shared-use mobility Archives - Transportation For America

Walking through questions about our new Playbook for Shared Micromobility

With the help of representatives from two cities, T4America staff a few weeks ago walked through our new Playbook for effectively managing shared micromobility services like dockless bikes, electric scooters, and other new technologies.

Flickr photo by Daniel Lobo. https://www.flickr.com/photos/daquellamanera/38503203635/

Almost overnight, shared scooters and bikes have rapidly proliferated in cities across the country. T4America’s new Playbook for Shared Micromobility is helping cities find their footing. We walked through the new guide a few weeks ago in an online presentation. (Watch the full presentation here)

Our sincere thanks especially to Francie Stefan (Santa Monica) and Josh Johnson (Minneapolis) for their time and especially for openly sharing about their experiences and lessons learned so far. Here’s a collection of some of the questions we weren’t able to answer during the presentation, compiled from T4America staff with input from our guests. Any mistakes or errors are T4America’s alone.

GEOFENCING

Is constituent/resident input considered when forming geofencing?

Cities should engage constituents including residents, employees, businesses and visitors when considering the boundaries for operations as well as any specific areas where operations would need to be controlled in a different way, including restrictions on operations, specific parking areas, or speed differentials. Cities and operators together will need to work together to ensure an appropriate level of engagement, communication, and education around these areas.

In Minneapolis, public input was actually the primary consideration for 2018’s geofencing (of two areas), based on feedback received via our 311 system. Going forward in 2019, Minneapolis’ intention is to tie the monitoring interface with daily mapping of 311 complaints and try to more quickly react or anticipate where it is needed.

We have a policy in our city that does not allow any e-bikes or pedal assist bikes on any of our greenways or trails. How can geofencing help us avoid constant issues with e-bike use on the greenways?

At least thus far, geofencing technology for many devices has not always been precise enough for detailed enforcement. Improved equipment could address much of the issue but is not widespread. But geofencing can help alert riders to operating restrictions in specific areas. Larger areas with buffer zones around them like a trail system may be large enough to enable geofenced speed reduction, parking prohibition, or other tools. Robust communications by the city and in-app by operators can help deter riding or usage in restricted areas.

How well did the geofencing technology work? In Santa Monica, specifically in restricting devices from working in specific areas (Santa Monica city vs Santa Monica College).

The geofencing is working well in larger areas like the Marvin Braude Beach Bike Path. That zone is wide enough to enable effective location-based speed reduction down to 5 mph for all scooters. The city works regularly with the operators to ensure that all versions of the devices are set up to reduce speeds, and to ensure that parking limitations are in place.

FEE STRUCTURE

Good protected infrastructure is very important for shared micromobility users, but it’s also a vital element of more sustainable and equitable cities, whoever ultimately owns the vehicles. What is the fair share for micromobility providers to pay, given that more active transportation is already an element of most T4A cities’ transportation goals?

Unfortunately there is not a clear cut answer at this point, however Minneapolis is exploring a research project to determine the fair share across all shared modes. In the meantime, we are thinking about the infrastructure portion of fees related to costs of improving the existing system to more comfortably accommodate new modes through added bike lane protection (delineators), markings/signage, and additional striping for parking zones.

Santa Monica adopted an interim fee that was calculated based on the PROW square footage used by devices. The study looked at the average footprint of a device in the PROW when stationary (bike/scooter/vertical/horizontal), and then applied the per-square foot fee used for outdoor dining in the PROW. The staff report for fee adoption can be found here.

Do you see cities moving from a fee structure to a subsidy structure for these services? Shifting to a higher penalty for SOVs and rewards rather than fees on lower-emission modes.

Given the ongoing debate in cities across the country and how to appropriately tax and levy fees on everything from TNCs to micromobility operators to freight and urban delivery to private vehicle use, it’s still unclear how to best assess the impacts of various transportation users and service providers on our shared infrastructure. Ultimately, T4A would like to see fair user fees supported across all modes that truly represent the positive, and negative, impacts of each user and use case.

What is a reasonable cost that cities can expect to spend as a result of allowing dockless vehicles/shared micromobility to operate in their cities? (Including everything that goes into it: reviewing permitting applications, dealing w/ picking up rogue vehicles if the operator does not, etc.)

These new services are in their infancy and the exact costs that are being borne by cities to administer and manage them are not yet clear. In developing an overall fee structure, cities will need to think holistically to calculate the full and actual costs—including everything from staff time to software management platforms to daily operational needs to outreach and engagement. While cities can take some cues from each other, these costs also vary from city to city given the nature of their regulations, labor costs and other local factors. Conducting a cost analysis study can help determine the true costs.

FLEET SIZE

Should there only be a single operator per community or can there be competition in this arena? Also should a cap be set for the industry or individual operator?

It’s still unclear what an appropriate number of permits or overall fleet size should be as it relates to population, density or other community factors that will appropriately serve individual communities and the city as a whole—while still creating an attractive and profitable market for operators. Between permit caps and fleet size caps, cities should probably focus more on managing the overall fleet size effectively to create a program the whole community can benefit from. Cities should use dynamic, performance based caps that establish clear, utilization-based formulas for the expansion of operator fleets.

Minneapolis is also thinking about—in terms of the differences among companies—whether it’s a different product (such as a sit down scooter) or potential differences in operating structure (vendor hiring practices, fleet activities, etc.) and also how closely vendors align with city goals for transportation and mobility. With rapid growth and continued consolidation in the scooter industry, there is also the idea of maintaining continuity of service, should a vendor be acquired or leave the market.

How did the City of Santa Monica decide on their initial fleet size for providers?
In Minneapolis, any hints on the actual ratios of people/scooter you’re examining? Any preliminary findings you can share on those numbers? Formulas?

Santa Monica interviewed eleven operators before crafting the the scope of the pilot program and Administrative Rules. One of the questions asked was regarding the optimal number of devices with which to start operations of a fleet that would serve the whole city. Answers all hovered around 500 devices, and there was interest in flexibility. That informed the starting point for the pilot program. The city has owned a 500-bike bikeshare fleet since 2015, and it has worked well for the city’s size and layout.

In thinking about ratios of people per scooter, Minneapolis has been discussing and comparing with a variety of other cities, and comparing that to last year’s results based on the population that was generally served by the distribution of scooters. Minneapolis is also talking to some of the vendors who’ve expressed interest in Minneapolis to see how they determine ideal fleet size. Those calculations are still being firmed up but Minneapolis is hoping to use 2019 as the starting point to establish the idea and then evaluate performance from there.

INFRASTRUCTURE

I would love to hear more about the Minneapolis idea of dedicated fees to advance protected bike infrastructure! Did you set up designated parking areas for scooters anywhere? Does the $1/day PROW fee fund something related to streets (or even active transportation infrastructure?)?

