Virtual Reality & other future tools for Transport Planning

Talking about Transport Planning and the new tools that practitioners now have available, I must start with a definition of Transport Planning. It might seem obvious but over the years I have seen many misconceptions about what exactly is Transport Planning. One such misunderstanding is that Transport Planning equals Transport Modelling. This is quite common in Australia where transport infrastructure planning and delivery heavily relies on the “Predict and Provide” model. Other times it’s quite common to see definitions like the comic strip below:

My personal favourite definition of transport planning is the general definition of planning by Ernest R. Alexander professor of Urban Planning at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, in his book Approaches to Planning first published in 1986. (Transport) “Planning is the deliberate social or organisational activity of developing an optimal strategy of future action to achieve a desired set of goals, for solving novel problems in complex contexts, and attended by the power and intention to commit resources and to act as necessary to implement the chosen strategy.”

Transport Planning is a multi-disciplinary, collaborative and participatory approach that is future oriented with a purpose to support decision making. It is the first step to transport infrastructure delivery. In summary, Transport Planning involves data collection and analysis, forecasting relevant indicators, designing of alternatives and assessing of the impacts each alternative will have.

persuasive storytelling about the future”

James A. Throgmorton, professor of Urban and Regional Planning in the University of Iowa describes planning as persuasive storytelling about the future.

“In this great future, you can't forget your past”.

As all Transport Futurists do, before talking about the future, I will discuss a lot the past. After all, as the great Bob Marley suggested, “In this great future you can't forget your past”.

Transport planning is an activity that goes back in history all the way to the first human settlements. The first advanced civilisations were distinguished among other things also by the way they planned and organised their transport systems. War and mass travel of armies was the first driver for organised transport planning. My ancient Roman colleagues planning for Via Appia or Via Egnatia had only just a few tools to perform their work. Over the years tools were developed to make transport planning more effective. From cartography and compass to surveying techniques there wasn’t much progress made until the 1970’s. The picture of large rooms full of transport planning professionals, planners, engineers, designers and drafters, developing drawings using paper, pencils, drawing triangles and protractor rulers was common in the 70’s.

And then the evolution changed pace drastically. The introduction of computers, computer aided design and plotters made a huge impact not only in the effectiveness of transport planning work but mainly in how this work was communicated to decision makers, stakeholders and the community.

Soon the true potential of these tools was realised. Why just stay with two dimensional black and white (or blueprint) drawings? 3D drawings were now being used, not only for architectural design but sometimes also for transport planning recommendations.

Visualisation is a term that existed from the 1880 but it really took off a hundred years later. Visualisation is defined as the process of representing data graphically using technologies and media and interacting with these representations to gain insight into the data.

And today, visualisation is helping us transport planners and engineers, enhance our work and make it much easier to communicate to peers, decision makers and the public.

The simplest of visualisation tools is the Photo Montage or also known in the digital world as Photoshopping. Photomontage is the process and the result of making a composite photograph. In transport planning a usual photomontaged image will have the proposed transport infrastructure included in a photograph of the site as is before the intervention. 

The game engine is the game changer

A game engine is a software framework designed for the creation and development of video games. In many cases game engines provide a suite of visual development tools in addition to reusable software components. The last few years, the game engine technology matured and became more user-friendly. The application of game engines has broadened in scope.

Game engines such as the Unreal Engine are now used by transport planning teams to present their work in a variety of forms and media. Still images developed from a Game Engine are easier to make and more realistic looking.

Game engines can also develop fly-throughs. A Fly-through is a visual sequence (computer animated simulation) of what would be seen while flying through a particular region.. Fly-throughs in transport planning are used most often during the early stages of large infrastructure projects to depict its basic elements such as location, alignment and impacts in the surrounding environment. 

Stakeholder and public consultation now have excellent tools that help people understand the transport planning options and designs. The technology allows them to view the designs in a 3D photorealistic way and record their comments and remarks on the design itself exactly at the point that they want to, whether this is for a DDA compliance issue of a ramp or a handrail that needs to be extended.

