Micromobility

In this episode, Oliver and Horace discuss the Micromobility FAQ's and their significance. Specifically, they cover: - how it's categorised and why this is important - whether autonomous cars will make Micromobility irrelevant - Infrastructure and why and how this is an important question - How should we think about measuring success. The sponsor of the episode is Joyride, a software platform that lets you launch your own bike or scooter share system under your brand, with full consumer facing apps, and backend fleet management and integrations. Check them out at Joyride.city

In this episode, Horace and Oliver discuss the new Micromobility book that is up on Kickstarter. This is the first book from Horace in the space, and outlines why and how micromobility will take over the world. Get your copy here - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2092675260/micromobility-the-first-year?ref=27ap2v. Next up, Oliver and Michal discuss the latest news including the first Bird Platform launch globally in New Zealand, Voi's recent raise and Jump's latest data from Sacramento. Finally, we release the Venture Capital panel from the recent Micromobility Summit in California. We have Greg Lindsay, Director of Strategy, LA CoMotion moderate a panel with Julie Lien (Founding Partner, Urban Innovation Fund), Reilly Brennan (Founding Partner, Trucks.vc) and Damir Becirovic (Principal, Index Ventures).

In this episode, Horace and Oliver discuss vehicle standards and classifications based on Horace's recent discussions with the Society of Automotive Engineers. Specifically, the cover: - What are automotive standards, why are they important, and how does this change how we look at the world? - The history of the term 'microcomputing' and how the significance of this faded away over time, and what parallels we might be able to see with mobility. - How is the SAE thinking about classifying micromobility vehicles, and what are the likely implications of this - What variables regulators should be thinking about when looking at vehicles, and which they should avoid (hint: speed) - What value the German system for classifying low-powered electric vehicles could offer globally - The parallels to Horace's time at Nokia, and how he foresaw the rise of the battle of iOS and Android.

On today’s episode, Oliver runs over recent news in the scooter/micromobility space with Michal Naka (@michalnaka) and we release the government regulator panel from the recent Micromobility California Summit talking about the experiences from LA, Portland, Oakland and Claremont in regulating scooter operators. In the news section, we discuss: - The emergence of Grin in South America, and what this means for scooters in LatAm. - Lime’s recent $310m raise and how this reflects the consolidation of the rest of the industry. Next, we have the panel from the recent Summit where Katie Fehrenbacher from Greenbiz hosts a panel with: - Seleta Reynolds from the LADOT - Ryan Russo from Oakland DOT - Briana Orr who managed Portland’s Shared Electric Scooter Pilot - Julie Medero, Chair of the Traffic and Transportation Commission from the City of Claremont They cover: - How cities are viewing the rise of micromobility operations as a means of providing access to low-cost mobility and benefitting their citizens. -

On today’s episode we do a very quick recap of the inaugural 2019 Micromobility Summit and then turn our attention to talk through what early stage investment in micromobility looks like with Reilly Brennan of Trucks Venture Capital (@reillybrennan). He is a founding general partner at Trucks (trucks.vc), a seed-stage venture capital fund for entrepreneurs changing the future of transportation. Reilly holds a teaching appointment at Stanford University and is influential newsletter [Future of Transportation](http://www.tinyletter.com/transportation) is a radar for what’s happening in transportation. Prior to Trucks, Reilly was Executive Director for Stanford’s automotive research program, Revs. He is very well known in the transport technology space. In this episode we discuss: - Trucks VC and how it’s adjusted it’s thinking about micromobility in its search for the companies that will power the future of transportation. - How he thinks about the evolution of the supply chain in the micromobility sector,

On today’s show we have Boyd Cohen, CEO of Iomob, to discuss building a marketplace operating system for city transportation, and what is enabled having all modes of transport interoperable and discoverable. Specifically, we dig into: - What the benefits to customers and operators are for an open marketplace for mobility. - Why micromobility is specifically well suited to open marketplaces/interoperability. - Why Boyd doesn’t think the current scooter/micromobility operators will survive in their current form. - The benefits and pitfalls of having system wide integrations for all transport options. - How this will scale in the face of competition from Uber, Google Maps and others.

