E-Mobility as a Service & Emerging Modes of Personal Transportation

Our apologies for having being quiet for a while, and thanks to Tyrone for keeping us updated on urban mobility goings on while we’ve been continuing our research, but we’re glad to report that things on the west coast are starting to get interesting. Courtesy of our friends at Agrion [www.agrion.org] we have been able to hold two really interesting events, which brought together academia, professionals, public agencies, private industry and OEM’s. Below are links to the two meetings that have been held to date plus a link to an upcoming event which, taken together, are starting to sketch out what the new and emerging urban mobility environment could look like.

The first Agrion event, E-Mobility as a Service, brought together an OEM [GM], a public agency [SFMTA], academia [UCB’s TSRC & UIUC] and professional urban designers / architects [MLA & P+W] – see:

http://www.agrion.org/sessions/agrion-en-E_Mobility_as_a_Service.htm

The second Agrion event, Emerging Modes of Personal Transportation, again brought together OEM’s [BMW & Lit Motors], a public agency [SFMTA] and private car share providers [City Car Share] – see:

http://www.agrion.org/sessions/agrion-en-Emerging_Modes_of_Personal_Transportation.htm

Our next upcoming Agrion event in March, co-sponsored by UCB’s Transportation Sustainability Research Center and Perkins+Will, will be taking a look at what sort of regulatory environment will be required to allow for a seamless user experience that would allow access to an integrated public / private / shared range of urban mobility options. We’ll start off with small steps by first focusing on the current San Francisco bay area transit environment, which is currently experiencing lively conversations regarding the roles of public, private and shared mobility providers within the overall bay area mobility picture. Again, participants will include representatives from public agencies, private and shared mobility providers as well as the urban design / architecture / engineering community – see:

http://www.agrion.org/sessions/agrion-en-Emerging_Modes_of_Personal_Transportation_Exploratory_Task_Force.htm

These three events, plus ARUP’s recent “Designing for a Driverless World”, are really exciting as we are transitioning from the original hypothetical “what if” discussed in the 2010 REDCAR Colloquium, to what we actually need to be planning for and by when -i.e. it’s no longer “if” but “when”. In fact the ARUP event really bookended the 2010 REDCAR Colloquium, as Chris Borroni-Bird was the key speaker at both. Chris and I agreed that we’ve come a long way in  3 years!

And finally, just to illustrate how close we are to implementing a “REDCAR” environment, the City of Milton Keynes in the UK, have announced that starting next year , 2015, they will be rolling out a “REDCAR-like” solution to their “first-mile/last-mile” problem which will be based upon GM’s ENV-like vehicles [a program spear-headed by Chris Borroni-Bird when he was at GM]. See link below:

http://www.mkweb.co.uk/News/VIDEO-Back-to-the-future-with-Milton-Keynes-driverless-electric-pod-cars-20131107120614.htm

Keep checking in – these are exciting times for urban sustainability, mobility and the reclaiming of our public realm from the automobile.

I’ll promise to post updates more frequently.

Gerry

 

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National Complete Streets Coalition


The National Complete Streets Coalition is real movement to provide street networks that support a host of transportation such as walking, bicyclists, public transportation, and personal transport.

Smart infrastructure and smart transportation is one of key elements to support a project like REDCAR. National Complete Streets Coalition is a real planning and design process that involves many entities in the public realm to come together to address the issue of overstressed transportation and traffic with little or minimal opportunities for multi-modal transport.

To read more about this topic please click —> here <--- Be sure to sign up for their e-letters!

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SMART Mobility EnterPrize Highlights Mobility and the City as Non Profit Supporting New Mobility Enterprises

SMART Mobility Enterprize (www.mobiprize.com) is a new organization that acknowledges innovative entrepreneurial work that improves quality of life, environment, and advances the notion of sustainable transportation. This is a program developed by the University of Michigan SMART initiative with support from local international partners and the Rockefeller Foundation.

A new registry has been created that lists new mobility enterprises as well as non profits that support these new ventures that advance sustainable transportation locally and globally.

Mobility and the City is now listed among 9 other non-profit organizations.

To view the list click —> here <---

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CES 2012 discussion in Las Vegas about the future of mobility and innovation

Next generation of smart connected cars in development by Mercedes. Cars can talk themselves to avoid crashes.

Discussion from Dieter Zetche who heads Mercedes-Benz and is Daimler chairman.

>>> Click <<< for more! Discussion about Mercedes-Benz plans for car sharing >>> click for more <<<

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Nevada, USA to authorize driverless cars for the open road!

New state of Nevada law will encourage the development of rules and regulations for driverless automobiles on open state roads.

