TRANSIT LEAP


shuttle applications means that progressive, urbanized regions can jump directly to fully autonomous vehicles, with rapid, tan- gible applications of SAE Level 5. Courteous, deliberate, cau- tious, and slow at first, these vehicles address user anxiety and safety while avoiding the distracted-driver issue plaguing semi- autonomous, pre-Level 5 vehicles. Local, constrained, first-last mile applications expanding grad-


ually into larger areas such as downtown cores, is an immediately available first step. While the first Transit Leap project for each transit agency is the most difficult, as experience builds these applications merge and grow into urban-wide, then region-wide systems, through a connected series of increasingly flexible and capable extensions. The nature of public service employment will change resulting


in job growth in transportation services. Consider a country that currently records 90 to 95 per cent of its passenger miles traveled (PMT) in privately owned vehicles and the remainder in shared vehicles (taxi, bus, car-share, shuttle, TNC). Assuming that on average one shared vehicle were to provide four times the PMT of a personal household vehicle and that it wished to halve its total fleet population, such a country would have to triple or quadru- ple its shared-vehicle portion to support its total (national) PMT. The labour contingent required to manage a tailored and respon- sive fleet that provides this increased level of TaaS services would, at a minimum, double its current public transit workforce, even as jobs, job training and job expertise changes. Strategic expansion of the geographic reach of autonomous


Transit Leap vehicles will increasingly erode the need for vehicle ownership. Peak car ownership becomes declining car owner- ship. Stagnant transit ridership and the threat of transit job-loss become growing ridership and job growth.


ROBOTIC TRANSPORTATION CAN’T BE STOPPED The AV is bound to disrupt both public transit and the use of pub- lic-access shared vehicles. The Transit Leap opportunity lies in lev-


REFERENCES


1 Nieuwenhuijsen, J., (2015) Diffusion of Automated Vehicles: A quantitative method to model the diffusion of automated vehicles with system dynamics. (Masters Thesis, Delft University of Technology)


2 http://www.cebit.de/en/news-trends/news/digital-insights/ die-tops-und-flops-des-gartner-hype-cycle/


3 https://www.gartner.com/doc/1414917?ref=ddisp 4 http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3114217 5 https://medium.com/backchannel/how-to-make-moonshots-65845011a277


6 van Loon, R., Martens, M., (2015) Automated driving and its effect on the safety ecosystem: How do compatibility issues affect the transition period? 6th International Conference on Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics


7 http://www.wired.com/2015/11/ford-self-driving-car-plan-google/


8 http://endofdriving.org/2015/11/30/the-autonomous-vehicle- will-develop-in-a-wave-of-tech-disruptions/


9 http://endofdriving.org/2015/11/12/transit-leap-autonomous-vehicles-and-transit/


10 Dargay, J., Gately, D., and Sommer, M., (2007) Vehicle Ownership and Income Growth, Worldwide: 1960-2030


www.thinkinghighways.com 27


eraging this disruption to increase transit ridership (robo buses, robo shuttles), and TNC ridership (robo-taxis). Under a Feature Creep paradigm of consumer ownership of


AVs, transit will be disrupted, as well – but negatively. The effect of a strong robotic offering by TNCs competing with a laggard offering from municipal transit will mean a decline in transit rid- ership and transportation equity. Uber’s CEO, Travis Kalanick is on record saying he will provide better transit. The choice facing municipalities is whether to abdicate or grow transit. Let’s face it, there is a massive, 120-year-old automotive


industry that is premised on making and selling a physical con- sumer product. Those commercial enterprises will remain and they will continue to build vehicles better and cheaper – and in greater numbers. The ethos of the status machine, the per- sonal machine, the private machine, the convenience machine, the fast machine, and the sleek-and-sexy machine will remain as will consumer predilections for owning one. This currently satu- rates at around 0.8 vehicles per capita as national GDP rises,10 but it will not evaporate. Left to its own, automotive Feature Creep will erode the compa-


rable, already-disadvantaged appeal of transit. Our current world aspires to a “car-in-every-garage”, but TaaS is a “ride-for-every- need” world. If we want TaaS we need to change something fun- damentally social about transit. Removing the driver from the private car is only an enabler for TaaS and may even be a step backward if municipalities “wait and see”.


WHY TRANSIT LEAP? Gartner’s Hype Cycle is descriptive rather than prescriptive. It tells us the SAE Level 5 AV will slump in mass media and consumer perceptions, but not why this will happen. For that we need to watch 2016 and 2017. The Hype Cycle also predicts that there will be a reputation


recovery for the technology sometime after that – perhaps as early as 2020. But it is harder to fathom how this will unfold. Since we are certain that robotic vehicle technology is unstoppable and that the nearest mobility market begging for disruption is transit, we define Transit Leap as the mechanism to ascend Gartner’s Slope of Enlight- enment and reach their Plateau of Productivity. The path to the frequently predicted, smart urban


future of any-time, on-call, mobility-on-demand will be easier to traverse if the Transit Leap paradigm is deployed. Urban transportation leaders need to not dither in the face of AV technology hype, hope, and fear. City builders need to step up to implementing what is feasible right now. This is how Gartner’s Plateau of Productivity for autonomous vehicles could indeed be reached within the five to 10 years predicted. l


 Bern Grush and John Niles are the co-founders of Grush Niles Strategic based in Toronto and


Seattle, WA CONNECTED CANADA SUPPLEMENT


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