In this episode, we have Steve Anderson (@Rashomon2) as a guest on the podcast. Steve has a long history in motorcycle safety and engineering forensics, and more recently has been working on low powered electric vehicles. He will be speaking at the upcoming Micromobility Summit in California on the 31st of January. We cover: - The role of vehicle design, infrastructure and speed in micromobility safety. - The coming emergence of different form factors, including cabin motorcycles and enclosed cargo trikes - Different avoidance and damage mitigation options for micromobility. - Helmets — their impact and how their role in micromobility. Be sure to check out the Danish airbag helmet, the [Hovding](http://hovding.com/). - The role of fun and joy in micromobility’s appeal.

On today’s show, Horace and Oliver talk through the challenges that vandalism poses to the shared micromobility model. Specifically we cover: - The core drivers of vandalism of such fleets, and how this compares to historical parallels. - The implications for capex vs. opex - The calculations that operators are making to ensure that the services still function well.

On today’s episode, Horace and Oliver dig deep into the evolution of business models in transport, and how micromobility lays the foundation for the next great shift of interoperable, efficient, low-cost transport services powered by blockchain. I think we just hit peak hype words, but bear with us! We cover: - How the car was the first great bundling of transport ‘jobs-to-be-done’ into a single option — kickstarting the first major productization of transport. - The emergence of Uber, and the shift of trips from pre-paid product to service. - The dynamics of vehicle fleets, and why scooter/e-bike fleets are likely to move off-balance sheet for most large operators in the near future. - How multimodality, especially that underpinned by micromobility, lends itself to open transport systems, and how this will give rise to token marketplaces for trips (similar to Bitcoin developer Mike Hearn’s tradenet proposal ). - The impact that decentralized token marketplaces will have on cities. It’s a conceptually

On today’s episode, Oliver talks with Regina Clewlow (@reginaclewlow), CEO of Populus.ai about her insights gained from building micromobility data dashboards for city officials. We discuss what matters to cities, and why the rise of micromobility data will drive the changes in streetscapes across the world. We also discuss: - The new data standards emerging for operators in cities, and how this will help both operators and cities better manage fleets, and cities to develop more appropriate infrastructure. - The new partnership they’ve developed with Lime to monitor their LimePod car sharing in Seattle, and how that lays the foundation for fixing the tragedy of the commons problems with scooter parking. - The report that Populus has produced for DC looking at equity of access to dockless mobility services vs more traditional docked services and why this matters to cities.

In this episode we discuss the recent Bird Platform announcement, why this was predictable given the dynamics of the market, and how franchising might evolve in the future. We also cover: - Dediu’s Law: Horace’s thesis that we’ll see 10x growth annually for the next 5–6 years in micromobility trip numbers. - How challenges related to social technologies like local bureaucracy/current scooter caps will be overcome. - The [VeloMetro/Veemo shared covered trike system](https://www.velometro.com/) that has emerged in Vancouver and whether this is likely to catch on.

On today’s episode, we’re joined by Dr Chris Cherry (@drchrischerry), Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Tennessee and Director of Light Electric Vehicle Education and Research (LEVER) Initiative, an international academic/industry research consortium on lightweight and low speed EV’s about the environmental and social implications of micromobility. We discuss: - How China’s electric micromobility sector has grown to lead the world, and how Chris and his colleagues have worked to understand it. - The framework that they use to understand the benefits that lightweight electric utility vehicles offer users — notably low cost, point to point, low emission transport. - The emission and energy use of micromobility vehicles compared to other options. - How to think about whether micromobility is additive or substitutive trips vs. incumbent modes of transport. - What the role of fun plays in micromobility adoption. - Which cities will benefit the most from the ride of microm

In today’s episode, we’re joined by Twitter micromobility celebrity Michal Naka (@michalnaka), to talk about scooters, how they’re evolving in hardware and their interactions with cities and what the future might look like. It’s a packed episode. Specifically we cover: - How Michal ended up in micromobility through his skepticism of autonomous cars. (5:50->) - How the most valuable miles travelled are likely to be addressed by micromobility and not autonomous. (9:20->) - The history of the scooter supply chain.(13:00->) - The tradeoff that companies are making between opex and capex. (25:50->) - What future evolutions we’re likely to see in (29:30->) - How cities are responding to these new business models, and what we’re likely to see in the future. (33:46->) - How the diffusion theory applies to scooters and their evolution. (40:30->)

On today’s episode Horace and Oliver are joined by Winston Kwon, Assistant Professor of Strategy and Social Innovation at the University of Edinburgh Business School. We discuss mobility poverty, why it matters and the role that micromobility could play in improving access to opportunities. We also touch on: - The concept of Universal Basic Mobility (as put forward by Alex Roy) and how micromobility might enable it - The importance of social inclusion — and how transport, specifically cars, impact it. - How the homogeneity of suburbs is accelerating their infrastructural decline. - Which cities/built environments will benefit the most from micromobility and which will be the most negatively impacted. - Horace revises his estimates for the Total Addressable Market for Micromobility globally.