Citation:
Knapp, A. (2011, June 22). Nevada Passes Law Authorizing Driverless Cars – Alex Knapp – Robot Overlords – Forbes. Forbes. Retrieved July 01, 2011, from http://blogs.forbes.com/alexknapp/2011/06/22/nevada-passes-law-authorizing-driverless-cars/

Actual Nevada Law:
http://www.leg.state.nv.us/Session/76th2011/Bills/AB/AB511_EN.pdf

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REDCAR Colloquium Session Two: The Overlay

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

REDCAR Colloquium

Video Available!

Click to See Larger Version on Vimeo

September 25, 2010
California College of the Arts (CCA) | Timken Hall
San Francisco, California

Many metropolitan areas continue to experience rapid growth, with some like Los Angeles receiving up to 500 new residents each day. One of the current challenges for expanding cities is the design of a flexible transportation infrastructure that can respond to an ever increasing demand on resources and systems; one that is contained within the vision of a socially equitable and sustainable society. This mode of infrastructural response necessitates a rethinking of traditional personal mobility strategies.

The colloquium served as a vehicle to examine innovative transportation solutions in a systemic manner so as to address the reality of a typical North American polycentric metropolitan area. Instead of examining solutions that apply to idealized (but non-existent) urban centers, this colloquium embraces the contemporary condition — the messy, chaotic, politically and socially balkanized, poly-centric metropolis. By exploring current technologies, as well as those which have reached a high degree of feasibility, this interdisciplinary colloquium will explore the potential of an ubiquitous self-regulating system that can cope with and adapt to the unpredictability of a mobile society.

New Strategies for Mobility – Rethinking Urban Transportation

Session 2 – the overlay – explores the possibilities of how the urban realm will be transformed and how urban planning and infrastructure will react/respond. The extent of this exploration would include the varying effects to the built realm, social networks, real estate speculation, architectural response, and morphing of infrastructure.

This session discusses the design implication of autonomous transit on the built & social environments. Urban development will naturally emerge around social activity hotspots. The overlay of route-processing software upon the physical realm will cause serendipitous social and transit “hot-spots” to emerge thus creating an organic evolution of true TODs. With “REDCAR-like” applications downloadable to personal communication devices, transit options will be integrated into and tailored to a users’ personal daily tasks and social interactions. Transit will adapt you and not the other way around.

Introduction by Mona El Khafif

Moderator:
Mona El Khafif / CCA

Speakers:
Therese Tierney /UIUC – Understanding the public realm: Application of Social Networking
Christine Outram / MIT SENSEable City Lab
Ken Greenberg / Greenberg Consultants – Urban Design Implications: Will it work?
Cathy Simon / Perkins+Will – Organic vs. deterministic: Do we loose control?
Peter Albert / SF MTA – Reality Check: Hey this is my town you’re talking about!

Conclusion:
Ila Berman / CCA

The REDCAR Colloquium team:
Gerry Tierney (510 Collective)
Dinesh Perera (Format Design Studio)
Ben Feldmann (510 Collective)
Therese Tierney (TT Studio)
Katie Handy (Format Design Studio)
Tyrone Marshall (510 Collective)
Ned Reifenstein (510 Collective)

Generously made possible by:
The Architects Newspaper
California College of the Arts
Field Paoli
Perkins+Will

The colloquium is also a public program of American Institute of Architects San Francisco Chapter ‘Architecture and the City Festival’ for 2010. www.aiasf.org

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REDCAR Colloquium Session Video Available!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

REDCAR Colloquium

Video Available!

Click to See Larger Version on Vimeo

September 25, 2010
California College of the Arts (CCA) | Timken Hall
San Francisco, California

Many metropolitan areas continue to experience rapid growth, with some like Los Angeles receiving up to 500 new residents each day. One of the current challenges for expanding cities is the design of a flexible transportation infrastructure that can respond to an ever increasing demand on resources and systems; one that is contained within the vision of a socially equitable and sustainable society. This mode of infrastructural response necessitates a rethinking of traditional personal mobility strategies.

The colloquium served as a vehicle to examine innovative transportation solutions in a systemic manner so as to address the reality of a typical North American polycentric metropolitan area. Instead of examining solutions that apply to idealized (but non-existent) urban centers, this colloquium embraces the contemporary condition — the messy, chaotic, politically and socially balkanized, poly-centric metropolis. By exploring current technologies, as well as those which have reached a high degree of feasibility, this interdisciplinary colloquium will explore the potential of an ubiquitous self-regulating system that can cope with and adapt to the unpredictability of a mobile society.

New Strategies for Mobility – Rethinking Urban Transportation

Session 1 – the system – looks at coupling smart P2P (person to person) communication technologies with the anticipated progression of smart, clean automated vehicles to augment existing transportation networks providing a sustainable and socially networked solution to mobility for urban contexts.

