Tag: carpooling
The last mile problem
The last mile problem is simple: ?public transport doesn’t take us exactly where we need to go. As mentioned in a recent article by McKinsey, public transport makes a very good job at getting you from point A to point B. The problem is once you get to point B and there’s not a public transport to get to your destination.
Walking long distances is hardly a solution and not everyone has a car. And even if you have one, parking is not always available.
Transit systems in cities are typically looking at these kinds of one-kilometer, last-mile solutions. For commuters, the goal is to cross town more efficiently and safely and for cities to improve the quality of the air and reduce traffic congestion, which costs more than 1 percent of GDP globally.
TECH HELPS
Some seriously smart people are working on changing the future of transportation. And certainly these innovations will change your commute. Meanwhile, for the time being, these are some of the technologies that are helping your commute:
- Widespread use of the smartphone
- Shared mobility: Ride-hailing services have grown rapidly over the past few years and now compete with public transit and private vehicle ownership.
- Mobility as a Service (MaaS) is emerging as a way to simplify the complexity of transportation systems
WHY IS SO COMPLICATED?
A big part of the problem is that cities are always changing and expanding. Any new development generates a new last mile problem. In fact, it’s a never-ending problem. The other issue is the need for a unique payment system that makes easier and simple for commuters to use the different travel options that a city offers (buses, light rail, bike rentals). At the end of the day, city commuters must be able to navigate between these different transport modalities quickly, efficiently, and cost-effectively.
ADVANCES SO FAR
World Resources Institute affirms that there are already more than 70 cities partnering with new private mobility services to address the challenges public transit systems are facing. 60% of these partnerships are in North America and Europe, and they are present in only 4 cities in the Global South. The most common partnerships between public transit agencies and new mobility service providers are customer experience services for planning multimodal journeys, on-demand mobility services which offer a more flexible mode of transportation than buses and subways, and shared-mobility services to help passengers make first- and last-mile trips to and from transit hubs. For example, St. Petersburg, Florida, subsidizes Uber rides to and from transit stations; and in Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore Grab is allowing users to view public transit routes, along with ride-hailing suggestions for the first and last mile of each journey, as well as alerts on delay and schedule changes for some transport options. Some advances are been seen is the self-driving technology area as well. Andrew Zaleski in Curbed states that in the last two years a movement toward driverless, electric shuttle services in America’s cities has quietly bubbled up. In Detroit, Las Vegas, Columbus, even Lincoln, Nebraska, autonomous mini-buses have completed successful shuttle trials or are currently ferrying passengers. In Finland, Switzerland, and France, where autonomous shuttles are entering their third and even fourth years of operation. The importance of technology in this case, is that labor is the biggest cost when comes regular transportation. So, a driverless shuttle would allow a radical increase in frequency, the single most important driver of transit ridership.
Omoove Embraces The Sharing Economy With Sharemine
Platform helps customers save on car ownership costs, earn money, be greener and use telematics technology to make roads safer.
Today in London Omoove is opening its Sharemine platform to community managers and the public.
The Sharemine platform is web-based and fully-customisable. It allows individuals and companies to easily set up their own, online car-sharing and ridesharing mobile communities and then act as community managers. They are then able to offer members vehicles for hire, the opportunity to share their cars, as well as the chance to share rides with each other.
Carowners providing their cars to the community can gain the maximum value from their vehicles when they are not being used. For example, if commuters are driving to the train station, rather than paying for parking during the day, they could allow a local business or entrepreneur acting as a community manager to rent their car for local usage and therefore earn money, rather than spending it. Sharemine also allows for ‘thematic’ communities, such as sports fans arranging transport to away games, or parents looking to carpool for school drop-offs and pick-ups.
Edwin Colella, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer of Omoove said: “At its heart the sharing economy is designed to help individuals create communities that benefit each other, whether that is by saving money, saving time or creating new ways to earn by making their assets work harder.
