What would a decentralized transport world look like? (Part 2)

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This article is part 2 of 2. You can find Part 1 here.

I'm trying to get to downtown Vancouver for a meeting. I could drive, but I hate to navigate the traffic and Vancouver is famous for its bottlenecks: its multiple bridges and tunnel. I could take public transportation, including a bus, a short walk and then a train ride, then another walk. I could call a taxi and lighten my wallet considerably. Vancouver does not have Uber or Lyft yet, so that's it. I could bike there, but it would take a few hours, it's a little risky in the street, and I would get there in less than perfect conditions, especially because of the capricious weather in Vancouver.

We engage in a fairly complex calculation every time we plan a simple trip: distance, time, convenience, cost and comfort are all important factors in our decision making. The nuances of this calculation are usually rendered irrelevant when we are forced to choose our options from the available options. If the roads are particularly dangerous in winter, I will choose public transport, even if I would prefer a faster and more comfortable ride. I am also at the mercy of transit times. If my bus arrives only once an hour, I have to wait or find another way to get to the next leg of my trip, because it is because the transport authorities control the frequency and routes of buses . Most of our transportation options and support infrastructure are centralized.

But what if we had the opportunity to use not only other modes of transportation, but to add those options ourselves? Who would know better the transportation needs of a neighborhood than the inhabitants of these neighborhoods?

Let's go back to micro-mobility to illustrate our point, especially the first and last mile solutions. I've already written a lot about shared electric scooters in recent weeks, so if you need a primer, dive in it please.

While the centralized shared scooter companies (Bird, Lime, Spin, etc.) & nbsp; continue their strategy of overwhelming cities with scooters and adjusting supply to referenced demand, we now have an option to approach this sector in a different way. angle, an area in which the average resident of a given community could be empowered to contribute to the micro-mobility needs of his neighborhood.

Take AirBnB and Uber, which provide platforms with which people who own property or who can afford a vehicle can share these badets to generate revenue. Although these are excellent examples of sharing economics at workthere is a significant barrier to entry. Houses and cars are expensive goods and require some degree of wealth or income. A large part of the population is explicitly excluded from participation in this economy, probably on both sides of the equation.

Electric scooters are much more affordable, even for minimum wage earners. Although they are not affordable for everyone, they are within the reach of many more people than homes and cars. An enterprising 19-year-old could buy a single scooter, connect it to a shared transport platform, take care of it carefully and earn enough income to buy another scooter in about a month. After a year of activity, this young entrepreneur could have a fleet of 20 to 40 scooters, all generating revenue and appropriately placed because he or she knows where there is a demand for rides. scooter.

In addition, a resident who cares about his community is much more likely to deploy scooters in underserved neighborhoods. There is no doubt that Bird and Lime will deploy its mobility devices only where it will receive the largest number of pbadengers, which may include only a small band or a core with a very dense pedestrian traffic. Community entrepreneurs can compete with the micro-mobility giants by serving and developing other markets, as the Blue Ocean Strategy puts it. This leads to wider coverage of these new shared economy transportation options, not just the usual central business districts in cities around the world.

With shared scooters that do not belong to Bird, Lime or any other great player that pop up in a much larger number of neighborhoods, people have more and more choices in transportation. In my case, in the scenario that I described at the beginning of this part, I open the application being developed by DAV Research, locate the nearest scooter among the nearest half-dozen (and in a future scenario, it could be a mix of independent scooters or Bird, Lime, etc. devices) .) and go to start my journey. I take a direct route to the train station, instead of being at the mercy of the bus line that meanders left and right. I leave the scooter, get on the train and, along the way, find the scooters closest to the destination station (I suppose many scooters end up in the train stations) and jump on board after leaving the train. I arrive at my meeting without haste or stress.

The most important nuance in this respect is that instead of relying on a very limited number of means of transport (taxi, bus, train, car, bike) that I must own, pay heavily or be subjected to rigid schedules, it's the possibility of being surrounded by options that make moving from point A to point B more efficient, more available, cheaper and / or more enjoyable, provided by my neighbors. & nbsp; The more competition there is on a decentralized transport network, the better for the consumer: more options, lower prices, better service, more creative products. There would be less and, in many cases, no intermediary linking riders to transportation services – it's just the customer and the service provider.

If we anticipate a little, we can draw the reasonable conclusion that scooters, their features and the services that surround them will evolve: scooters that can carry packages or races (or pizza), scooters that come to you independently, scooters that you can claim before your arrival by paying a booking fee, scooters offering a more luxurious ride, scooters from which you can watch your journey in streaming with an integrated camera and microphone. The possibilities are rather confusing.

It is recognized that there must be some centralization to begin with. While the DAV Foundation contributes to this vision of decentralized mobility by offering a common space open to all people, without prior authorization or payment of registration fees to the Foundation, the fastest way to traction being as follows: a non-foundation entity develop the application and propose it, as well as the possibility of creating your own micro-enterprise to ordinary inhabitants of cities and communities around the world. Ultimately, the success of the DAV network will come from multiple applications companies leveraging the open and decentralized nature of the protocol and platform. We only start with scooters. Drones, rovers, road and marine vehicles are all on the horizon or closer. And imagine what our world will look like when they go online.

