Month: January 2019

Microtransit provider Chariot announced it is ceasing operations by February 1. The company, which launched in 2014 as an on-demand shuttle service, was acquired by Ford two years ago as part of Ford’s effort at rebranding itself. (The automaker launched Ford Smart Mobility in 2016 as a subsidiary of Ford Motor Co. to focus on emerging technologies.) Prior to the announcement, Chariot was operating in Austin, San Francisco, and New York, among others, including Denver, where service launched in October as part of a city-led pilot program. The pilot was supposed to run through April with the city reportedly paying Chariot $250k to operate service, but the city is now faced with the dilemma of what to do for the service’s regular riders given the premature ending.

This news certainly revives the discussion about what the future of microtransit looks like. We have already seen the rise and subsequent fall of other private microtransit providers like Bridj, and several microtransit pilots have struggled to hit ridership targets. (According to “UpRouted,” a report by Eno Center for Transportation published last year, the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority and Bridj launched a public-private pilot project to provide downtown commuter service and estimated that the service would provide 200 rides per day. In reality, it took nearly six months to reach about 600 rides, and it was only up to 11 rides per day by the end.) There are, of course, a lot of reasons why some microtransit projects have struggled to perform to expectations. For starters, it is incredibly difficult to get the numbers to pencil out, especially when trying to rely primarily on fares. However, as Eno notes, we should think twice before we label a project a success or failure. One of the great promises of microtransit is the possibility it holds for improved mobility, especially for those who have been underserved by more traditional transportation services. Hence why Eno suggests that “the success or failure of the application should be determined based on performance metrics that go beyond ridership changes and farebox recovery, such as improved mobility, increased safety, and enhanced customer experience.”

But, that hasn’t stopped the death knell for Chariot. So, what is the future of microtransit? What role does microtransit have to play and can it be viable? This is definitely a topic we’ll delving into at the 2019 Urbanism Next Conference. Details on the full conference program will be available soon, but in the meantime check out our website for a schedule of events, as well as pricing and travel info. We hope you’ll join us.

At this point, it’s possible that you’ve come across at least a couple of articles naming 2018 as the year of the e-scooter. That certainly seems to be the consensus based on the number of articles written about them during the yearly wrap-up in December. And for good reason. They made headlines a lot last year. Aarian Marshall pretty succinctly summed up why in Wired: “They arrived unannounced in cities. They provoked fierce council meetings and protests. They launched debates about who owns sidewalks, anyway, and what role regulators play in bossing around big business. They sucked up VC dollars, mountains of them, as upstarts crowed about the revenue generated per scoot. They got damaged and fixed, they launched their own new gig economy jobs.” Suffice it to say, they inspired quite a bit of debate and dialogue last year, including a number of interesting thought pieces about what effects they are having on cities and what we might expect in 2019. (In addition to the Wired article, check out these end-of-year pieces in Forbes and Citylab.)

As one might expect, we are just a few weeks into the new year and e-scooters are making headlines again. On Tuesday Portland’s Bureau of Transportation released a report detailing its findings from the city’s four-month e-scooter pilot last year. Spoiler alert: officials are recommending that the e-scooters return to streets this spring. (All scooters were required to be off Portland’s streets by the end of the pilot in November, despite pleas from companies to keep them in operation.) Ultimately, it seems that the agency has decided that e-scooters hold enough promise in helping the city work towards its key policy goals that it is worth inviting them back, despite some shortcomings outlined in the report.

The report also includes some interesting, if unsurprising findings worth highlighting, such as: “Users demonstrated a strong preference for bikeways and other protected infrastructure. In their absence, or on higher-speed streets, sidewalk riding increased.” This, of course, is not rocket science. If people feel unsafe in the street due to inadequate infrastructure to shield them from cars, they ride on the sidewalk. Unfortunately, that has a ripple effect since having an e-scooter whiz by can impact how safe pedestrians and other sidewalk users feel. The answer is simple, however. As Regina Clewlow of Populous notes in Forbes, “cities should take back streets to focus on moving people, not the single occupancy vehicles that currently dominate most travel.”

