, a sit scooter, a re-branded moped, e-bikes, etc., all under the flashy mantras of ‘micro-mobility’, and increasingly, ‘complementary multi-modal solutions’. And while it remains to be seen whether they’re more scourge than blessing to cities (especially as research is starting to show that they’re helping alleviate neither traffic nor climate-changing emissions), I think we’re sidestepping the discussion as to how to create more integrated transportation solutions rather than just adding more weirdly-shaped hardware to more curbs.
First, how did we get here? Well, Bird and Lime originally came out of left-field a few years ago, surprising most people by proving that cheap scooters fitted with telematics equipment was actually gaining traction among San Francisco commuters who would otherwise be using public transit or ride-sharing.
What was their premise? One, it’s cheaper than alternatives like ride-hailing, and two, it’s often faster and more reliable for short trips in ultra-dense areas since you can skirt traffic laws. (However, both of these decisions are conditional on weather and the abilities of the user. If it’s too hot/cold/rainy/etc, none of these form factors are viable, especially if you’re in business clothes. And disabled, older, or those who are just uncomfortable with using the form factors are excluded. Also, ultra-dense areas are fairly uncommon across most of the US, thereby excluding a vast majority of the population.) This, of course, led to a multitude of VC-pumped copy cats, and then to the current progression towards slight variations on form factors that new-entrants will hope win over existing micro-mobility consumers.
At the core, the logic of micro-mobility form factors and business models is sound. They’re cheaper than cars, more flexible than public transit, and can go in areas where neither can in ultra-dense areas.
Now with the entrance by Uber and Lyft into the micro space, the next stepping stone for these micro-mobility gremlins is to create ‘multi-modal solutions’ that allow customers to book a combination of scooters and bikes and cars in a single trip. While this sounds nice and flexible and new-agey, all it does is contribute to the hardware content already littering urban cores, and again, it caters to a very small subset of the population.
Multi-modal is not the answer to future mobility, modularity is. At its best, modular transportation involves the ability for the transport vehicles to couple and de-couple to/from other vehicles and to/from other propulsion systems, not just move independently from form factor to form factor. And it encapsulates everyone, regardless of where they live or who they are.
Let’s think about a vehicle as less about a form factor and more of a module, a singular unit of transport for one person. Think of a module as a single-seated enclosed ‘pod’ that would be inclusive to all types of people in all types of environments. Today, people drive around in four-seated terrestrial-wheeled pods known as cars. But if I detach the actual pod from the mechanism moving the pod (the drivetrain), what design freedoms does this afford? Two categories in particular:
Aggregation: what is a train except a bunch of individual pods strung together? I can combine a bunch of these pods together and form a much more efficient combined unit ‘driven’ as a block of individual modules. Imagine your pod drives to a “station” and loads itself autonomously onto a platform with a bunch of other pods, who are then all transported together to a destination. Sound familiar? This is a basic Hyperloop concept. When Elon says you can get in your car in LA and get out to your office in San Francisco without ever leaving your car, this is exactly the concept he’s talking about. The car is loaded into a chamber, and instead of leveraging the car’s propulsion system, it’s leveraging the mag-lev propulsion in the Hyperloop.
Changing Propulsion Systems: Besides aggregating pods to create more efficient transportation, I can also create various attachments for the pod depending on where I’m going, what I’m doing, etc. If I attach a rotary blade to the top of the pod, I get a drone or a helicopter. If I attach wheels, I get a car. If I attach skis, I get a sled, etc. This is an obvious point, but it really gets at the fundamentals of modularity and transportation solutions. In the future, maybe I’ll just buy one pod, and then buy the drone attachment, the vehicle attachment, hell the boat attachment as I see fit.
Modularity solves my main issue with the current trend in mobility: Why do we have separate companies creating an electric drone and an electric car and an electric scooter and an electric plane, if all of these vehicles are essentially just pods that transport people via different propulsion systems? Why are we not thinking about this in terms of being able to integrate these form factors together with the sole intention of moving a singular module (one person) from their origin to their destination in the most efficient manner without leaving their pod and regardless of where they live or level of ability?
By doing so, we’re limiting ourselves to a multi-modal future, one that is likely not more efficient, and one that leaves us with a bunch of gimmicky form factors that can only be leveraged by a fraction of the population a fraction of the year. Modularity offers a better seamless transportation experience, allows for both aggregated transport in dense areas and solo transport in remote ones, and adapts the propulsion to the transportation required — whether that be air, terrestrial, or water. Oh, and there’s nothing to trip over on the sidewalk.