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This article is part 2 of 2. You can find Part 1 here.

I'm trying to get to downtown Vancouver for a meeting. I could drive, but I hate to navigate the traffic and Vancouver is famous for its bottlenecks: its multiple bridges and tunnel. I could take public transportation, including a bus, a short walk and then a train ride, then another walk. I could call a taxi and lighten my wallet considerably. Vancouver does not have Uber or Lyft yet, so that's it. I could bike there, but it would take a few hours, it's a little risky in the street, and I would get there in less than perfect conditions, especially because of the capricious weather in Vancouver.

We engage in a fairly complex calculation every time we plan a simple trip: distance, time, convenience, cost and comfort are all important factors in our decision making. The nuances of this calculation are usually rendered irrelevant when we are forced to choose our options from the available options. If the roads are particularly dangerous in winter, I will choose public transport, even if I would prefer a faster and more comfortable ride. I am also at the mercy of transit times. If my bus arrives only once an hour, I have to wait or find another way to get to the next leg of my trip, because it is because the transport authorities control the frequency and routes of buses . Most of our transportation options and support infrastructure are centralized.

But what if we had the opportunity to use not only other modes of transportation, but to add those options ourselves? Who would know better the transportation needs of a neighborhood than the inhabitants of these neighborhoods?

Let's go back to micro-mobility to illustrate our point, especially the first and last mile solutions. I've already written a lot about shared electric scooters in recent weeks, so if you need a primer, dive in it please.

While the centralized shared scooter businesses (Bird, Lime, Spin, and others) continue their strategy of flooding the cities with scooters and adjusting the supply according to the referenced demand, we now have the opportunity to 39 approaching this sector from a different angle, a place in which the average resident of a given community could be empowered to contribute to the micro-mobility needs of his neighborhood.

Take AirBnB and Uber, which provide platforms with which people who own property or who can afford a vehicle can share these badets to generate revenue. Although these are excellent examples of sharing economics at workthere is a significant barrier to entry. Houses and cars are expensive goods and require some degree of wealth or income. A large part of the population is explicitly excluded from participation in this economy, probably on both sides of the equation.

Electric scooters are much more affordable, even for minimum wage earners. Although they are not affordable for everyone, they are within the reach of many more people than homes and cars. An enterprising 19-year-old could buy a single scooter, connect it to a shared transport platform, take care of it carefully and earn enough income to buy another scooter in about a month. After a year of activity, this young entrepreneur could have a fleet of 20 to 40 scooters, all generating revenue and appropriately placed because he or she knows where there is a demand for rides. scooter.

In addition, a resident who cares about his community is much more likely to deploy scooters in underserved neighborhoods. There is no doubt that Bird and Lime will deploy its mobility devices only where it will receive the largest number of pbadengers, which may include only a small band or a core with a very dense pedestrian traffic. Community entrepreneurs can compete with the micro-mobility giants by serving and developing other markets, as the Blue Ocean Strategy puts it. This leads to wider coverage of these new shared economy transportation options, not just the usual central business districts in cities around the world.

With shared scooters that do not belong to Bird, Lime or any other great player that pop up in a much larger number of neighborhoods, people have more and more choices in transportation. In my case, in the scenario that I described at the beginning of this part, I open the application being developed by DAV Research, locate the nearest scooter among the nearest half-dozen (and in a future scenario, it could be a mix of independent scooters or Bird, Lime, etc. devices) .) and go to start my journey. I take a direct route to the train station, instead of being at the mercy of the bus line that meanders left and right. I leave the scooter, get on the train and, along the way, find the scooters closest to the destination station (I suppose many scooters end up in the train stations) and jump on board after leaving the train. I arrive at my meeting without haste or stress.

The most important nuance in this respect is that instead of relying on a very limited number of means of transport (taxi, bus, train, car, bike) that I must own, pay heavily or be subjected to rigid schedules, it's the possibility of being surrounded by options that make moving from point A to point B more efficient, more available, cheaper and / or more enjoyable, provided by my neighbors. The more competition there is on a decentralized transport network, the better for the consumer: more options, lower prices, better service, more creative products. There would be less and, in many cases, no intermediary linking riders to transportation services – it's just the customer and the service provider.

If we anticipate a little, we can draw the reasonable conclusion that scooters, their features and the services that surround them will evolve: scooters that can carry packages or races (or pizza), scooters that come to you independently, scooters that you can claim before your arrival by paying a booking fee, scooters offering a more luxurious ride, scooters from which you can watch your journey in streaming with an integrated camera and microphone. The possibilities are rather confusing.

It is recognized that there must be some centralization to begin with. While the DAV Foundation contributes to this vision of decentralized mobility by offering a common space open to all people, without prior authorization or payment of registration fees to the Foundation, the fastest way to traction being as follows: a non-foundation entity develop the application and propose it, as well as the opportunity to create your own micro-enterprise to ordinary citizens of cities and communities around the world. Ultimately, the success of the DAV network will come from multiple applications companies leveraging the open and decentralized nature of the protocol and platform. We only start with scooters. Drones, rovers, road and marine vehicles are all on the horizon or closer. And imagine what our world will look like when they go online.