workshop report on v-smart/mobilityxs in ohio united states

8/2/2019 Workshop Report on V-SMaRT/MobilityXS in Ohio United States

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Exploring InnovativeTransportation Systems:

Discussions with Vikash Chandra

June 16-19, 2009

Sustainable transportation expertVikash Chandra rom Bangalore,India visited met with CommunitySolutions sta and local transpor-tation experts during the week oJune 16-19, 2009 to discuss thevision o a low-energy transporta-tion system and implementationsteps or a local pilot project.


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ExploringInnovativeTransportationSystems:DiscussionswithVikashChandra

Table of Contents

Innovation for Transportation Systems: Snapshots of High Quality Mobility Services for 21st Century Realities

1. Rationale .......................................................................................................................................................3

2. Description .....................................................................................................................................................3

3. Other Examples ..............................................................................................................................................5

4. Philosophy/Benets ........................................................................................................................................6

5. Objections/Responses .....................................................................................................................................8

Implementation Ideas

5. General .........................................................................................................................................................11

6. Marketing Ideas ............................................................................................................................................12

7. Yellow Springs Ideas ......................................................................................................................................13

8. Travel Diary Study ........................................................................................................................................14

9. Partnering with IT Companies .....................................................................................................................14

Other Discussions

10. Applying Technology Solutions to Plan C Options or Housing and Food ...............................................15

11. Vikash Assumptions and Philosophy .........................................................................................................15

Appendix

PowerPoint Presentation Innovation or Transportation Systems: Snapshots o High Quality

Mobility Services or 21st Century Realities ...................................................................................................17

2009 Arthur Morgan Institute for Community Solutions, P.O. Box 243, Yellow Springs, OH 45387Phone: 937-767-2161 Web: www.communitysolution.org


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ExploringInnovativeTransportationSystems:DiscussionswithVikashChandras

Innovation for Transportation Systems: Snapshots of High Quality MobilityServices for 21st Century Realities

Rationale

Addresses the problem o depleting petroleum uels and depletion o carbon sinks. The need to incorporate

the costs o depleting resources. Price depleting resources in a way that covers the costs o setting up the newsystem. We need road-usage charging rather than uel surcharges. I we dont have the gasoline, or i we havean all-electric feet, then who will pay or the roads?

IPCC reports are conservative and outdated by the time they come out. Its getting worse aster. Melting othe Antarctic and increase in sea level o 30 eet. Because o the Asian brown cloud, higher altitudes are moreaected than lower ones. I the rivers o the Himalayas run dry, a ew million people would die. Tigris andEuphrates rivers are down 75%.

The carbon/climate change situation is extremely dire. There is an attempt to create a consideration or howmore serious and urgent the problem is rom the highest levels o government. Is this viable when we regainour senses about how bad climate change could be?

The current model o creating this division between public and private transport is alse and leading towaste, ineciency and misallocation. This is also leading to the act that our current systems are bursting atthe seams. Public roads are bursting. To maintain such a huge network o public roads is going to cost muchmore money than weve allocated. Bitumen costs are increasing. We need a chart on the skyrocketing liecyclecosts o roads. Auto industry is collapsing under its own weight (orced obsolescence and early models notworking).

Aordability o cars is degraded. Costs are not coming down to meet the household allocations. Also deathand injury rates increasing. There is customer/user dissatisaction with the kind o oerings. They are gettingboxes rather than mobility services. There are the societal costs o noises, destruction o community due toincreased spaces between houses/roads, etc.

Last mile problem o mass transit getting rom the last stop to your home. People dont walk more than0.75 miles. Last hour problem o ridesharing sometimes people get in early, stay late and you can be fexible.Then there is the errand problem. You can do diversions on your way home rom or to work to go shopping,etc. Associated with this problem is the space or buying and lugging large amounts o products.

Description

Create a metro rail system using roads. You create a seamless network o arterial roads. There are pocketscalled home zones, which could be residential, commercial, mixed. For any heavy motor vehicle to enter therewould be access control. They would be serviced by dierent kinds o vehicles.

The goal is to get the best o rail and road usage. While rail needs resh capital investment, most roads dontneed much and are underutilized. Rails are useul or single origins and destinations, but not with our kind o

development, where the adaptability and fexibility are required. When we want desired speeds, its useul touse air trac control-like routing, which is very useul particularly or cities. Also using intelligent systems togive the speed needed to go to make a green light.

Its a sophisticated rental car choice. All you have to do is book a seat and depending upon the value planyou select, it gives you a time window. For a premium plan, it could have a small window (e.g. 2 minutes). Sothere is a certain predictability o the service.

It creates a diversied, distributed mass transit network. We need some kind o new vehicles, like the peoplemover, which is very cost eective or the eeder. Its a membership booking plan. You pay by point to point.You get a bill. Which in our overall scenario would be a multi-modal bill. Assignment o who is driving is thedriving prociency. This improves the overall driving quality.


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Creating a honeycomb structure, which is a series o networks o arterial roads. To connect each one to eachother, you have a bridge or walkers and bicycles. Limit the amount o cars with a ee or making it only oremergency use. The use o eeder vehicles is better and or creating pedestrian and bike-only roads. Pedestrian-ization o main street.

