Jun 10, 2022

Mobility & Transportation - Issue #67

Issue #67 — View online — Suggest a link

Mobility & Transportation

Insight into all things transportation and mobility, covering driverless vehicles, trends in public transportation, the rise of cycling, ride- and car-share, smart city developments, ITS, and more.

Hi friends!

Hope you’re enjoying some good weather, and being out in real life. Like a scene out of the movies, we’re seeing our first electric fire truck arrive in LA. To help bring aid to the nightmare that is the war in Ukraine, Uber is offering a ‘private-label’ service to the World Food Program (WFP), and back in North America Uber and Trapeze have joined forces to solve for driver shortage issues and improve the customer experience in the para transit space. Calgary‘s on a roll, expanding their on-demand service with RideCo, which is a great tactic to help with transit recovery post-COVID.

As always, if you have interesting news related innovation in the transit or transportation space, please share with me, and I’ll share here!

Have a great weekend!

San

TNCs

Uber powers emergency food deliveries in Ukraine

Uber has built a “private-label” version of its delivery platform to help the United Nations deliver food and water supplies to war-torn areas of Ukraine. The tech firm is working with the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP).

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Lyft and Spare Announce Partnership to Deliver Elevated On-Demand Transportation Services to Transit Agencies

Spare, the mobility management platform introduces new integration with Lyft to enable transit agencies to optimize rider experiences and better meet on-demand transportation needs.

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Waymo Via and Uber Freight partner to accelerate the future of autonomous logistics

From Lior Ron, Head of Uber Freight: “Uber Freight’s extensive, efficient and reliable digital network is essential to making autonomous trucks a reality. We are uniquely positioned to be the preferred network for autonomous trucks, with the scale and the marketplace expertise to deploy autonomous trucks in a way that benefits the entire industry.

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Microtransit (aka On-demand)

Calgary Transit plans to expand on-demand service to more communities

Sharon Fleming, Director of Calgary Transit has shared that as part of the agency’s recovery plan they will expand on-demand service to six more communities. Ward 5 councilor Raj Dhaliwal is hopeful that on-demand transit will come to his community saying “What I’m hearing from people is, it’s almost a crisis there because there are no resources, there is no transit service available for people in Cornerstone, Redstone, some parts of that area.” Calgary’s on-demand service is powered by RideCo.

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RideKC Introduces App for Microtransit, Kansas City

RideKC’s microtransit service, Flex, now has an app that allows users to request rides. Flex customers have been able to book RideKC Flex rides by phone, usually at least 24 hours in advance. Their service is powered by Spare Labs.

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Electric Vehicles

America's first electric fire truck reports for duty in Hollywood

The first electric fire truck in the U.S. has arrived in Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) took delivery of the truck, a Rosenbauer RTX. It will be deployed to LAFD Station 82 in Hollywood.

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What the Future Holds for Transit Fleet Electrification in North America

When thinking about where zero-emission transit is headed, keep in mind that vehicle electrification technology is continuously evolving and improving. So, every transit agency, no matter how far along in their fleet electrification journey, must still revisit and re-evaluate their plans every few years. Doug Parker, Director and Sr. Practice Lead, Transit Technology at IBI reflects on the future of transit fleet electrification in North America.

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Public Policy

Fuel taxes pay for highways. EV drivers shouldn't get a subsidized ride

Well, it’s not entirely true that fuel taxes pay for highways - but they at least contribute to paying for highways. But it does beg the question, how are EV drivers contributing to the upkeep of our roadways, and who will be paying for them by the time we’re all driving EV’s?

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A City Fights Back Against Heavyweight Cars

Oversized vehicles exacerbate problems across all kinds of communities, but none more so than dense urban neighborhoods full of pedestrians and cyclists. Driving a large pickup or SUV increases the likelihood you’ll kill or injure someone; its thirsty power plant (the F-250 gets 15 mpg) spews more air pollution and greenhouse emissions.

During this year’s budget process in Washington, D.C, Councilmember Cheh proposed overhauling the city’s vehicle regulation framework, increasing annual fees for larger vehicles.

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The Bike Lane Effect: How Infrastructure Drives Impact A Big Data Study

In Waterloo Region, Ontario, just 100km west of Toronto, the pandemic offered planners a unique opportunity for a before-and-after study of the impact of bike lanes on ridership — and vehicular traffic.

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Podcasts

Transit Unplugged: Jen Shepherd—GM Uber Transit

In her chat with Paul, Jen Shepherd talks about how Uber provides agencies tools to balance demand and resources with on-demand capacity when it wouldn’t make sense to have an agency-owned vehicle on the route. One of the most exciting ways Uber is helping transit agencies is adding flexible paratransit capacity with the recently announced partnership with Trapeze, integrating Trapeze TripBroker with Uber Transit.

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Techstars Startup Digest Mobility & Transportation is curated by:

Sanathan Kassiedass
sanathan.kassiedass@startupdigestmail.com

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