Minneapolis has set aside the fees from the 2018 pilot and is thinking about establishing some testing of this idea in 2019 in places with low-hanging fruit such as adding delineators on bikeways (with no current protection) which connect equity focus areas to core parts of the city. Minneapolis is also looking at testing lane markings and dedicated parking, particularly in dense areas with narrow sidewalks. Equally important to this effort will be communication of how and why this is being done.

EQUITY

Were these set up with any particular group in mind? Are these focused on ensuring the best interest of the broad public and of special-needs group?

The was developed as a result of a collaboration between Transportation for America and the participant cities in T4America’s Smart Cities Collaborative as well as industry stakeholders including Lime. T4A conducted additional research and held conversations with cities across the country developing regulations and managing pilot programs. The Playbook also builds on the effort by the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) and their member cities to develop their Guidelines for the Regulation and Management of Shared Active Transportation.

DATA

How do you think about requiring operators to provide public feeds in GBFS format so real-time info is visible to the public and trip-planning apps? These feeds were missing in some early pilot programs, but cities like DC require them from new mobility operators, which are already commonplace for existing systems like Citi Bike, Breeze bikeshare and Nice Ride MN.

This is perhaps a notable difference between a publicly owned and operated system (often through contract) and a service that’s privately owned and operated. Systems owned and managed by public entities (such as those listed in the question above) have mostly been making their data publicly accessible. But, while some cities are requiring data be provided by (private) dockless operators, not many have required it to also be publicly available. So far, private operators have typically been comfortable sharing data with regulators for enforcement and operations, but have been opposed to being required to share their data publicly to the benefit of other private sector companies.

PERFORMANCE METRICS

Are there recommendations for the most effective performance metrics?

Great question! We include a list of potential metrics that cities can use to measure performance in the playbook. But, given that we’re still very early in the development of these services, it’s not clear yet which metrics may be best. And, since each city will likely have different goals and outcomes that are most important to them, it will be important for each city to determine which metrics best track the outcomes or impacts they’re most interested in.

Relatedly, that type of ethos governed our overall approach to the playbook. T4America wanted to provide a framework that any city could use to advance their specific goals, while also recognizing that cities will bring vastly different big-picture goals to the table. Some cities might be more committed to shifting more trips to cleaner modes, for example. The important thing is for cities to understand how measuring performance is (and should be!) connected to accomplishing specific goals, and then to find the metrics that best get them where they want to go.

Question for Minneapolis: How would your population density-based distribution requirement work?

This idea is still being explored in Minneapolis, but essentially it would be establishing a goal ratio of people per scooter, based on population and including commuters as well as students (where applicable) to try to include the groups using scooters regularly. That would then be used to establish some distribution minimums or maximums, to ensure broader distribution and availability. Minneapolis essentially allowed the market to determine distribution in 2018, and we are thinking about how we can make it more equitable and position it as an option for all in 2019 and beyond.

GENERAL

For cities that have conducted RFA/review processes for selecting operator companies, what criteria is used (metrics, performance measures, etc.) have been used to rank, evaluate, and determine which company is most competitive and also the best fit for both the city and the overall community?

Last summer, the San Francisco San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) created its Powered Scooter Share Permit and Pilot Program. Their application process invited proposals that prioritized the city’s concerns around safety, equity and accountability and they rated everything from public safety and user education to equitable access to collaborating with the city. You can find the details, applications and their public review on their website.

The RFA process for Santa Monica is documented on the pilot project Application & Selection Process website.

The enabling ordinance for the pilot project specified some of the selection process, including “Each qualified applicant shall be evaluated based upon objective criteria including: experience; proposed operations plan; financial wherewithal and stability; adequacy of insurance; ability to begin operations in a timely manner; public education strategies; relevant record of the applicant’s or officers’, owners’ or principals’ violations of Federal, State or local law, or rules and regulations; and any other objective criteria established by Administrative Regulation.”

Minneapolis : How is your ridership in winter versus summer?

Minneapolis didn’t get much snow or ice in November prior to the end of the pilot last year, however temperatures did drop in the last 3-4 weeks of the pilot, which caused a steady decline from roughly six trips per scooter per day to about three trips per scooter per day by the last week. At the peak in early summer, we were seeing about seven trips per scooter per day.

Is Santa Monica’s eScooter industry review publicly available? If so, could you share it?

All available program documents are posted here.

What is a typical day-in-the-life of your Code Enforcement Officer?

Code enforcement tasks are both in the field investigating issues and documenting conditions, as well as in the office responding to phone calls, e-mails, and submitted complaints. Time is split roughly 50/50 between field and office, inclusive of work entering reports and evidence into a document management system in the event that a complaint ends up in a hearing. Code staff investigate complaints in the field, and if confirmed will follow up with additional investigations which may lead to citations from violated municipal codes. Once a complaint is confirmed, code staff investigate the problem daily or even weekly until the problem is resolved.

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Thanks again to our guests for their time. View the full Playbook at playbook.t4america.org

T4America’s new “playbook” provides an evolving guide for how cities can manage shared micromobility services

Produced in collaboration with 23 cities, Transportation for America today released a new “Playbook” to help cities think about how to best manage shared micromobility services like dockless bikes, electric scooters, and other new technologies that are rapidly being deployed in cities across the country.

View the complete Playbook at http://playbook.t4america.org

Over just the past few years, shared micromobility services (scooters, bikes and others) have exploded in cities across the country, transforming the mobility landscape and challenging the ability of cities to manage them. Since the initial introduction of dockless bikesharing systems in Seattle in the summer of 2017, dozens of companies have rapidly launched their services in hundreds of cities, served thousands of users and completed millions of rides—in just a little over a year.

“The rapid emergence of these new micromobility services has created new clean and convenient options for people to get around, and they certainly offer a wealth of potential benefits. But there’s still so much to learn,” said Russ Brooks, T4America’s Director of Smart Cities.

“They can help advance city goals related to equity, access to jobs and services, climate, and more. But in order to achieve these goals, cities have a major role to play in thoughtfully managing them to ensure that the benefits accrue equitably to everyone. This Playbook is intended to be an extension of T4America’s Smart Cities Collaborative and serve as the start of an ongoing conversation where cities can share their experiences and identify best practices as the results of the first pilot programs across the country come in.”

No cities were even considering the prospect of shared electric scooters two years ago, and now in 2019, hundreds of them are. This incredibly rapid pace of change is unlikely to slow anytime soon, and it highlights the need to create flexible regulatory frameworks that will help cities integrate new technologies and contribute toward their preferred long-term outcomes.

