“How do you create a society that enables mobility and not just car ownership…and that facilitates the flow of people and goods,” asks Matt Peak, Managing Partner, Peak Strategy Partners, LLC. Peak suggests that a collaborative process involving the community is essential to improving mobility; both physical and economic.
Speaking at the Driverless Cities’ Conference, Peak references Columbus, Ohio and their success in winning the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Smart City Challenge as an example of a successful collaboration effort, where Columbus was able to leverage its $50M prize from the U.S. Department of Transportation with $90M of locally generated, private funding, to become a test bed of advanced mobility solutions.
Through his firm, Peak studies how cities and regions are adapting to changes in mobility. He has created a five-level scale, similar to the U.S DOT and SAE’s five levels of automation, that grades cities/regions on their readiness for mobility automation. In creating this scale, Peak looks at five dimensions, which are:
- Technological innovation
- Infrastructure development
- Capitalization
- Public policy
- Public education
He cites the UK as an example of a region that merits a level 4 on his scale of mobility automation readiness. To some extent, successful cities and regions are breaking down the barriers between public and private entities and within government organizations (e.g. treating land-use and transportation decisions as one in the same). He points out that autonomy offers the potential to create last-mile feeder systems to existing public transit systems, making public transit more frequent and accessible.
Another implicit benefit to this approach is that the use of smaller vehicles for last-mile transit; vehicles that potentially have a couple of orders of magnitude less impact on road wear and tear compared to traditional buses, as shown in the following table from page 46 of a report by R3 Consulting group prepared for the city of Fort Collins, Colorado.
Peak points out that the Columbus project is more than moving people, but it also about making it easier for people and things to connect. The results from Columbus, as well as the current US DOT connected vehicle testing in Wyoming, Florida and New York City will provide valuable feedback to build and maintain infrastructure.
Whatever the outcome of those trials, it’s clear that early community feedback, along with close relationships between public and private entities will be key to implementing advanced infrastructure and mobility solutions.
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