Virtual Reality is the next step in the digital tools that are now available for transport planners and traffic engineers.  The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines Virtual Reality, as an artificial environment which is experienced through sensory stimuli (as sights and sounds) provided by a computer and in which one's actions partially determine what happens in the environment. The user wears an enclosed headset, that allows them to move virtually inside the model, without any reference back to the real world. Even former US president Barack Obama has narrated and “starred” in a new VR film about the White House and all of its historic rooms.

For transport planning, Virtual Reality (VR) models present a series of superior visualisation characteristics:  Understanding scale and the size of every element is not a problem anymore as the user experiences everything in a real world scale and every object at their actual size. Immersive is often the term used to describe the experience that VR offers its users. And this user experience – allowing people to navigate inside the models, is exactly where VR offers the biggest advantages. Moving through spaces, understanding scale and how the design will coexist with the built and natural environment is a novelty that 3D images and photomontages or even fly-throughs don't offer. VR applications can be used to simulate walking through a space or driving a car under different road conditions. When planning and designing for a cycleway, a VR application can be used to simulate cycling through the proposed infrastructure. 

What Transport and Main Roads staff had to say?

Trying to understand the true value of such a tool I organised a series of demonstrations of VR applications that Aurecon, my previous employer have developed over the previous years. The demonstrations took place from August 2016 till May 2017 and involved a number of QLD DTMR people from different areas, age groups, employment levels and professional backgrounds. After each demonstration, a survey link was send to the participants.

The survey response rate was phenomenal. Surveys that are distributed internally (that is to employees) generally receive a 30-40% response rate. The response rate of those distributed to external audiences (that is to customers) is lower, around 10-15%. This survey received a response rate of 67%.

This can be explained by the results of the first question that I asked. Overall, how satisfied are you with your experience using our new VR tool/application? I used the term extremely to describe the top limit of the available answers on purpose. Usually surveys avoid using such strong terms and prefer the use of the term “very”, to describe the highest level of satisfaction. The reason behind this is that most people avoid describing their feelings in such a strong way. My own personal experience made me use such a term, trying to understand if other people felt the same way as I did from this experience. An amazing 80% of the respondents said that were extremely satisfied with their Virtual Reality experience.

 The main purpose of this survey was to ask the question: How useful do you think such a tool/application could be in transport planning and traffic engineering work? Again, the results are very promising for the actual usefulness of this tool. Almost 95% of the respondents think that Virtual Reality is a very or extremely useful tool for transport planning.

Then I asked: How useful do you think such a tool/application could be in your own specific field of work? This time the results were more balanced. Still more than 60% believed that it is a very or extremely useful tool. There was also a 20% that thought that the tool is slightly or not at all useful in their line of work. Document control, Cost estimation, administration support, policy development was some of the fields of work that appeared in these answers.

In this survey, I have asked also a number of other questions relating to the

problems that VR could assist with, how likely it was for people to include VR in their next project and what are some of the benefits and also barriers that are associated with VR in transport planning and traffic engineering projects. Out of a series of very interesting findings and conclusions, the following quote stood out for me:

“Making people with limited understanding of drawings understand projects benefits and limits”

The final verdict for VR

The final verdict from the VR demonstrations and the survey is that Virtual Reality:

• Provides an exciting experience for project staff, stakeholders and public
• Is useful in many areas and tasks in transport planning
• Provides many benefits for projects and people involved

VR applications, depending on the project and the existing 3D design model, can be delivered at a very low cost.

Future tools

But Virtual Reality is not the only tool that traffic engineers and transport planners will use in the future. Augmented Reality (AR), a technology that superimposes a computer-generated image on a user's view of the real world, thus providing a composite view, is just making its first steps in the transport infrastructure planning and design industry. Already introduced to the wider public by the Pokemon Go game, AR and devices such as the Microsoft Hololens have the potential to make VR applications obsolete. Instead of looking at the design of the new train station at a special purpose room at the office, soon we will have the ability to look the same design in-situ.