The Shared Micromobility Playbook is intended to help cities better understand the variety of policy levers at their disposal and explores the core components of a comprehensive shared micromobility policy for local governments as they consider how best to manage these services.

“Santa Monica has been at ground zero for the micromobility revolution, having to learn—in real time—what works and what doesn’t as scooters appeared in our city virtually overnight,” said Francie Stefan, Acting Chief Mobility Officer and Assistant Director of Planning & Community Development for the City of Santa Monica.

“But we didn’t have to find our way alone. By being part of the T4America Smart Cities Collaborative, we were able to quickly tap into the experiences of over 20 other cities, including ones who had just gone through the first wave of dockless bikeshare regulation. With e-scooters now operating for a year in Santa Monica, we were happy to share our experiences as T4America produced the Playbook which crystallizes in a systematic way what the key policy questions are, what we can control, and the pros and cons of various approaches to regulating these new services.”

The Playbook was started during a September convening in Pittsburgh, PA with the 23 cities participating in T4America’s yearlong Smart Cities Collaborative. The Playbook was written as a result of that collaboration, additional conversations with cities across the country working on regulations, industry stakeholders including Lime, and research conducted by T4America.

The convening of the Smart Cities Collaborative in Pittsburgh, PA where the Playbook was started with feedback from staff representing 23 cities.

“Whether docked or dockless bikes, electric bikes or scooters, the pace of change with these new mobility offerings has been astonishing. In Minneapolis, we’re not just trying to keep up, we’re working to shape these services to provide safe, reliable, and sustainable mobility options for all people,” said Josh Johnson, Advanced Mobility Manager for the Minneapolis Department of Public Works. “Thankfully, we don’t have to try to figure this out on our own. Being part of producing the Playbook with T4America and other cities in the same boat has required us to think through these issues in a deliberate way, while remaining proactive and keeping our ideal vision of mobility in Minneapolis in the front of our minds.”

The Playbook is divided into eight policy sections:

Each section identifies key policy areas to reflect on, highlights the various options in each policy area, reviews the pros and cons of each level of action, and provides case studies of cities that have enacted certain policies. Sections also include suggested national standards across cities, areas for cities to make local choices, and key considerations when deliberating policy options along with recommendations.

T4America will continue to refine and expand the Playbook as we learn more about the ongoing results of the efforts to manage these services and ultimately the impact that shared micromobility is having in our communities.

View the Playbook at playbook.t4america.org.

Reminder: Join us on Monday, January 28th at 3:00 p.m. EST for an online session explaining the Playbook, how to use it, and how members of the Collaborative helped shape the content.

Seven things to know about our last Smart Cities Collaborative meeting of 2018

Last week in Atlanta, Georgia we wrapped up our second cohort of the Smart Cities Collaborative with the fourth meeting of 2018. Once again, staff representing cities, counties, transit agencies and other public sector agencies from 23 cities gathered together to share their experiences and learn how others are using technology and new mobility to become better places to live. Here are seven things we learned or heard last week.

1. Atlanta has a tremendous amount of momentum and potential

As someone said during the week at one point, it’s much harder to affect significant change if you’re not growing, and Atlanta (both the city and the region) have been booming. In fact, after losing population for nearly thirty years, the rate of population growth in the city proper has been near the top of the list within the (massive) region over the last few years. Which also means that the city and region alike are struggling to keep those people moving and well-connected to jobs and opportunity. Atlanta City Councilman Amir Farohki and Planning Director Tim Keane shared a little of the Atlanta story and how they’re working hard to keep people and residents at the center of their city’s efforts to improve mobility and access.

Atlanta Councilman Amir Farokhi, left, and Planning Director Tim Keane speaking to the Collaborative in Atlanta.

One of the best illustrations of that effort is the Atlanta BeltLine, an unprecedented and multi-decade project to add trails, parks and transit to old railroad corridors that form a ring around the core of the city. We were fortunate enough to get out of our meeting space in downtown (provided by the Atlanta Regional Commission) long enough to get a terrific tour of a small portion of the BeltLine, and it’s truly a transformative, people-centered project that will have immense long-term benefits for the city.

Touring the Atlanta BeltLine with staff from Atlanta Beltline near the Ponce City Market on the city’s east side, and on bottom right, touring a just-opened portion of the west side trail with the portion set aside and prepped for transit on the left side of that photo.

2. This was the last meeting of the second cohort of the Collaborative

This meeting wrapped up our second yearlong cohort of the Collaborative, putting a bow on a year that kicked off with 23 cities in Denver way back in the spring, traveled to Seattle over the summer, and then met in Pittsburgh near the beginning of the fall. We’re planning to reflect a little more later on in another post about a year spent learning with these cities, but suffice it to say we covered an immense amount of ground over a net total of only about a full week of time together, and we will miss working together with them every few months.

3. Arcadis sponsored the meeting and made an interesting offer to the cities

Data. Daaaaaaaaata. We all hear about it nonstop.

And it’s true: new technologies and mobility options are providing a wealth of detailed, real-time transportation data to planners and managers across the country. This is creating new opportunities to analyze historical data and better measure operations, understand network conditions and trends, and ultimately help cities make better decisions about how to manage their transportation networks.

But, despite all this wonderful new data, most cities haven’t been able to fully realize its benefits, update their models or turn it into meaningful action. It’s certainly possible to use this data to better understand what’s actually happening on the ground with present and future travel demand, but it’s a tough job for any city—especially the small and mid-sized cities—to do this on their own.

Arcadis, a large global planning and design firm that sponsored this meeting, came with an interesting proposal: They offered a three-month data analytics pilot project of nearly any kind to Collaborative cities for free. But they don’t want to just roll ahead with an idea of their own—they wanted to collaborate and work together with cities to figure out what would be most helpful. So their team, and others from Sam Schwartz Engineering, HR&A and Cityfi, met with the cities in small groups for a half-day to better understand their specific challenges and identify key areas to include in potential data analytics pilots, craft the scope for coordinated pilots across multiple cities, and highlight a few options for differing outcomes in each community.

4. We heard a lot about tangible projects happening on the ground right now

The Collaborative has always intended to be about action and real, tangible efforts to improve mobility and experiment with new technologies and tools. While a lot of our time was taken up with some big picture issues, we also heard short presentations from other cities that are forging ahead about how specific pilot projects are faring, with the hopes of sharing lessons and experience with the other cities that might want follow—or chart their own path.

Dan Hoffman from Gainesville, Florida shared about the automated vehicle shuttle pilot that they’re hoping to get rolling in early 2019. He explained the goals of the pilot, where and how it will operate and all of the hurdles they’ve cleared along the way to try to put a real AV shuttle on the ground connecting downtown and the University of Florida, providing a useful test case for other cities hoping to obtain a NHTSA waiver for AV testing or how to partner effectively with the state.

