[sustran] The dangers of shared taxis in the New Mobility System

[Eric Britton]

Simon Norton writes on this date:  

"When one introduces shared taxis one has to guard against the danger that
they take people off buses and trains (or off their feet or bikes) rather
than off cars. If so they will actually increase the number of motor
vehicles, and furthermore unless the system is transparent and available to
casual users (i.e. one doesn't have to live in the area, belong to a club,
or book ages in advance) they may prevent the development of genuinely
comprehensive mobility systems. " 

 

Couple of quick comments on this if you will: 

 

*	As long as we insist on thinking of these new ranges of mobility
options as "taxis" (i.e., not viable public transport) we will stay stuck in
the last century -- and all that entails in terms of quality of service and
quality of life.  We really need to open up our minds and imaginations on
this score.
*	Likewise, if we remain prisoners of the old "binary" mental system
of public (trains, scheduled buses, etc.) and (or rather versus) "private
transport" (by which is meant cars, and not only that really those well more
than half empty privately owned motor vehicles that roam our streets
untrammeled) - we will also continue stay stuck.
*	Our 21st century New Mobility System is well equipped at least in
principle to do its job in a fully sustainable way, but it needs all four of
its main pillars: Those two (much improved of course by technology and
organization to do a better job in our towns and cities), plus (c) real
planning and resources to support widest use of 'active transport'.  And
then our fourth and until now largely neglected fourth pillar . . .
*	Small to medium sized vehicles offering 'car like mobility' (or
better!) in a very wide range of types, based on entrepreneurship and savvy
use of available technology and purveying services that will get people
where they want, when they want without the enormous negative impacts that
we associate with owner-driver (and almost empty) cars in the traffic
stream.  This includes new group taxis of various sorts, ride sharing,
carsharing, dial-a-ride, shuttles, line taxis, E&H transport, and the list
goes on and on. 
 

Now all of you here will be well aware of all this -- but the question
remains why has this great idea pretty much stayed in the closet over all
these years (albeit with a fair number of striking demonstrations, but which
never seem to really take off and in the process alter our basic thinking
about transport in cities)?

 

When I started on my personal transportation odyssey more than three decades
ago, I at one point headed up an international  study and brainstorm of just
this kind of system/service, which we then called "paratransit", a name
which since has been co-opted in many places as something specifically
related to more medical or patient transport. I can't this morning lay my
hands on the original graphic which provides an idea of how all these bits
and pieces relate, but here is a rendering which I have just cobbled
together based on that which gives a rough idea (though it leaves out the
modal share monster the private car . . but you get the idea).  

 

 *

 

 

What I think is terribly striking and really quite disappointing about this
vision of what local transport is or at least should be about in a world, in
a city that wishes itself to be sustainable, is how little progress has been
made on this agenda in the THREE DECADES since we carried out this exercise
and put it in the form of a report that was distributed by the US Dept of
Transportation to more than five thousand people and groups around the
world.  The reaction? A deafening silence.  

 

The reason? Well, apparently it seemed just so very inconvenient. To the car
crowd that wants to change nothing and till now has had the resources to
make sure that that is exactly what happens. To the public transport crowd,
who - rightly I think - see themselves as providers of a certain range of
services within a certain kind of business and organizational framework, and
who really are stretched to the extreme just to get their part of the
(important and difficult) job done.  The traffic people were up to their
necks in finding ways to whoosh ever more vehicles through the available
street space.  The builders and their allies who felt that the solution lies
in increasing the space available to cars. And finally to the various
"authorities" who over the years have cobbled together combinations of laws,
ordinances and regulations which at the end of the day have reinforced this
ghastly, inefficient and basically binary transport system of the not that
regretted twentieth century. 

 

Getting more people into fewer vehicles and getting them where they want to
go in ways that are more comfortable, more efficient and more cost effective
than any of the other alternatives.  And of course reinforced by the
regulatory framework to give them privileged access to scarce street space.
In creative working partnerships with the traditional public transport
providers. And stuffed with technologies that are there today and well able
to do their part of the job. 

 

Two final qualifiers to all this:

 

*	First that since (a) these vehicles can be purpose designed
(including in terms of emissions, fuel efficiency, safety, etc.) and (b)
since they will be much more intensively used, the fleet will be renewed
more regularly (if we get it right that is), meaning that the vehicles
moving on our streets day after day will increasingly incorporate the best
available technology and performance standards.
*	And the last wrinkle on this has to do with job creation. Over the
last fifty years the main thrust of innovation in the pubic transport sector
has been to cut costs through labor-savings. But our new transportation
arrangements are going to use drivers in each of those vehicles (with the
exception of carshare originations, but there too there is a job creation
vector which is not to be ignored), which means that our new mobility system
is going to be a source not only of new kinds and new qualities of mobility
services, but also jobs.  No trivial contribution as we try to figure out
collectively what it is we really want of our cities, and our lives.

 

That's it from a slowly simmering Paris this morning, But not to worry, we
will figure this one out too.

 

Eric Britton

 

 

PS. Every time I see or reproduce that little graphic I think with affection
back to its origins, in the bowels of the Urban Mass Transit Administration
in the early/mid seventies.  At the core of the original path-breaking 1975
report "Para-transit: Neglected options for urban mobility" was a working
partnership between the very creative Jimmy Yu of UMTA and the main
author/head of a small team from the Urban Institute, Ron Kirby (to whom I
am copying this note so that he can cross-check me for accuracy).  I don't
have a copy of the book handy, but I just checked and you can pick up a copy
today for five dollars or so from Amazon.    

Starting in 1974/5 and almost in parallel, I led a small team that spent
some years in pushing out the frontiers both in terms of expanding the range
of services covered and more important I think in retrospect reviewing
developments in Europe in particular ("Paratransit: Survey of International
Experience and Prospects".  This led to a continuing cycle of team studies
and projects, which today have taken the form of what you can see in places
like the New Mobility Agenda and subsequently the World Carshare Consortium,
World Car Free Days, the Kyoto World Cities 20/20 Challenge, and on and on.


BTW, I always smile in recalling an "enormous" contribution that I
personally made to the field of paratransit, which in fact was about as
small and negative as one can get.. yet still it made a difference. I
"officially" at UMTA and beyond removed once and forever the hyphen in
para-transit, with the argument that hyphenization in the world of words is
only a half way house until such time that the word reaches full maturity.
Which I felt that by 1975 it had indeed.  At least the word itself. ;-) 

PPS. The above certainly too long note does not pretend to try to tackle the
full problematique of bringing sustainable mobility to our cities, but
rather just to try to provide some food for thought in answer to Simon
Norton's good challenge. I have to add however that one very important
missing "pillar" in the overall strategy is working with city planners,
developers and local authorities to provide and support more appropriate
grouping of activities and services, as opposed to the worst abuses of
car-based spread patterns. And of course there is the very promising
'communications substitutes for movements" axis which all of you now well,
but let's leave that for another time and place.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



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