And then there is Holograms, three-dimensional images formed by the interference of light beams from a laser or other coherent light source. In the Holograms case, we won’t even need a special headset to see the design of the new train station at its location. The new design will be projected in place by laser and other light sources. Such large-scale applications exist already with the example of the Buddha of Bamiyan, a 53 m high hologram presented in place where the original Buddha sculpture was destroyed by the Taliban in Afghanistan. In a similar way, the set of traffic lights at a specific location could project the images of pedestrians crossing the street to alert their drivers of their red light or the car might project useful information on the road ahead to alert its driver. And of course, for all us Star Trek fans out there, we can’t wait until the day the Holodeck becomes a reality.

In an industry facing imminent disruption of the way we work and communicate our work to our clients, it is important to understand the new challenges that we need to successfully face. These challenges are at the same time great opportunities to improve the quality of our work and be more effective in solving not only the transport problems of today but also the problems that will arise with this new mobility.

The Australian Institute of Traffic Planning and Management. Supporting transport planners' and engineers' careers now and in the future.

Last week, I attended the 2016 AITPM National Traffic and Transport Conference in Sydney (26-29 July, Westin Hotel). The Australian Institute of Traffic Planning and Management (AITPM) is celebrating 50 years as the peak industry body for transport planners and traffic engineers. With five branches across Australia and more than 850 members and corporate members, AITPM provides leadership and support not only to its members but also to the wider community.

Among the objectives of the organization is to promote the positive and productive aspects of traffic and transport planning and management. It is also to increase members' knowledge within the field and to foster research. To reach these objectives, AITPM centrally and also through the State branches undertakes a range of activities. Technical seminars where the latest advances in transport planning and engineering are presented; networking events that present excellent opportunities for collaboration; and training courses in a variety of sub-disciplines are some of the types of events held every year.

Right from my first couple of months when I moved to Australia back in September 2011, I decided to join AITPM and participate in my first event, the annual Gold Coast dinner. As per the Australian tradition, during the Christmas period, lots of networking events held by AITPM in Gold Coast and Brisbane allowed me to quickly set up a network of fellow transport professionals. This proved very useful in securing my first Australian role with Brisbane City Council. Since then, I attended all National conferences (Sydney 2012, Perth 2013, Adelaide 2014, Brisbane 2015) and almost every event organised by the QLD branch

Grateful of all the help I got from my participation, I decided I should give something back and volunteered for assisting with the AITPM activities. Being part of the AITPM QLD committee since 2012 and Vice President for 2014 and 2015 gave me great satisfaction in contributing to the Institute’s growth in members and reputation. The highlights of these past years were my presentations at the National Conferences in Sydney and Adelaide, winning the NZ Study Tour award and organising the “Underground Bus and Train project - A new way to travel” breakfast seminar. The first AITPM event to be held at the newly renovated Brisbane City Hall where Transport and Main Roads’ Deputy Director-General - Policy, Planning and Investment Division Matt Longland and the –at the time- TMR General Manager - Major Planning Projects and Project Director for BaT (Bus and Train) Arthur Stamatoudis informed our members about a world first design that saw buses and trains travelling at the same tunnel, while we all enjoyed a luxury breakfast. Some other contributions worth mentioning were organising a breakfast seminar with the -at the time- TMR Deputy Director-General Customer Services, Safety and Regulation, Graham Fraine; helping organise the sold-out breakfast seminar with TMR’s Director General, Neil Scales; and of course being part of the organising committee of the 2015 National Conference held in Brisbane.

