Discussing Dockless at UITP
An Evolving Industry Event
You probably know of the organization UITP (International Association of Public Transport) if you work in transit. For most of the organization’s history, “public transport” was generally understood to mean subsidized bus and rail operations and bus vendors show up to the annual conference with their A-Game. This year was no different in that respect. Autonomous luxury buses were on full display, electric motors were uncased for viewing, and ticketing systems were beeping away, ready for agency staff to check them out. What was different this year, was the presence of shared mobility providers. With bikeshare, carshare, scooters and MaaS solutions blossoming across the globe, the conference reflected this diversity of modes and business models.
Remix was invited to join the international experts speaking on a panel called “To Dock or Not to Dock? Building Tomorrow’s Smart Two-Wheeler-Sharing Systems,” at this year’s annual event in Stockholm, Sweden. Moderated by Nicolo Panozzo, from the European Cycling Federation, the panel brought together representatives from docked and dockless systems in Europe and Scandinavia to discuss research presented by ICLEI’s bikeshare expert, Marie-Eve Assuncaodenis, and Arnd Batzner, from Mobility Genossenschaft. Below are the hot topics of discussion.
Sidewalk Clutter — not only a U.S. problem!
While not all shared mobility issues and concerns are apples-to-apples between Europe and the U.S., there was one issue that seemed to cut across markets: sidewalk clutter. Through displaying a series of pictures from across several different countries and systems, Mr. Batzner argued that dockless systems require thoughtful interventions to match supply and demand. No one seemed to disagree with that assessment!
Scooters, Bikes and Health — is it important that new modes provide direct health benefits?
A dangerous narrative that kept creeping into the discussion was that of direct health benefits. If scooters don’t provide a direct health benefit, are they inferior to bikes? Remix offered this perspective from what we have studied in the United States, where cycling culture has long struggled to thrive, and where we are seeing unprecedented adoption of scooters. Cars do not provide health benefits to users. In fact, emissions from cars and other vehicles create environmental health impacts as granular as higher rates of asthma in certain neighborhoods, and as large-scale as global warming. To only look at whether or not a new mode provides a health benefit by virtue of the ride itself is a very narrow understanding of the potential impact of a ride.
Shifting Gears — breaking down silos that keep us from planning multi-modal systems.
The panel opined on the question of what tasks government should prioritize as the private market plays a greater role in operating shared mobility options. The panelists all seemed to agree that cities had a crucial role to play in figuring out how to better integrate modes with the backbone of mobility: transit. Planning processes around cycling lanes should be fully integrated in how we think about transit stops and routes. Doing so is not easy — it means breaking through silos that exist in the current way we study and implement projects.
Docked or Dockless ?— the answer is to create a bigger market for all.
The premise of the panel was docked versus dockless, and the topic was discussed at length, along with the question of what the current existing market could support and if it competes with transit. Remix makes software to bring the whole transportation picture into focus, so we couldn’t help but ask: why not focus on making the market bigger? What are interventions that will make the total addressable market, understood to be around 1.4 trillion dollars annually based on the work of Horace Dediu, more excited about trying out these new options? And isn’t that more of an important question to address than if these modes, which are all preferable to auto trips, are currently competing?
Whether in the United States, Europe, or Scandinavia, these questions are arising due to a shift from a relatively non-diverse mobility ecosystem to one that encompasses many modes and services. It was thrilling to participate in the discourse around emerging issues and opportunities, as well as witness how fast the industry has embraced a multimodal marketplace.
