Next-generation technologies are changing the way we travel, how we define transportation, and mobility options.
Paul Mackie, our communications director, recently joined Tech Pulse TV’s panel of transportation experts to discuss emerging technologies shaping mobility, and how we will define mobility in the future.
Today, somewhere between 75 to 85 percent of the cars on the highway are solo drivers—and it’s creating tremendous traffic. This has resulted in a major shift over the past seven or eight years as more and more people are moving from the suburbs into the nation’s urban centers.
One of the major draws to living, working, and playing downtown is the ability to cut down on commute time and benefit from things that are less stressful, and more productive and healthy; things like biking and public transit. The economy has also shifted so that employers, too, are going downtown. Partially, that’s because knowledge-based industries love to be around each other and share ideas. That’s part of our innovator economy—an urban economy.
Technology is helping people (and companies) make this shift.
Sixty percent of travel takes place within urban cities, creating a need for new mobility services and technologies. Numerous technologies have surfaced to provide first-mile last-mile solutions. The advent of ride hailing and ride sharing technologies like Uber, Lyft, and Via, for example, has seen a big boom in urban centers.
But these kinds of technologies have changed the way that we are using our smartphones to get around and pose an important question: Are we risking the inclusivity that’s necessary to having a successful transit network? In adopting such technologies, we risk creating a bigger gap between the transportation haves and have-nots. Their success relies heavily upon not only the connectivity of all devices, but also their quality and availability.
When consumers look at mobility, they want their life to be seamless. Can the government keep up with that demand? It’s a question of political will.
Tune in to the full conversation on various Comcast and Verizon cable channels to hear the panel – which includes Darnell Grisby of the American Public Transportation Association, Russell Brooks of Transportation for America, and Barry Einsig of Cisco – discuss thoughts on this, and:
- Mobility of the future
- Technology shaping transportation
- The future of mobility
- Transportation platforms
- Bikesharing
- Carsharing, and
- The sharing economy.