I was even more pleased when my colleagues in AITPM QLD branch committee recognised my efforts and contribution and elected me unopposed as the new president of the branch, starting from 1 August 2016. I consider it a great privilege and honour to have my name next to people that are widely recognised in the transport planning and engineering industry and served from this role in the past. From the early presidents of AITPM, or Australian Institute of Traffic Technology as it was the first name back in 4th July 1966 when about 60 members and a budget of $33 formed the Institute, all the way to 22 June 1981 when the constitution was amended on to change the Institute’s name to the Australian Institute of Traffic Planning and Management. And from 1989 when the Queensland branch was established, all the way to today, a number of people served AITPM and helped it become the organisation that is now. With the risk of missing people that in the past have played an even more significant role, I have to mention the last Qld president Gary Wood from Translink and Dan Sullivan the AITPM National Secretary that we worked closely together over the last two years to achieve great outcomes. I will also need to mention, Miranda Blogg, Haider Yousif, Torry Crellin, Manu Hingorani, Deva Neiker, Jon Bunker, Jon Douglas, Mel Hallet, John Olsen, Sandra Finster, Bob Taylor, Tony Avent and Wendy Adam, all past AITPM Qld presidents that contributed in growing the Institute and getting it to the point that is today.

I am certain that even more exciting times lie ahead of us. With the Young Professional Group and the Transport Modelling User Group established in 2012 and growing ever since and with our Strategic Plan 2013-2017, I am confident that we have strong foundations to build upon. An enhanced focus on Professional Development, new tools for Information Dissemination and the commitment and drive of all committee members across Australia ensure that we will keep providing enormous value to our members and the communities we live in. I wish to invite all Transport and Traffic practitioners to join AITPM. For just $175 per year and at no cost for students, you get a very informative technical seminar or networking event each month and a range of other membership benefits. I wish also to invite engineering and planning consultancies to become corporate members and take part in all the discussions for the future of transport.

Little Red Corvette - Farewell to Prince

I guess I should've known
By the way you parked your car sideways
That it wouldn't last
See you're the kinda person
That believes in makin' out once
Love 'em and leave 'em fast

I guess I must be dumb
'Cause you had a pocket full of horses
Trojan and some of them used
But it was Saturday night
I guess that makes it all right
And you say what have I got to lose?
And honey I say

Little red Corvette
Baby you're much too fast
Little red Corvette
You need a love that's gonna last

I guess I should of closed my eyes
When you drove me to the place
Where your horses run free
'Cause I felt a little ill
When I saw all the pictures
Of the jockeys that were there before me

Believe it or not
I started to worry
I wondered if I had enough class
But it was Saturday night
I guess that makes it all right
And you say, "Baby, have you got enough gas?"
Oh yeah

Little red Corvette
Baby you're much to fast, yes you are
Little red Corvette
You need to find a love that's gonna last, ah huh

A body like yours (A body like yours)
Oughta be in jail (Oughta be in jail)
'Cause it's on the verge of bein' obscene
('Cause it's on the verge of bein' obscene)
Move over baby (Move over baby)
Gimme the keys (Gimme the keys)
I'm gonna try to tame your little red love machine
(I'm gonna try to tame your little red love machine)

Little red Corvette
Baby you're much to fast
Little red Corvette
You need to find a love that's gonna last

Little red Corvette
Honey you got to slow down (Got to slow down)
Little red Corvette
'Cause if you don't you gonna run your
Little red Corvette right in the ground

(Little red Corvette)
Right down to the ground (Honey you got to slow down) you, you, you got to
Slow down (Little red Corvette) you're movin' much too fast
(Too fast) you need to find a love that's gonna last

Girl, you got an ass like I never seen
And the ride,
I say the ride is so smooth
You must be a limousine

Baby you're much to fast
Little red Corvette
You need a love, you need a love that's
That's gonna last
(Little red Corvette)
Babe you got to slow down (you got to slow down)
Little red Corvette
'Cause if you don't, 'cause if you don't,
You gonna run your body right into the ground (Right into the ground)
Right into the ground (Right into the ground)
Right into the ground (Right into the ground)

Why wait for Uber and Lyft? On-demand public transport.