Robin Aksu from the Los Angeles Department of Transportation also joined us to speak on mobility hubs and how their project is progressing. Robin shared what they’re hoping to accomplish by creating mobility hubs, the focus on primary and satellite hubs and how the design will reflect those differences, and how they’re approaching implementation along with communications, marketing, and their community outreach program.

Mark de la Vergne from Detroit, Michigan joined us to share more about Night Shift and some of their other transit programs. Night Shift is specifically designed for late night and service workers to help connect them to transit and improve access to jobs. Mark shared about the process his team has gone through to conduct engagement and outreach in their local community to not only design the service, but ensure it meets the community’s ongoing needs. Detroit’s pilot is an excellent example of how cities can think about improving access from the ground up with the user’s perspective in mind and without a predetermined solution.

5. Mobility as a Service will definitely be one of 2019’s hottest topics — but it won’t end there

We’ve talked a lot here about Mobility as a Service and that this is where most of the companies like Uber or Lyft or Lime are ultimately headed: not a provider of one specific mode, but a mobility provider allowing multiple options for however you choose to get around. It’s likely part of the reason why Lyft bought Motivate and Uber bought Jump (both are bikesharing companies), and why we’ll continue to see more moves like that in the future.

So what will it mean to roll all these services into a single platform offering multiple modes of travel. Who would control the data? What would the role of the city be in helping to plan for travel demand? How would cities ensure that it improves access for everyone?

We had two representatives from the public side (Warren Logan from San Francisco and Alex Pazuchanics from Pittsburgh) discuss the topic with two reps from the private side (Lilly Shoup from Lyft and Matt Cole from Cubic.) And the back-and-forth that ensued (moderated by Cityfi’s Gabe Klein) was a terrific, open, and honest discussion that pulled no punches.

5. LADOT’s Mobility Data Specification is already shifting the conversation

There have been a lot of conversations over the past year about LA DOT’s Mobility Data Specification (MDS) and how cities can better use data to actively manage their operations. Starting with shared active transportation services operating in Los Angeles, Marcel Porras from LADOT shared more about their short- and long-term goals along with the topic of how cities manage the right-of-way today physically and how they will need to manage it in a digital future.

Apparent from the beginning of the conversation was significant interest from the participants to use MDS in their communities to accomplish similar goals. And, there was also a stated desire to work with Los Angeles to further co-create and build out MDS to help manage the other challenges they’re facing such as managing curb space, carsharing, ridesourcing and eventually automated vehicles.

One of the most poignant parts of the conversation was a deep dive into how MDS is being administered and governed today, how cities might work together to evolve MDS into a national standard, and how a governance structure might take shape that could foster its development long into the future. It was one of the best conversations we’ve had in the Collaborative this year and highlighted the growing need for cities to evolve their structures, capacities and capabilities as data management becomes paramount for mobility management.

6. We turned the tables and tossed the private companies into the Shark Tank

Cities get pitched all day long from private companies and providers. But it’s rarely in a forum where these maxed-out city staff can really engage in a thoughtful way and certainly not one where they can benefit from the expertise of their colleagues from other cities. So we tried to turn the tables a little bit and take a page from TV by creating the Smart Cities Shark Tank where private companies were given ten minutes to pitch a panel of reps from a range of cities about Mobility as a Service and curb space management solutions, and then take some tough questions from the panel as they tried to assess whether it would be a good fit for their cities. And then the panels huddled to evaluate the presentations and pick a “winner” with the best pitch for the cities.

Photos from the Smart Cities Shark Tank, including a picture of the location at Monday Night Garage on the BeltLine in West End.

The night was a lot of fun but it was also a useful exercise that forced the private companies to meet the cities on their terms and also allowed the cities to tap into the expertise of their colleagues from across the country—something they don’t typically get to do when one of these companies shows up in their office with a pitch.

Thanks to the International Parking & Mobility Institute for helping host the Shark Tank.

7. Year two is done, and we’re already looking ahead to year three

It’s hard to believe we’re already wrapping up the second yearlong cohort of the Collaborative, but we’re already looking ahead to another cohort of cities for year three in 2019.

We would never have been able to make the Collaborative happen without the hard work and leadership of Russ Brooks, who has been T4America’s Director of Smart Cities for the past three years (and has been part of T4America in some fashion for seven years in total.) He helped conceive of the program and pull together the initial group of cities that met on a fairly surreal day in Minneapolis after the 2016 presidential election, and he’s contributed his blood, sweat, and tears to build the relationships required to bring almost 150 participants from 27 different cities together throughout the first two years—and the private industry—to the table for such a productive and useful forum.

We’re especially grateful for the representatives from the 23 cities who came to one or more of these meetings this year and contributed their time and their wisdom and made the Collaborative, well, truly collaborative!

We’re actively looking for the next Director of Smart Cities to guide year three, and we’re hoping for someone with some experience on the ground within a city or agency to run the show. Read the job description here.

The second cohort of the Smart Cities Collaborative at our first 2018 meeting in Denver, Colorado.

Kicking off the first year of the Collaborative in Minneapolis on November 7, 2016.

Wrapping up an amazing year with the 16 cities in our Smart Cities Collaborative

A few weeks ago, leaders from 16 cities met in Los Angeles for the last of four meetings in our inaugural yearlong Smart Cities Collaborative.

Automated vehicles are testing without drivers as we speak on the streets in several cities. Five separate bikesharing companies that don’t require docks launched in Seattle and Washington, DC (and several other cities) this summer. New toll roads have started dynamically pricing their rates to ensure free flowing traffic. Transit ridership is down slightly in many major metro areas as they’re struggling to adapt their services to a world where anyone can hail a ride with their smartphone. But all of those cars are also adding up — clogging curb spaces and making traffic even worse, according to recent research from UC Davis.

We’re in the midst of the most dramatic shift in urban transportation since the advent of the interstate system. And for more than a year now, transportation leaders from 16 cities — ranging in size from small suburban communities all the way up to Los Angeles — have been gathering together to find ways to collaboratively tackle these challenges and harness all of these changing technologies to enable better, safer, more equitable cities.

At it’s core, that’s what the “Smart Cities” moniker is really about.

But that term is tricky. It’s a clever marketing term that means little, or worse, means something different to everyone. In this meeting (and our last meeting in Miami), we started discussing what makes a city “smart.” Inspired in part by how smart growth was codified and defined by the movement, but also more recently by cities like Seattle who released their groundbreaking New Mobility Playbook earlier this year.

