The Mobility Hub
Your weekly guide to the latest in shared mobility
SUMC News and Announcements
Our aim with the 2021 National Shared Mobility Summit was to start the conversations needed to build the infrastructures of Shared Mobility. Infrastructures that are inclusive, antiracist, sustainable, and resilient—with the female, POC, disabled, marginalized, and overlooked voices that desperately needed to be at the tab. And in one month, we did.
If you didn’t attend, we’ll be releasing recordings to attendees, then the public in August. BUT you better come next near, where we will be having an in-person summit in Chicago in May 2022!
Insight We’re Taking In
The Movement Podcast: Sympathy Doesn’t Do a Damn Thing
Released July 21, 2021
In part 1 of a special 2-episode series focused on the lived experiences of people with disabilities, Zack Hurtz, Micah Lusignan, Krystal Monteros, and Tanisha Sepulveda share their everyday mobility challenges and what’s really needed for equitable access.
SPACES & PLACES 2021: Visions of Black-led Communities – Soul City
Thursday, August 5, 2021 12:00PM – 1:30PM ET
The event begins with a 30-minute film screening of Soul City, a planned community in North Carolina open to everyone but focused on providing opportunities for minorities and the poor. This is followed by a panel discussion.
Changing Incentives for Vehicle Use: Low Emission Zones and Congestion Pricing
Wednesday, August 11, 2021 11:00 AM ET
As part of their Taming Traffic webinar series, ITDP deep dives into two zone-based approaches to reducing the demand for vehicles—zero-emission areas in Los Angeles and congestion pricing in Mumbai.
RESEARCH: What happens when you establish a 20 mph speed limit in a major city?
A new study from researchers in the United Kingdom has released, A qualitative exploration of the mechanisms, pathways and public health outcomes of a city centre 20mph speed limit intervention: The case of Belfast, United Kingdom. Access it here.
America’s Open and Transit’s Open
Listening Sessions: July 30, August 6, August 13, 2021 2:00-3:30 PM ET
National Transit Renewal Summit: August 20, 2021 11:00 AM ET
Is transit ridership coming back to pre-2020 levels? Some cities are seeing it nearly there—so the Federal Transit Administration wants to help agencies nationwide boost it back up through a series of online informational sessions throughout July and August.
Mobility Justice
President Biden’s Justice40 program intends to help “disadvantaged communities,” but with no current definition of what these are, one New York organization is defining the criteria and data points to measure the experiences of every community in the state.
More police presence on public transit increases disproportionate and discriminatory policing on people of color—without serving the intended purpose of making transit safer. So why do we do it? At least areas like San Francisco are testing out unarmed alternatives.
Extreme heat is a problem. Extreme heat is a worse problem for communities of color and low-income city residents who live amidst a sea of heat-soaking and emitting asphalt and concrete, as opposed to richer areas with parks and trees. And both the inequity and the climate are getting worse.
Ridehailing/Carsharing/Carpooling
Wonderful news for the planet and your pocketbook: Shared rides are back thanks to Lyft. In Philadelphia, and soon Chicago and Denver, you can double-up—and now choose your wait time and ride price.
Meanwhile, Uber Freight has acquired logistics tech firm Transplace for $2.2 billion, a move the companies say will create a resilient shipper-to-carrier platform that can “reduce shipper and carrier empty miles to the benefit of highway and road infrastructures and the environment”.
Taxi app Curb has launched a new upfront pricing option for Chicago in a counterstrike against the surged prices of the ridehail giants, but there’s a slight issue, as operators say that as of June they only had 15% of their drivers on the streets.
Bikesharing & Micromobility
A new ranking system from People for Bikes shows what many Chicagoans know already—with high speeds and few protected bike lanes, Chicago is not a very bike-friendly city.
The Frankfurt Auto Show or IAA was the biggest car-stravangza of them all, but in September it will be the world’s largest mobility show with e-bikes, e-scooters, and e-mopeds also on display. Smart, as e-bikes are predicted to outsell cars in the EU in a few years.
Shared electric micromobility company Lime will integrate its two-wheelers into the Moovit trip-planning app in 117 cities across 20 countries, including the US, South Africa, Australia, and throughout Europe. Lime says the partnership is the largest micromobility integration within an app dedicated to mobility as a service (MaaS). We say more seamless access? Bring it on.
Transit
Pittsburgh did it! After two years of work, the city’s Department of Mobility and Infrastructure is launching the first Mobility as a Service (MaaS) app in the U.S. that connects all your mobility needs—and we mean “T,” bike, electric scooter, electric moped, car- and rideshare. On the ground, mobility hubs that physically connect transport options are sprouting-up all over the city.
Billed as the “nation’s first urban transportation plan developed in response to the coronavirus pandemic,” the Chicago DOT unveiled a whopper with 84 strategies and hundreds of targets to hit in the next few years, including expanding bikeshares, bike lanes, and dedicated bus lanes.
As Boston Mayoral candidates tout support for fare-free transit (and the MBTA debates ways to make it happen,) Santa Monica’s Big Blue Bus is going fare-free for 30 days as part of a larger push towards contactless payments.
Technology
Still looking to keep distance from the public transit crowds? Just feeling anti-social? Google Maps has a brand new update that tells you how crowded your train is, down to the car.
We have ebikes, emobility and now efuel—or at least initial tests are promising in the German sustainability research project NAMOSYN where auto-components manufacturer Tenneco is creating synthetic fuels with a closed CO2 cycle that can be used in traditional ICE and hybrid engines as well as fueling and filling infrastructure.
In the next step to get to driverless ride shares, Ford has partnered with Lyft and AV-tech developer Argo AI to bring autonomous vehicles to your pickup location (albeit with a “safety driver”…for now).
Sustainability
A study of 62,000 pedestrian fatalities shows that accidents aren’t random, but are connected to our infrastructure. So let’s find the roads “with four or more lanes, signed at 30 miles per hour or above, that have a lot of destinations for pedestrians“ and FIX THEM.
While it will take more than electric vehicles to address climate change, EVs have substantial benefits as new research proves that fewer greenhouse gases are released throughout their entire lifecycle compared to gas-powered cars.
Subways around the world don’t have another 100 years to adapt to climate change, so we must start retrofitting them against flooding now. As SUMC board member and chief executive of the Eno Center for Transportation Rob Puentes said in this NYT piece, it’s “an enormous undertaking…but the cost of doing nothing is much more expensive.”
Project Funding Opportunities
SEPTA for All: Augmenting Transit with Augmented Reality challenge
Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA), The city of Philadelphia’s Office of Transportation, Infrastructure and Sustainability (OTIS), and SmartCityPHL
Philadelphia, PA
Deadline: Aug. 2, 2021
NEORide
Wadsworth, OH
Deadline: August 8, 2021
Chattanooga Area Regional Transportation Authority (CARTA)
Chattanooga, TN
Deadline: August 13, 2021
Mailed by request. Contact [email protected]
The Delaware Transit Corporation (DTC)
September 10, 2021.
Email [email protected] for the RFI package
We’d like to thank the following sponsors for their support
of the 2021 National Shared Mobility Summit.
Have breaking news or an interesting deep dive to share?
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