The term on-demand public transport refers to a transport system and a public transport service that operates with extensive flexibility in terms of routes, timetables and vehicles. In fact there are no predetermined routes or timetables. As the term suggests, the system is based principally on individual or group demand for travel rather than on a planned and defined supply of public transport options. In the most common applications, customers would have to call, or send an email / SMS at least an hour before their desired trip and expect to be picked up from their origin within a few minutes of their desired travel time. The reason for this is that the system groups similar requests based on location of origin and destination and time of travel and then assigns suitable vehicles to transport all such requests at the same time. On demand PT Systems provide a service similar to taxi but at a cost lower than the taxi and higher than the regular PT service. Historically on demand transport systems were developed to serve rural, sparsely populated areas and also as a service to elder or disabled people. Such systems have the following three elements in the core of their operation:

The contact centre

 

The contact centre is the central hub for the system’s incoming requests. Staffed appropriately and equipped with all different communication technologies, it serves the purpose of gathering requests and entering them into the system. It also provides available information on how the system works and answers customers’ questions. In the past, such centres were dealing predominantly with telephone calls but since the introduction of the Internet and especially nowadays with the wide spread of smart phones, most of the requests can be fully automated. Quite often on-demand transport contact centres are outsourced to specialised businesses sharing this way the overheads with other systems or companies. Trying to exploit globalisation and lower the cost of the system sometimes contact centres are outsourced to countries with much lower wages.

The routing software

Route planning and scheduling for regular public transport services is a complicated procedure that needs to take into account many parameters. When planning bus routes or train timetables, the strategic vision and objectives of the whole-of-city transport system is equally important to the estimated trip matrices of each mode or sub system. Routing software has been available for decades to help transport planners propose the most effective routes and schedules. The first attempts on developing such software, were heavily based on the shortest path routing algorithm. Over the years, the algorithms become more complicated taking into account travel times, toll roads and motorways and even network restrictions. Most large transportation or trucking companies use similar software not only to select the most efficient routes for their operations but also to track their fleet and measure its performance. Today there’s plethora of commercial applications for this purpose and also a large number of open source solutions that lower the cost to the transport operator of an on-demand system. Of course the most widely used route planning tool is none other than Google maps.

The fleet

 

Public transport operators usually try to limit the types of vehicles that they have on their fleet. Having the driver salary as their major cost, they try to minimise maintenance cost by having a fleet of certain types and models of vehicles. This allows them to get better prices by buying spare parts in bulk and no need for vehicle mechanics specialised in various types of vehicles. In doing this, they usually select large vehicles which while they provide passenger capacity; they often are not able to drive through narrower residential streets and provide door to door service. On-demand PT systems opt for a different approach: Different sizes and types of vehicles with different passenger capacities. This sometimes includes even motorcycles or motorised tricycles. The most commonly used vehicle in such system is the mini-bus with seating capacities between 10 and 20 passengers.

Part of the wider 'On-Demand Economy'

On-demand PT systems have not been particularly successful all these years since they first appeared.   Such services are considered a wider part of the On-Demand Economy, “defined as the economic activity created by digital marketplaces that fulfil consumer demand via immediate access to and convenient provisioning of goods and services.” The recent successes of other sectors of the on-demand economy indicate that maybe the time has come to see a rapid expansion of such transport systems.  The food industry is one of the areas where on-demand economy is growing with companies like Seamless, GrubHub or Instacart growing their annual revenues and attracting huge amounts of funding for their expansion. Home services and repairs is another sector that the on-demand economy is taking big steps every day. And of course the giant of on-demand services, Amazon is envisaging that soon would be able to deliver purchased items literally from the sky with the use of drones. The success of the on-demand economy businesses that indicates that public transport should go the same way is due to mainly three reasons:  

Consumer behaviour

Probably one of the most researched areas in the field of psychology, taking elements from almost all other social sciences, consumer behaviour study has done huge progress in tracking people’s attitudes and understanding the reasons behind their decisions when buying goods or services. Since the introduction of the Internet, consumer behaviour that was more or less stable for decades started changing dramatically. The average consumer today, demands fast, simple and efficient buying experiences. She’s no longer satisfied with issues that in the past used to be the norm, such as the local shop running out of a certain product and having to wait even a few days until it restocks. Consumers are also much more sensitive in terms of pricing. Specialised websites and businesses offer price comparison services, available to the potential customer instantly. The ease of scheduled deliveries and the reduction in required delivery time are also relatively new factors.  Personalised services and digital connectivity are now considered standard requirements by the tech-savvy generation Y.