Like Seattle, we started with the premise that “smart” cities are those that guide themselves by a set of core values. These values inform the foundation of their work and how they approach challenges and opportunities as they come along. People-Oriented. Entrepreneurial. Connected. Equitable. Those were some of the values we started with and through these long conversations we developed a much better sense of what each of these values meant to our participants, which values are the most important, and some of the actions cities can take to illustrate their commitment to them.

One of the other realities facing cities is that they don’t always control all of the policy levers required to take those actions and shape this technological transportation revolution.

With many state legislative sessions ramping up in the beginning of 2018, we talked about the specific policies that could or should be developed at the state level so these cities can harness new and emerging technologies in service of their residents. What authorities do cities need to test out new pricing or tolling projects on roads controlled by their states? How can procurement processes be changed to be more flexible and adaptive? How do motor vehicle codes need to be updated or adapted to test and deploy automated vehicles?

Much of that conversation centered on how cities can drive the discussion and lead at the state level on those policies that will have the largest impact on our cities. Keynote speaker Seleta Reynolds, the head of the LA Department of Transportation, reminded the participants that, no matter what policy levers are controlled by the state, cities still have an enormous amount of leverage — if they’re willing to work together and think outside of the box.

“We’re cities — we move markets,” Reynolds said. “If we’re all together and we’re pushing together, we can get the change we seek. But we can’t get it in the ways we’ve normally been accustomed to doing business. …It’s not enough for us to say it or to state our principles. We have to find ways to nudge the markets in the ways we have at our disposal.”

After the last day of the convening, we gathered up the whole crew and headed over the LA Arts District where the LACoMotion event was taking place later that week.

Transdev invited our participants to take a ride in their new autonomous EasyMile EZ10 shuttle. While the route was fairly simple — traveling back and forth in a straight line — it was a stirring reminder of how quickly these new technologies will be on our roads and how much there is to do to prepare.

Throughout the course of this year, it has been powerful to see the collaborative spirit that started on a cold morning in Minneapolis on the day after last November’s election continue to grow. These cities have realized that, unlike USDOT’s Smart City Challenge where they were all hiding their applications from one another in the quest for the winner-take-all prize of $50 million, working together with other cities is actually the most powerful recipe for success.

We’ll have more to share about that as we conclude the year with a few reflections before the end of 2017, so stay tuned.

Part 2: Options for all: Serving the elderly and disabled with shared-use mobility

Transportation network companies (TNCs) like Uber and Lyft and bike-share providers like Zagster improve options and expand accessibility. Can they support the needs of vulnerable populations and smaller markets? Transportation for America attended the Shared Use Mobility Summit to learn more. (This is the second post of a two-part series. Read Part 1 here.)

In our last post, we discussed some of the innovations that transportation network companies (TNCs) like Uber and Lyft are pioneering, and how niche solutions are popping up to serve an increasingly diverse base of customers.

While added choice is generally good news for the consumer, these programs do raise new issues for government agencies.

“There are underlying differences in the traditional service vs. new TNCs,” says Jana Lynott, senior policy advisor for AARP’s Public Policy Institute. “For one, TNCs do not do fingerprint background checks. The Federal Transit Administration’s (FTA) compliance office has also raised concerns that they do not do drug and alcohol testing. And the FTA has even questioned whether it’s legal per federal rules for federally funded transit agencies to sign these types of contracts.” Additionally, despite their concerns, FTA is also trying to figure out their role and the impacts these projects can have on communities. Earlier this year, through their Mobility on Demand Sandbox grant, they awarded $8 million to transit agencies across the country to test some of these innovative projects.

Data concerns

Another challenge for public agencies is that TNCs typically don’t share their ridership data, which would have immense value for local leaders, policymakers and planners.

For large cities trying to forecast trips, lack of data from TNCs hinder their ability to forecast ridership and plan accurately. “We can’t model what we don’t know,” says David Leininger, Executive Vice President of Dallas Area Rapid Transit. “Supposing all these innovations work, how does it affect our traditional methods of analysis? We don’t know the market share of these trips,” he says. That makes it harder to plan around them. Across the summit, many participants expressed a desire for public agencies to access TNC trip data.

PC: Trillium Transit

Data challenges are just as pronounced with rural and paratransit services. Major transit providers use a common standard for public transit timetables: the General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS). Using GTFS data, apps and extensions is how services like Google Maps can make it easy to map, plan, and track trips across a wide range of providers and transit services. There is no such common language for paratransit.

“We’ve created a system where human service agencies have to buy proprietary software packages that don’t talk to each other well,” says Lynott. Now, a group has formed for software developers, transportation professionals, and other interest parties to work together and develop and propose common data specifications. And the Transportation Research Board is currently studying an open-data specification for transit providers, Lynott reports.

Equity issues

Data is only the tip of the iceberg for skeptics of TNCs. There are legitimate and growing concerns about how they are subverting existing markets and their ability to truly meet the needs of vulnerable populations. Many advocates and industry veterans are about the suitability of TNCs in this space.

PC: Gamaliel

“The idea of having on-demand services provide paratransit is unacceptable,” says Carol Tyson, transportation equity advocate.

Tyson reports that to discuss concerns over a request for proposals that the District of Columbia put out for TNCs to provide paratransit service. The assembled group demanded widespread wheelchair access, enough training for drivers to work with people with disabilities, performance measures to gauge wait times and fares, and protections against cuts to bus lines. Most of all, they want a seat at the table. “The people who rely on these services are often missing from the discussion,” says Tyson.

Also often missing in these discussions are the drivers and their perspectives. Advocates demand living wages, paid sick leave and fair hiring policies. Their anxieties are likely to grow as TNCs embrace a future of automated vehicles that would remove the driver entirely along with their associated costs. That would end hundreds of thousands of U.S. jobs. Economic concerns have led Zipcar founder Robin Chase to champion an unconventional policy: a universal living wage.

Watch a video that Robin Chase shared at the Summit about the future of autonomous vehicles: https://youtu.be/DeUE4kHRpE

Bike-share considerations

As TNCs look toward smaller markets, bike-share providers have followed suit. “People often think about systems in New York City, Washington D.C., or Chicago, but it’s actually thriving in a lot of places,” says Nate Taber, head of marketing for the Zagster bike-share company. Zagster operates 142 systems in North America. The company works around the challenges of smaller marketplaces — including lower density and tax bases — by developing service-based purchasing, locating near parks and major destinations, centralizing its operations, and working with community partners to attract sponsorships.

Coalitions of community groups and businesses are key to success in these markets, and they take part for good reason. “We have seen communities use bike-sharing as more than a new mode of transportation, but as an amenity and a way to be more competitive,” says Taber. “Cities use it as a lever to draw in new businesses.”