“The high cost of vehicle ownership means that this area has huge cost savings potential for car owners. Technology means ride and car-sharing is increasingly accessible to everyone and Sharemine provides a simple-to-use way for everyone to be part of their community, while also
doing their part for the environment. It enables anyone to become a shared-mobility entrepreneur through operating a car- or ridesharing community.”
Sharemine will be generally available in Italy, Spain and the UK in October 2017, with further EU countries to follow. Sharemine will be launched in the US in Q1 2018. Sharemine has been developed by Omoove, a fully-owned subsidiary of Octo, which focuses on creating Shared Mobility solutions.
More info at sharemine.com
Sharemine:Omoove Unveils The Shared Mobility Platform
Platform allows simple creation of carsharing or ridesharing communities to respond to growth in shared mobility.
Octo Telematics (Octo) subsidiary Omoove, Europe’s leading shared mobility technology provider, has today revealed its new product, Sharemine, the shared mobility platform that lets operators build a carsharing or ridesharing community, usable by individuals and fleet owners.
Sharemine is a web-based tool, which provides individuals and companies with the ability to create and monitor carsharing and ridesharing communities. It works for parents trip-sharing for the school run and sporting events to friends co-ordinating travel plans to less accessible locations. Sharemine is also of great benefit to owners and operators of vehicle fleets, particularly small and medium enterprises.
The community is fully configurable and the dashboard allows tracking of the number of users and vehicles currently active, as well as drivers, riders, bookings and travel in progress.
It also allows rental or ride revenue to be tracked according to rates defined by the community manager. Based on community manager preference, Sharemine allows the inclusion of insurance telematics capabilities based on Octo technology to encourage safer driving and ensure that drivers are benefitting from their good driving behaviours.
Consumers are faced with rising insurance prices, growing urbanisation and congestion on the roads, as well as increased awareness of environmental issues. This means that they are turning away from private car ownership to solutions that can keep them on the roads, as well as solvent. This is resulting in rapid growth in the carsharing segment. Globally, revenue generated by carsharing and ridesharing is expected to grow at CAGRs of 19.5% and 24.5%[1] respectively. By 2025, revenue is expected to reach USD 9.2 billion from USD 1.5 billion in 2015[2]. In Europe alone, more than 3.9 million people choose to share vehicles or carpool, sharing a fleet of 59,452 vehicles in 26 countries[3].
Small- and medium-enterprises, in particular, may not be able to afford bespoke or proprietary technology to receive ongoing updates on their fleets. Sharemine represents an affordable alternative. Using the community platform and telematics systems incorporated into Sharemine allows operators to track their vehicles, as well as monitor usage and wear and tear in order to ensure that maximum return on investment is gained from each asset.
Edwin Colella, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer of Omoove said: “The roads are becoming increasingly full of private vehicles which are not necessarily justifying their value.
For each car which is shared, we can see 10 to 15 traditionally-owned vehicles removed from the roads, potentially taking 5.3 million cars from the global fleet. The benefits of this to consumers are obvious, allowing them to achieve reduced costs and see improved convenience on the roads. Through Sharemine, we’re pleased to be playing a key role in this rapidly developing industry, which is taking on the form of a social movement.”
Shared mobility also has significant environmental impact as cities will see reduced emissions, traffic congestion and a lesser need for traffic infrastructure such as parking areas and even road maintenance. Frost & Sullivan estimate that, by 2025, more than 85 billion fewer kilometres will be driven as a result of car and ridesharing, resulting in a reduction of 10.5 million tons of Co2.
Jonathan Hewett, Chief Marketing Officer, Octo Telematics said: “Octo is committed to safer driving, as well as improving each road user’s driving experience.
With the cost of insurance, especially in the UK, set to continue rising, it’s important that motorists be provided with options to keep driving. By supporting carsharing initiatives and technology such as this, as well as providing drivers with telematics solutions to combat insurance increases, we are able to support cleaner, safer roads and make sure that motorists are still able to get to their destinations at a reasonable cost.”
The first Community Managers are already being brought onto the platform. Sharemine will be opened to the public in August.