Consumer technology

As discussed the big drive of the consumer behaviour change comes from the new technology. It started off as technology to support communication, defence and infrastructure but soon found numerous applications in the business and consumer world. The Internet was the first big factor but it was the smartphones that made such services available to the masses and most importantly all the time. The slogan “always on, always connected” made most marketing executives extremely happy, realising the potential. Having a smart phone allows the consumer to have all the goods and services available constantly. Sitting on the daily commute you can order dinner to be delivered at home exactly at the time you get back from work.  And these mobile devices truly deserve the title smart: Personal digital assistants allows consumer to search for products and services according to their own criteria and weights. Other consumers’ reviews provide useful information on the products and services we are about to purchase.  The new generation mobile phones can act as a wallet too. The contactless payment technology is becoming the most common way of payment. At the same time transport, freight and delivery logistics got much more efficient and less costly. This made ordering and purchasing a product from remote markets much easier and more attractive.

Innovative business models

A series of disruptions in traditional business models was another big driver for the expansion of on-demand economy. Access economy is a business model where the focus moves away from ownership and goods and services are traded on the basis of access. With the use of technological platforms, consumers are connected with suppliers willing to rent goods for short or medium term. Why do you need to buy a hammer drill when you would only use it just once to install a new furniture?  Movies and generally home entertainment has already adopted this model and quickly it is becoming the norm. Even software like Microsoft Office or Adobe Acrobat is now offered on an access basis. The other big trend in business models is sharing economy. Quite often the two terms, sharing and access are used interchangeably but at least in my view, there is a significant difference between the two terms. In access economy businesses rent products and services they produce and own while with the term sharing economy we usually imply businesses offering services which themselves don’t own.  Uber doesn’t own taxis nor employs any taxi drivers. AirBnB doesn’t own any hotels, houses or apartments. Both companies provide the connecting services. The other big difference between the two terms and models is the fact that usually companies in the sharing economy connect consumers to goods and services from people that don’t operate as a formal business. Most AirBnB accommodation is people’s houses or holiday houses, most Uber drivers have a regular job and they drive for Uber as a form of supplementary income. 

Who can implement such a system and how?

Such a system is obviously missing from Brisbane, South East Queensland and pretty much the whole of Australia. There’s a small number of successful on-demand PT services operating in Melbourne and Sydney. But they are mostly services to and from the airport. The term shuttle service is commonly used for these types of services. Skybus transports passengers from Melbourne Tullamarine airport to their CBD hotels and the other way around. Similar services exist in Brisbane too. There are also a couple of Translink and Brisbane City Council initiatives that resemble on-demand transport. Personalised Public Transport (PPT) is a service that operates in areas where TransLink services are restricted. Community transport is available to help people who have a disability, travel for shopping and social activities or medical appointments. All of these attempts though are nowhere near the successful examples in Europe and the USA. Of course the giants Uber and Lyft are leading the way with UberPool and Lyft Line but new players pop up constantly. Even large vehicle manufacturers like Ford are jumping on board and start providing similar services. Eventually all these companies will start appearing and providing services in Australian cities. The question is what will traditional public transport service providers do? Is there a space for operators like Translink or PT Victoria in providing such services? The short answer is, yes of course. In fact such operators have a series of advantages over every other competitor:

Huge customer base

Scale of operations is one of the most critical issues for the success of on-demand PT services. Scale was one of the main reasons of the discontinuation of the hugely popular and successful Kutsuplus service in Helsinki. Uber is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to achieve this large scale of operations. Traditional PT providers have an already established large scale operation. Millions of customers provided with Go Cards or Myki Cards are the already constructed base for such a system.  