PC: Zagster

But bike-share systems, too, pose hurdles for elderly and disabled populations. For one, most standard bike-share bikes are heavy. Providers are working to develop new, lighter-weight models, but they are built heavy for a reason; it reduces theft and can withstand lots of wear and tear. Zagster also offers a line of accessible bikes. These include hand-cycles for people with disabilities, and tandems that allow people who travel with a guardian the ability to use the program. One small pilot program recently launched in Rome, New York, includes a three-wheeled bike with two seats for this purpose.

Making bike-share accessible is especially important as more communities realize its public health benefits. Recognizing that higher active transportation levels lead to reduced rates of chronic disease, local health insurance companies often co-sponsor bike-share systems. In some places like Corvallis, OR, Medicare will reimburse recipients the cost to use the system. In our forthcoming policy paper on Healthy MPOs, we outline how leaders in Corvallis took several steps to make bike-share convenient for people in need, such as incorporating easier-to-ride tricycles, locating stations near Medicare recipients’ homes, and allowing users to check out a bicycle via text message.

Looking ahead together

More communities are partnering with shared use mobility providers. The market is expanding to meet diverse geographies, age groups, and ability levels. The private sector is powering ahead, promising new options, service improvements, and cost savings. These options raise questions about equity, access and data. And the public sector must strike a balance.

We can learn from other leaders.

In Boston, MA the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority worked directly with disability advocates on a program to incorporate TNCs. In Detroit, MI the Department of Public Health piloted a program to provide transportation for individuals with HIV/AIDS. In Portland, OR, the nonprofit Ride Connection taps a robust volunteer network to serve people with limited options. And Marin County, CA has implemented over a dozen strategies to improve mobility, led by a diverse set of stakeholders.

Cities will need to take the reins to ensure these monumental shifts in transportation doesn’t shape their cities without their input and produce a new generation of transportation haves and have-nots. And with so many new questions looming over the impacts these projects will have, working together to solve these challenges will be crucial.

These are just some of the challenges that T4America’s Smart Cities Collaborative is beginning to work on. Cities are partnering together to explore the positive and negative impacts of these new transportation models, develop appropriate policies, and test on the ground solutions because change is coming….Fast.

Options for all: Serving the elderly and disabled with shared-use mobility

Transportation network companies (TNCs) like Uber and Lyft and bike-share providers like Zagster can improve options and expand accessibility. Can they support vulnerable populations and smaller markets? Transportation for America attended the Shared Use Mobility Summit to learn more. (This is part one of a two-part series.)

PC: Marin County Media

In the United States, individuals miss over 3.6 million medical appointments every year due to lack of transportation, according to a 2013 article in the Journal of Community Health. And according to the Kessler Foundation, access for people with disabilities has not improved since 1998; it’s actually getting harder to get around. This has a disproportionate impact on vulnerable populations.

Senior shuttles and paratransit fill some of these gaps in access, which are growing unfortunately, but they are often limited in the populations, destinations and hours that they serve. These services can be expensive for providers, and inconvenient for customers, who often need to order a ride 24-48 hours in advance.

In towns, cities and places of all sizes, questions are emerging about the role of new mobility providers like Uber, Lyft and other TNCs in filling these gaps and becoming part of how we ensure mobility for these groups of people. What would it look like? What are the concerns that cities need to be aware of as they think about using any of them to help meet their needs?

The Centennial pilot

Centennial, CO, a suburb 13 miles south of Denver, has a fairly typical first- and last-mile problem; its Denver Regional Transportation Authority light rail station is far away from its residential, retail, and job centers. Cost and hour-plus wait times have made its dial-a-ride service unappealing. But in August of 2016, the city partnered with ride-hailing service Lyft to launch a six-month pilot program in an effort to change that. (Centennial is also one of the 17 cities in our Smart Cities Collaborative, and we heard a great deal about these efforts during our inaugural meeting back in November.)

The Go Centennial pilot allows residents to catch a free (subsidized by the city) Lyft ride to or from the light rail station. A local paratransit company has also joined the Lyft platform with accessible vehicles to enhance service. And to help serve people who would prefer to call for a ride rather than using a smartphone application, the city has partnered with a developer to create a web application that the city can use to dispatch rides to those customers.

PC: Peter Jones, Villager Publishing

For Centennial, the project has so far been a fiscal success: total project costs for the city have been about half of subsidizing the previous dial-a-ride service.

“Public-private partnerships with aging, disability, and other groups have become a growing mandate as we come to realize how much we have in common,” says Andrew Salzberg, head of Transportation Policy and Research at Uber. Uber is currently partnering with 20 cities to provide wheelchair accessible vehicles & lease them to drivers. Many cities have joined Centennial in subsidizing TNC services to supplement paratransit service.

A pioneering transit agency

Some cities are working to get ahead of the curve by developing their own solutions. Kansas City, Missouri partnered with Bridj to pilot an app-based, on-demand shuttle service in select areas of the city to make it easier for people to get around.

“We have to look beyond traditional transit, even reinvent what transit agencies are,” says Robbie Makinen, president & CEO of the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority (KCATA), showing a remarkable amount of foresight to think outside the conventional work of a transit agency. “As we explore new mobility options the opportunity to partner with the private sector is tremendous.” he says.

PC: Daily Republic

This winter, the KCATA will launch an on-demand paratransit service called RideKC Freedom. “RideKC Freedom is going to start with the paratransit piece and build out, which is the opposite of what typically happens,” he says. While many transportation systems offer paratransit as a supplementary service, the goal of RideKC Freedom is to begin as a paratransit service before eventually expanding as a shuttle service intended for all users.

Makinen believes that for too many years, the most vulnerable riders have been left to navigate a transportation system that limits their ability to access opportunities. “We will leverage our private sector partnerships to reduce per trip paratransit costs, and then expand RideKC Freedom into serving the broader retail market, he says.” This business model is designed to eliminate social stigmatism associated with using paratransit service, and create a new funding stream.

Service for seniors

Based in San Francisco, CA one company fills a special niche. SilverRide provides call-ahead, escorted rides for senior citizens or anyone who needs additional help due to physical or cognitive challenges. Drivers receive extra training from the company on how to handle common medical conditions and provide physical assistance. The service also provides notes about any special help passengers may need.

“Seniors and those with disabilities tend to need more hand-holding than the general public,” says SilverRide CEO Jeff Maltz. That’s why passengers receive personalized customer care and frequent reminders about their scheduled rides. And the escort aspect ensures those who need door-through-door assistance can use the service.

SilverRide comes at a slightly higher price tag, which Maltz says is the necessary to provide a resource tailored to serve populations with different needs.