In addition the report makes an important point about how we evaluate the potential CO2 emissions savings of e-scooters—getting people to switch from a personal vehicle to an e-scooter is just one part of the equation. The companies’ business models is the other part. How many cars are on the road solely for the purpose of deploying, balancing, fixing, and rounding up e-scooters for regular charging? Are there enough people switching from a personal vehicle to an e-scooter to tip the balance in the right direction and create a net reduction in total vehicle trips? At this point, that question remains unanswered, but we’ll see what 2019 holds for the scooter-verse.

 

Happy 2019, all! We’re officially a week into the new year, and we hope it’s off to a great start for you. Before we get too much further into 2019 we wanted to take a moment to reflect on the year that just ended, as well as consider the year ahead. Urbanism Next grew considerably in 2018, and we’re looking forward to continuing that growth in 2019 (and beyond!).

For one thing, we held the 1st Annual Urbanism Next Conference in March 2018 and were thrilled to have over 500 attendees join us to discuss the secondary impacts of emerging technologies on cities. All of the plenary sessions are available to check out on our website, and you can also link to many of the presentations as well.

Last year we focused on how technology is changing cities. This year, we are excited to see how the conversation will evolve as we hone in on the ways that technological changes can be harnessed to achieve desired outcomes. Cities are engaging in innovative pilot projects, and there is a growing emphasis on public-private collaboration. Without a doubt, there is no shortage of topics to discuss since 2018 was a busy year—we saw the growth of Mobility as a Service (MaaS), the meteoric rise of e-scooters, the promises and pitfalls experienced by the AV industry, the continued expansion of e-commerce, and much, much more. We certainly hope you’ll join us in Portland May 7-9 for the 2nd Annual Urbanism Next Conference as we delve into these topics. Conference schedule and registration information will be available soon on our website.

Outside of the conference, the Urbanism Next/SCI team has also been working on a number of projects and reports. At the start of the year, SCI Co-Director Marc Schlossberg, along with William Riggs, Adam Millard-Ball, and Elizabeth Shay completed Rethinking Streets in an Era of Driverless Cars. In September, Nico Larco, Amanda Howell, Rebecca Lewis, and Becky Steckler completed the report AVs in the Pacific Northwest: Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions in a Time of Automation. We were pleased to be able to collaborate with the cities of Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver, BC on this work, funded by the Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance/Urban Sustainability Directors Network via a grant provided by the Bullitt Foundation. We are currently working on the second phase of this project focused on New Mobility in the Right-of-Way with an emphasis on curb management. Look for that on our resources page later this spring!

We have also been hard at work on a National Science Foundation Planning Grant, which enabled us to convene a nationwide network of collaborators from the private, public, and academic sectors to better understand the secondary impacts of emerging technologies on cities. Drawing upon those conversations as well as an expansive literature review, we are drafting a report that builds out the Urbanism Next Framework. That will be finalized later this spring and we will be using it as the basis for an online resource we are developing to help cities, practitioners, and researchers learn about the latest thinking around these topics. Look for the launch later this year!

In addition, the team at Urbanism Next has been working on a National Institute for Transportation and Communities project with the Oregon cities of Gresham and Eugene to assess the risks and opportunities for land use, transportation, economic development, and city budget by the deployment of new mobility services including AVs. Our report and findings will be available later this year.

We are also incredibly grateful to have had the opportunity to both attend and speak at multiple conferences, meetings, and engagements last year—a particular highlight included Nico’s talk at TEDx CollegePark in June 2018. Look for Program Director Becky Steckler’s TEDx McMinnville talk later this spring!

Looking ahead to 2019, we are excited to announce that Urbanism Next will be working with Cityfi on a 5-year project funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to work with the cities of Detroit, Pittsburgh, Miami, Long Beach, and San Jose to put people at the center of planning AV pilots.

We also want to take this opportunity to thank YOU for following and supporting our work here at Urbanism Next. We look forward to continuing to build community with you in 2019.