Technical know-how

While traditional PT operators don’t have the specialised business knowledge and organisational structure to support the new business model trends, they do have extensive technical knowledge in terms of transport and route planning. Experienced transport planners, traffic modellers and even depot managers provide traditional PT operators with an unprecedented human and intellectual capital that companies like Uber could only dream off. They also have huge amount of travel data both from their card systems and from household surveys that they perform regularly.

They are government

While this might be also a disadvantage due to competition legislation, it gives traditional PT organisations the ability to achieve strategic alliances with all other government sectors that regulate transport issues.  Traditional PT operators tend also to have better relationships with the wide range of stakeholders involved in public transport. Local governments, fleet and service providers and community groups have regular communication with the government transport departments for a range of issues.

The easy first step

Politicians and transport bureaucrats are sceptical and hesitant in planning and implementing such new systems mainly because of the limited success that on-demand PT systems had in the past. Yet, there’s a simple solution to address such concerns and lies within the very first steps of planning, the pre-feasibility stage. Utilising the PT operators websites and specifically the “Journey planner” applications that all such websites have, transport planners can simulate such a system by treating each search as a request for travel. These websites attract a very large number of searches. They usually include the exact origin and destination of the trip and also other travel requirements as the required arrival or departure time and the maximum distance that the passenger feels comfortable walking. In addition to all this information, PT operators can ask Google for help. Google maps have a similar “journey planner” or “directions to” function. Running such a simulation for a long period (6-12) months would allow for a robust detailed business case, testing different scenarios. This exercise can be supplemented with passenger surveys, trying to estimate the level of fares that people are willing to pay for such a service.

The role of taxis and limo services

Taxis and limousine services are one of the industries that are going to be hit the hardest by the introduction of large scale on-demand PT services. There is already a huge wave of protests from the taxi industry in relation to Uber X services operating in cities. Taxi licence restrictions have in the past made the licence itself a valuable and tradeable commodity. With the expansion of such services and especially with the introduction of pool services like Uber Pool and Lyft line, taxis are bound to loose even more customers and the licences are bound to become less and less valuable to the point that might be worth nothing. The obvious solution for taxi companies is to step up and adopt modern business models, technological systems and customer focused mentality. Their most beneficial option though is to become business partners in such companies. Exchange their dropping in value government issued licence with shares of the newly formed on-demand PT operators. And add their vehicles and services to this large scale system.

The role of community groups and their vehicles

It is quite common for community groups to own one or more passenger transport vehicles. It is usually mini-buses and they are mostly used to transport the mobility-disadvantaged members to and from community centres and events. In most of these cases, the vehicles are heavily underutilised as the demand for such services in each community group is relatively low. This is often a problem for community groups with limited human and financial resources and such services can’t be sustained in the long term. Collaborative approaches have been proposed in the past, usually at a regional level with not much success. Integrating all such services and vehicles in a large scale on-demand PT system could provide a far more sustainable way for the local communities to serve their transport needs.

 

How about autonomous vehicles?

Autonomous vehicles are the hot topic of discussion for everyone in the wider traffic and transport industry. And it seems that in one form or another, autonomous vehicles would be a reality in our cities much sooner than original anticipated. There’s much speculation on the effect of AV technology in urban and regional travel and especially in the future of public transport. Would the anticipated increase of traffic capacity of roads, due to the introduction of such vehicles, decrease the demand for public transport? Would we end up having a fleet of autonomous vehicles running perpetually from one transport task to the next regardless of who owns them? While there aren't any easy answers to all such questions, autonomous vehicles seem to be destined to be used for on-demand PT systems. Global warming and air pollution in the cities would make the pooling function of such a system a necessity and AV’s are better suited for such a role, removing the human factor from the decision making and increasing the reliability of the transport system.