“Any service that offers the extra assistance to accommodate folks who have special needs has added cost to accommodate the extra need. We have removed as much cost as possible by offering a TNC-plus model that can plug into any system in a variety of ways to make sure the needs of all riders are met.” He notes that a one-size-fits-all approach has traditionally led to poorer service and higher costs, and argues that tailored solutions combined with technology and improved regulations are a better approach.

PC: Ride Connection

Designing for the elderly and people with disabilities is important in all systems, notes Sarah Rienhoff. Rienhoff is the public sector lead at Via, another TNC. Her perspective is informed by her past experience working at the global design and innovation firm IDEO. “We should aim to design for inclusivity, looking at ‘extreme’ users, the elderly in this case, to guide our work,” she says.

Rienhoff explains, “When designers take on a problem, they spend time in the edges of the bell curve, with the extremes. By designing for people that most acutely experience the positives or negatives of a product or service, you can also benefit the middle, people who likely experience those same positives or negatives, but to a lesser degree. Rienhoff argues that this is something that many of our transit agencies already do well. “They think about designing services to be universally accessible,” she says.

Maltz agrees it is wise to take best practices from each tailored solution and incorporate those across the board where improvements can be made. he says. And Jana Lynott, senior policy advisor for AARP’s Public Policy Institute, reconciles, “While public transportation should be designed to serve the needs of everyone, there may be cases where older adults are too frail or suffer from dementia where it would not be safe for them to use fixed route public transit on their own.”

Services like SilverRide and Via, when licensed to a transit provider, can serve an important niche. “We also need to design for caregivers,” she says. “They want to be able to schedule rides remotely and track that progress as well.”

Rural coverage

As TNCs grow into smaller cities and suburban markets, options for rural regions lag behind. Uber, for example, considers regions just under 100,000 in population its smallest market.

PC: Zagster

Lynott notes that more services are coming online in rural areas. The national franchise ITN America is the nation’s largest provider of transportation for seniors, providing demand-response service, and more recently Liberty Mobility Now has launched a ride-sharing service intended to compliment the existing transportation in rural communities and provide gap coverage.

As more services come online, it is clear that the market is adapting. But what challenges does that present? And can the public sector and local stakeholders keep up? In our next post, we’ll take a closer look at some of the issues these new TNCs pose. We’ll also review how the bike-share market is responding to different market considerations.

Though not selected as finalists, other Smart Cities Challenge applicants still hopeful to make their plans a reality

Though 77 cities will leave USDOT’s Smart Cities competition empty-handed later this summer, T4America is looking to help many of those cities advance the great ideas still deserving of help.

Seven cities were selected two weekends ago as semifinalists in the first-ever Smart City Challenge from USDOT, a competition that will eventually award $40 million to just one of those seven cities to help them rethink urban mobility, powered by innovative new technologies. Which means that 77 of the 78 will ultimately walk away empty-handed without any funding. (Save for the $100,000 that the seven semifinalists received to further develop their initial proposals.)

After reaching out over the last few months to all of the cities that applied, T4America held an invite-only conference call earlier this week to offer advice and support for advancing parts of their applications forward; applications with interesting responses to the question of how to rethink the future of transportation within cities of all sizes.

USDOT was a guest on our webinar, offering ideas, suggestions about other possibly little-known federal programs that can be used to advance certain ideas, or more information about grant programs like TIGER or the new freight grant program that can meet the need.

One of the most interesting things that USDOT shared with everyone was this graphic showing a list of 13 challenges facing cities. (There are certainly others, but this is fascinating summary of some of the most pressing.)

USDOT smart cities — challenges for cities

Win or lose the Smart Cities Challenge, these issues above are ones that cities of all size face today or will be facing in the future for years to come as the landscape radically changes due to the impact of new technologies, consumer preferences and new mobility options.

We at Transportation for America are excited to find ways to support these other cities that are eager, engaged and motivated to become smarter cities and ask big questions about the future of mobility in their communities. This week was a small step forward, and we’re hopeful for more chances to help support cities that are ready to rethink the status quo when it comes to transportation.

Are you associated with one of the cities that applied (or chose not to for whatever reason) and missed the invite-only conference call this week? Email us at smartcities@t4america.org

Seven semifinalist cities selected over the weekend in USDOT’s Smart City Challenge

Over the weekend, while appearing at the South by Southwest Interactive festival, USDOT Secretary Anthony Foxx announced the selection of seven cities to continue as semifinalists in the first-ever Smart City Challenge — a competition that will eventually award $40 million to just one city to “use technology to connect transportation assets into an interactive network.”

Through this open competition for a sizable grant award, the USDOT and Secretary Foxx have asked cities to think big on the future of mobility, and what could they do with $40 million to bring that future to fruition.

78 cities from 34 states plus the District of Columbia applied for their chance to win the single $40 million grant. Foxx, speaking at SXSW on Saturday, said, “The level of excitement and energy the Smart City Challenge has created around the country far exceeded our expectations,” said Secretary Foxx. “After an overwhelming response – 78 applications total – we chose to select seven finalists instead of five because of their outstanding potential to transform the future of urban transportation.”

The cities of Austin, TX; Columbus, OH; Denver, CO; Kansas City, MO; Pittsburgh, PA; Portland, OR; and San Francisco, CA will now receive $100,000 each to put more meat on the bones of their proposals and create a detailed roadmap on how they will make their plans a reality. Come June, one of those cities will be selected to receive the full $40 million grant to implement their winning plan over a three-year period.

What about the other 73 cities?

USDOT kicked off an incredibly important discussion and 78 cities responded by asking big questions about the future of transportation within our cities. While we’re celebrating these seven cities today, come this Summer, there will be 77 cities that leave empty-handed, and many of them will have great ideas still deserving of help.

Where can they turn?

For one, we at Transportation for America are kicking off an effort to help support these other cities that are eager, engaged and motivated to become smarter cities and ask big questions about the future of mobility in their communities. Next week, we’re going to be holding an invite-only online discussion soon with the applicants that weren’t selected. (We’re reaching out to most of you directly, but if you’re interested and don’t hear from us, email us at smartcities@t4america.org)

More than 300 private companies — whether popular providers like Uber or Lyft, backend technology companies like Amazon Web Services or Google, or providers of intelligent transportation systems like NXP or Siemens — have expressed their interest to USDOT to work not just with the winning city, but with other smart, forward looking cities that are thinking about the future of urban mobility.

These other cities will certainly need help figuring out how best to proceed, and how best to do it without the aid of a $40 million grant to kickstart their efforts.

T4America will be announcing some exciting partnerships in the coming days and weeks that will help make connections between these cities and the private companies, providers and experts to help support their work, so stay tuned.