Additional Selected Publications by Urbanism Next/SCI Faculty in 2018

• Brown, Anne and Brian Taylor. “Bridging the Gap Between Mobility Haves and Have-Nots.” In Three Revolutions: Steering Automated, Shared, and Electric Vehicles to a Better Future. Daniel Sperling (Ed.). Island Press.
• Brown, Anne. “Fair Fares: How Flat and Variable Fares Affect Transit Equity in Los Angeles.”Case Studies on Transport Policy
• Blumenberg, Evelyn, Anne Brown, and Andrew Schouten. “Car-Deficit Households: Determinants and Implications for Household Travel.” Transportation
• Clark, B. & Lewis, R. (2018) Future Transport and City Budgets: Getting Bottom-Line Savvy In An Uncertain Future. In W. Riggs, Disruptive Transport Driverless Cars, Transport Innovation and the Sustainable City of Tomorrow, Routledge.
• DiNatale, S., Lewis, R. & Parker, R. (2018) Short-Term Rentals in Small Cities in Oregon: Impacts and Regulations. Land Use Policy

Going to the Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board? If so, we’d love to see you there! Here’s what the Urbanism Next team will be presenting on during the meeting and when to find them. Hope to see you in D.C.

Sunday, Jan. 13

• 9 AM – 12PM Workshop, Cross-Subsidization for a Smart, Sustainable, and Equitable Future: Exploration of Opportunities and Constraints – Rebecca Lewis will present on “Transportation Revenue Impacts of New Mobility and Innovative Solutions.”
• 12:30 – 4:30PM Workshop, Preparing for Mobility Futures: The Impact of Connected and Automated Vehicle Technology on Transportation Demand Management – Nico Larco will participate in a panel discussion on mobility futures.

Monday, Jan. 14

• 8 – 9:45AM, Revenue and Finance Research Subcommitee Meeting – Rebecca Lewis will present on the “Impacts of AVs on Local Transportation Budgets.”
• 8 – 9:45AM, Poster Session, Operational Considerations for Shared Mobility – Anne Brown will present on “Redefining Car Access: Ridehail Travel and Use in Los Angeles.”
• 8AM – 12PM, Technology Transfer Committee Meeting, An EPIC Way to Move Transit into the Future: TriMet and the University of Oregon’s Sustainable City Year Program – Marc Schlossberg will present on the University of Oregon’s Sustainable City Year Program.
• 10:15 – 12PM, Lectern Session, Ridesourcing and Transportation Network Companies and Taxis: Demographics, Use, and Partnerships – Anne Brown will present on the “Prevalence and Mechanisms of Discrimination: Evidence from the Ridehail and Taxi Industries.”
• 3:45 – 5:30PM, Lectern Session, Changing Landscape and Current Issues of Transportation Revenues – Anne Brown will present on “Voting for Transport: Analyzing Voter Support for Local Option Sales Taxes for Transportation” with Jaimee Lederman, Brian Taylor, and Martin Wachs (UCLA).

Tuesday, Jan. 15

• 8:30 – 9:30 AM, Library of Congress – Rebecca Lewis and Nico Larco will present at the Transportation Stakeholders Meeting hosted by Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) and Rep. Rodney Davis (R-IL). [This is a closed event.]
• 10:15 – 12PM, Lectern Session, Sharing and Gender Effects: Trips, Spaces, and Vehicles – Anne Brown will present “Who’s in the Driver’s Seat? Gender and the Division of Car Use in Auto Deficit Households” with Evelyn Blumenberg and Andrew Schouten (UCLA).
• 10:15 – 12PM, Poster Session, Emerging Research on Social and Economic Factors – Anne Brown will present on “Car-Deficit Households: Determinants and Implications for Household Travel,” also with Evelyn Blumenberg and Andrew Schouten (UCLA).

Wednesday, Jan. 16

• 10:15 – 12PM, Poster Session, Bicycle Transportation Research – Marc Schlossberg will present “Rethinking Streets for People on Bikes: An Evidence-Based, Visual Guide of Completed Street Retrofits.”
• 2:30 PM – 4:00PM, Poster Session, Funding and Financing Surface Transportation: What Will the Future Bring – Rebecca Lewis will present on the “Impacts of Autonomous Vehicles on Local Transportation Budgets.”