This session will present an overview of the latest research in transportation engineering technologies. It will focus on the “hardware” components of the concept, principally the reinvented ecologically sustainable automobile, running on an automated adaptation of existing freeway infrastructure, as well as an autonomous vehicle guidance system allowing safer navigation of the existing street systems.

Introduction by Ila Berman and Gerry Tierney
Keynote by Chris Borroni-Bird

Moderator:
Ila Berman / CCA

Speakers:
Jim Misener /UCB PATH
Sven Beiker / Stanford CARS
Chris Borroni-Bird / Director GM
Ken Goldberg / UCB CITRIS

The REDCAR Colloquium team:
Gerry Tierney (510 Collective)
Dinesh Perera (Format Design Studio)
Ben Feldmann (510 Collective)
Therese Tierney (TT Studio)
Katie Handy (Format Design Studio)
Tyrone Marshall (510 Collective)
Ned Reifenstein (510 Collective)

Generously made possible by:
The Architects Newspaper
California College of the Arts
Field Paoli
Perkins+Will

The colloquium is also a public program of American Institute of Architects San Francisco Chapter ‘Architecture and the City Festival’ for 2010. www.aiasf.org

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Google moves ahead with plans for “driverless” vehicles for Las Vegas

Nevada could be the first real test market for the inaugural introduction of smart “driverless” vehicles into the public consciousness of the United States. Google is making preparation through legislation to allow this technology to be used on public roads. Google has already been privately testing these vehicles on the open roads in the state of California.

Source: The New York Times
MARKOFF, J. (2011, May 10). Google Lobbies Nevada to Allow Self-Driving Cars. The New York Times. Retrieved May 12, 2011, from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/11/science/11drive.html?_r=2

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GM’s ENV’s debut at Las Vegas CES

GM debuted their four ENV (Electric Networked Vehicle) prototypes at the recent Las Vegas CES. I was lucky enough to ride in one and they are so cool. Truly, they could revolutionize urban mobility – and yes they do drive autonomously. One of the GM engineers even had an application on his iPhone that allowed him to remotely park and access “his” vehicle (thanks Pri!) – just think of how this could work on a Friday or Saturday night in San Francisco’s Mission District or North Beach as your tooling around looking for an elusive parking space. Just think of these going up and down a re-imagined Market Street or along the Embarcadero? Why not make these the “official car” of the 2013 America’s Cup? Or have them be on eof the ways you get around the proposed new Treasure Island development in SF Bay? These are the future of urban mobility in a way that the Tesla is not – the US government should think about buying back those GM shares they recently sold! The ENV’s are hotter than hot and could potentially have a huge market in a place like San Francisco or the more urban parts of the bay area. Folks, get behind GM on this – this is not your fathers’ or grandmother’s company anymore. They have some very forward-looking talented engineers and designers who could really help change the face of urban america. Let’s get behind the “home team” and help them help us to reinvent urban mobility and reclaim our urban public realm (and yes I am aware of the irony of GM being this partner, but we’re in post-ironic times now). Like Nixon went to China and helped set in motion what we see today, so GM can reach out to a wider audience than us bay area types can normally reach and show them that cool sustainability doesn’t need to be feared and can be fun.

2 of GM's ENV's at Las Vegas CES

GM's ENV ("Redcar"?) at Las Vegas CES

GM's ENV at Las Vegas CES

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Impact of Mobility on City and Suburbs Infrastructure Without Oil Future in Australia

A recently published article that reports the impact of oil shortages to mobility in urban and suburban development in Australia:

Oil shortages could turn outer suburbs into slums

AUSTRALIA will be forced to rely on huge quantities of imported oil unless it radically overhauls its transport and urban policies, according to a study by the Planning Institute of Australia.

It warns that without urgent national action the trade deficit will spiral and many outer suburbs will become slums.

The study comprises a series of papers in the latest edition of the journal Australian Planner. One of the authors, Professor Peter Newman of Curtin University, who is also an adviser to the federal government, said the most compelling finding was that ”urban sprawl is finished”. ”If we continue to roll out new land [releases] and suburbs that are car dependent, they will become the slums of the future,” he said.

”There is no question that oil supplies, beyond a certain point, will become increasingly rare that we will have to develop alternatives if we are to enjoy the level of mobility we enjoy now,” he said.

To read more click —> here <--- West, A. (2010, December 28). Oil shortages could turn outer suburbs into slums. Sydney Morning Herald - Business & World News Australia | smh.com.au. Retrieved January 23, 2011, from http://www.smh.com.au/national/oil-shortages-could-turn-outer-suburbs-into-slums-20101227-198lm.html

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