Looking into the crystal ball on shared-use mobility at a three-day conference

The Shared-Use Mobility Center and the North American Bike Share Association are hosting a three-day conference September 28th-30th in Chicago focusing on the crossroads of technology and the emerging use of shared mobility services like bikeshare systems, car share networks and ride-hailing apps, and we’ve got a special promotional rate for T4America supporters interested in attending.

The Move Together: Shared-Use Mobility Summit will host talks and workshops by transportation professionals who work at city and state DOTs, non-profits and mobility companies like Lyft and Ridescout, among others. On tap to be discussed is a wide range of topics on shared-use mobility with practical applications, including how to integrate these new mobility options with transit, how shared mobility can help the disadvantaged, local and federal policy issues that affect shared-use mobility and autonomous vehicles, and how these new forms of transportation will affect cities and suburbs.

Also, don’t miss T4America director James Corless speaking on the “Federal Policy and Funding for Shared Mobility” panel. There’s still time to register for the conference and receive a 10 percent discount using the SUMCT4AMERICA promo code.

As giant companies like Google ramp up research on and investment in autonomous vehicles, ride-hailing apps like Uber and Lyft redefine what it means to be a part-time or contracted worker, and bikeshare networks proliferate across the country in cities big and small, cities and states are scrambling to figure out how to accommodate these untraditional modes of transportation. Shared-use mobility can provide access to transportation for areas often underserved by transit, as well as enable greater mobility in and around cities.

The public is embracing these modes of transport, often quicker than cities and towns can adapt. The National Shared-Use Mobility Summit is primed to offer some insight for both public officials and industry professionals on how to work together and what’s coming next.

Register today to with promo code SUMCT4AMERICA to save 10 percent on the ticket fee and get the inside scoop on the future of transportation.

“How Do We Become the Department of Yes?”

A new T4America member is hoping to successfully leverage the exploding landscape of new mobility options to meet more of their goals for encouraging smart development, reduce the amount of required single-occupant car trips and create a better city for tomorrow along the way.

This is a post originally published last week on our member portal especially for T4America members. Would you like to find out more about joining as a member?

Tell Me More

Scott Kubly, Seattle DOT

At the Intelligent Transportation Society of America Symposium at University of Washington in Seattle back in July, I had the privilege of hearing Seattle DOT Director Scott Kubly speak to the challenges local governments are facing as they attempt to adapt to new forms of mobility exploding all over the country — ride-for-hire services like Lyft and Uber, carshare services like Zipcar and Car2Go, and bikeshare. (Seattle is a new T4America member.)

I was impressed by Scott’s ability to step back and look at the whole picture in the context of the City of Seattle’s goals.

Seattle is growing quickly. There simply isn’t enough physical space for business as usual, and the city is adjusting accordingly. In the last 4 years, downtown Seattle added 40,000 employees, made possible in part because they planned for, and achieved, a drop in single occupant vehicle mode-share from 35 percent to 31 percent.

New mobility options are often sprouting so fast that it’s difficult for local governments (and regulations) to keep up, but they present a great opportunity for Seattle given the geometric constraints on physical space. “As we keep growing, we need to keep setting that mode-share target lower and lower and get people to use different types of modes, and we need to look at new options,” he said.

Scott suggests re-imagining departments of transportation less as infrastructure providers, and more as systems integrators whose actions are driven by the idea of improving the user’s experience.

As some examples of where that sort of integration to improve overall mobility for users, Scott pointed out the big return on investment for bike-share, and the potential for Uber and Lyft to provide more affordable late-night service than transit can accomplish.

The advent of Uber and Lyft certainly raises questions about drivers’ wages, equitable access, and the risks of congestion caused by oversupply of rides-for-hire that must all be addressed, but in a call to move the ball forward, Scott asks this:

“How do we become the department of yes? How do the public and private sectors work together and say ‘this is what our shared goal is’, so when there is a new service with no regulatory framework, how do we say ‘yeah that’s a cool idea and let’s figure it out.’”

Seattle seems to be figuring out a lot, and we’re excited to have them on board as a new T4A member.

It’s also worth reading this Scott Kubly interview with startup incubator 1776 from earlier this year. -Ed.

Indy’s “more is better” approach to transportation leads to new all-electric carsharing service

BlueIndy, a new all-electric carsharing service in Indianapolis launching today, is evidence of Mayor Greg Ballard’s open-minded approach to transportation innovations to improve options in the city for residents.

Blue Indy

This brand new system is a cross between a bikesharing service (cars can go one-way between numerous locations), a service like Zipcar (the parking spots are reserved) and Car2Go (smaller compact cars for one-way use) with one major exception: All of the cars are 100% electric and charge via small hubs installed next to each parking spot that are wired into the electric grid. In addition to keeping the fleet charged, anyone with an EV can also pay a small membership and hourly fee to charge their own cars at the hubs scattered around downtown.

Blue Indy Map The system is launching with 50 vehicles and 25 charging stations (doubling as the reservable parking spots) around the city, with a plan to soon expand up to 500 electric cars and 200 stations. The city is paying $6 million in dollars earmarked for infrastructure projects, with the French company that owns the service investing somewhere over $40 million.

The new system ties into two of Mayor Ballard’s key goals: to improve energy security by reducing dependence on foreign oil and to provide innovative new mobility options for Indianapolis residents. BlueIndy comes several years after the opening of the economically successful Cultural Trail through the city, closely on the heels of the launch of the Pacers bikesharing system, and in the midst of the city’s effort to dramatically expand and improve public transportation.

It was a long time coming, but now Indianapolis has a new option for getting around their city, and a range of travel options are one of the things most coveted by the younger, mobile workforce that Indy is desperate to retain (and attract) as part of their economic development goals.

As Time Money wrote today, “Without knowing any better, it would be reasonable to assume that a cutting-edge program like this would first appear in a city that already stands out for green initiatives and electric car adoption.” While some cities (Washington, D.C, Seattle and others) are known for a booming number of transportation startups disrupting entrenched systems due to favorable regulatory environments, BlueIndy is a testament to what can happen in other perhaps less likely cities that have civic leadership committed to improving transportation options for their residents (and often visitors) by any means necessary.

Whether by raising new money to expand and improve a transit system that hasn’t kept pace with the growth of the city, by building a downtown walking and biking path that’s the envy of other cities, or encouraging new mobility companies like BlueIndy or Car2Go to set up shop, Indy’s “more is better” approach is already reaping economic dividends.

Mobility is changing incredibly fast and cities that open themselves up to these exciting changes will be much better positioned to reap the rewards. It’s encouraging to see a place like Indianapolis on the list of places stepping forward into this future of new, different, exciting mobility options. Regardless of how well BlueIndy fares going forward, this step is one they’ll be glad they took for years to come.