In today’s episode we unpack more about the latest data on micromobility adoption, what this implies for the total addressable market of micromobility and then run over the details of the upcoming Micromobility California event. Specifically, we touch on: - The speed of adoption curves for scooters compared to other technology platforms in the past. - The environmental impacts that we might be able to imply from using lightweight electric vehicles - Who will be attending the Micromobility California event, as well as who might find it interesting. - The details on who will be presenting.

In today’s show, we examine the role of platforms in micromobility’s rise, and what role they might play in furthering adoption. Specifically, we cover: - What an entry into the micromobility space might look like for Apple, and how their experience in interface stepchanges puts them at a unique advantage - How autonomous cars are analogous to wormholes vs. a more tactile engaging experience of the world with micromobility. - What a platform built on a micromobiltiy fleet might look like, and what it might enable, and what names we might give to these experiences in the same way that cars have crusing, drivethrus and cinemas. - The stage of the market, and the parallels to the Playstation vs Xbox argument - How the network effects of micromobility sharing platforms are inverse to the traditional car infrastructure - Horace introduces his new research paper looking at modal shifts with the introduction of e-mobility in a cities transport mix.

Micromobility has an addressable market of more than $1.4 trillion dollars annually in the US alone, a figure that makes it more valuable than longer distance transport addressable by cars ($1.1 trillion). That’s the message in this episode where we run through the talk ‘When Micromobility Attacks’ that Horace gave at the recent Micromobility Summit in Copenhagen. Be sure to check out the slides — have also included the relevant ones below. We look at: - How US trip data typically exhibits log-normal distributions (and an explanation of what this means!) - How many of the 2 trillion vehicle trips taken in the US annually would potentially be served by micromobility - How Marchetti’s constant (one hour of travel a day) relates to micromobility’s benefits- how adoption of micromobility would impact car demand, and why this is relevant to automakers- why these high volume, short trips are actually more valuable than average car trips on a dollar basis. - How time spent traveling will actually drive adoptio

In this episode, we look at the history of the Dutch cycle infrastructure, the symbiotic tension that we'll see between micromobility and autonomous vehicles, and the intangible quality of cities with vibrant micromobility ecosystems. We also cover:  - the recent spate of news re: the dawning scooter wars (Bird, Lime, Jump) - San Francisco's highway history - the cost comparisons for cycling infrastructure vs. car infrastructure, especially when compared to modal share vs. land-use in European cities. - How the rollout of cycling infrastructure parallels (or doesn't) the rollout of cellular infrastructure in both the US and Europe. - the creative tension that will exist between micromobility vehicles vs. autonomous cars (walkable neighborhoods vs. exurbia sprawl) - the 'experience' factor of micromobility, and the unquantifiable value of the thrill of riding a scooter/e-bike vs. passive A-B transport and how this is influenced by the European vs. American views of the world.

On today's episode Horace and Oliver are joined by Corinne Vogel, head of operations at Smide bikeshare based in Zurich, Switzerland.  Smide is a high-end e-bike share system, with speed pedelec bikes that travel up to 30mph/45kph. It's using a completely different approach to the rapid blanket approach from e-scooter rollouts we're seeing elsewhere. It's a fascinating discussion.  Specifically, we touch on:  - who and what their customers are, why they choose Smide over other options and how this parallels to iPhone market positioning. - the importance of having good relationships with cities (and how they're loved by the governments they work with) - their unique crowdlending model for financing the launch of new cities - how they deploy user incentives to help load-balance the network, and the importance of having vehicles that go >70km / 50miles per charge As always, let us know what you think on Twitter at @asymco or @oliverbruce. Thanks!

In today’s show we cover the rise of scooter sharing and how different localized constraints result in different micromobility solutions blooming. Specifically:  - The scooter sharing model that Bird pioneered, why it emerged in Santa Monica and why it might not apply to other contexts. - The history from the Segway to the hoverboard, Boosted Board and on to the current scooter form factor. - The local variables that need to be considered for micromobility fleet operators. - The parallels of the rise of micromobility with early cellular, and the Galapagos scenario of ecosystem development.