It minimizes the concretization o the land, allows space or children to play reely, localization so that kids

can bike to school, work district with a business center or telecommuting. The radial range should be twomiles, so 6 to 8 square miles. The travel time down the roads should be about the same time (approximately aminute or two o dierence) as taking your car. Short trips are trips to a station and local trips.

Parking could be done vertically i space became an issue. GM could buy up space and rent out cars onthe edges. There are various levels o services and types o vehicles, depending upon the service plan youveselected. You could get good time estimates o how long it will take.

A lot o businesses could be in the area o the station. This is transit oriented development. With transitmoving masses o people and people as customers, you want retail shops near where people are getting onand o. This system combines a lot o thinking. When you talk about transit-related development, you meanresidential and commercial development within a ew miles o the transit area.

When does the private car disappear? It doesnt disappear at any time. You pay or use o public inrastruc-ture. The price o ownership could go up two, our or ten times. Like the ownership o an aircrat or beachresort. We increase the snob ownership o cars. Car companies could come up with limited private cars or thetop 1.5% o the population. There is an understanding by the transportation economists called transportationmarket distortion.

It naturally induces you to think about how you can make it very impersonal and system-based where allyou have to do is call up a call center where it could be like a 511 and you tell them your start point/time anddestination/time. You can set preerences about kind o vehicles you like, or whether you want to travel alone,drive, take a backseat ride. Hands ree time is usable time. With more people sitting in a vehicle, you split theoperating cost. There is complete ticketing, so you get door-to-door connectivity. It simulates the private carexperience but it is even more eective.

Fine tuning the system to allow you to pick and choose when you are making a shopping trip, and then youcan choose a large vehicle. You want to check those whimsical purchasing patterns. Booking a vehicle gets youto respect time. There may be ees i you cancel, or example. I you plan ahead, there could be discounts (likeairline reservations).

The auto loan is replaced by the MetroLITE credit line (which would also be a buy back o your existingvehicle). I you dont give up your car, there will be some charging or having your car on the road. As highwayadministration costs become too high, that is around the corner. Road metering has been talked about in theU.S. or about a decade. Gas tax (or highway upkeep) is no longer a good proxy or road usage due to hybridand more uel ecient cars. Also, when you have a more ecient car, you drive more.

The delivery model is that consortiums are created. Cards are issued as a substitute or car loans. They may

be one quarter the cost o a car loan. The cards are used as multi-modal transport options. There are dierentlevels premium, gold, economy, etc. The bank could buy back your car and you settle the amount. You pay ausage-based ee every month. Its like a telephone or utility bill.

Every road stretch can be looked at as an asset which gives out access. You only pay or what you use. Justlike households have electricity meters, water meters, etc. Telecom and IT companies have a huge interest inbalancing the power o the old oil and automobile companies. These companies are impeding uture progressby blocking new initiatives.

What emerges is a system best represented by thinking about rail and using roads. We wouldnt constructmuch, just tting cars with new communications systems. Current metro stations because MetroLITE stations.We need to create new hubs around our current bus stops, etc. You will need space to park your lighter vehicles.


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All public roads create a priority to the ridesharing systems. Private, single-occupancy cars pay certain ratesor the privilege to drive on roads. You have much ewer seats idling either in the parking lot or on the streets.YS might have a ring loop around the area with stops are around the community. It could have our personvehicle on o times and eight person vehicles on busy times. Keep fexibility or inbound trac, expansion,tourists, etc.

We introduce a new set o vehicles that are small, silent and less polluting. These are good dogs or theneighborhood. We can set up a manuacturing acility or this eight-seat vehicle that could be light industry.There are 3,000 Gee Whiz vehicles in London alone (pure electric). This only possible when you have doneaway with the stray dogs. Heavy vehicles are no longer welcome in this district. There is a cost associated withthem because they are a hazard and they are not ree to drive on the public roads. People eel much saer andsecure in biking when the cars are no longer there.

Neighborhood cars that go slowly and then larger cars or long trips. There are people movers that takeyou the rest o the way (swipe your card). More street side malls, so you take your cart rom your home to theoutdoor market.

The people mover could be a mini-bus that circulates around town. They can be automated. Talking to arobotics company about this. There is just an emergency lever or people to pull i they need to. These are soeasy to drive, and people could get ree mileage points or driving. Buses are high capacity. Rather we wouldwant high requency. An eight-seater would be more useul. They could also be demand responsive. There arecollision avoidance systems that could be put on the aster moving vehicles.

The two-seater car is Reva Electric Vehicle Company is the best available. Free charging stations in the UK,so the car pays itsel back in two months. The idea is to encourage and induce more and more people to taketo lighter vehicles, which has its own dynamic and rub o.

Then you have the home zones that dont allow the stray dogs. The entire area is pedestrian and bikingriendly. As a result you have the charging stations (with solar panels). Also have cycling tracks that cross overto other home zones.

The notion o sharing the road had something hidden that is someone decided not to share very nicely,

the hazards are huge. Debilitating accidents are common. Also, you shouldnt have to lock the bike all the time there could be electronic locks at bike racks. You dont even need a bicycle. You dont need to own anything you just need access with your plan. There could be a locator or bikes.

What about making a 5-mph speed limit? It would not be energy-ecient to have cars go at that speedbecause theyre designed to be optimal higher than that. Cars would pollute ar more i they were orced to goat those speeds. What about imposing that just within the home zone.

People may then start selling there car and seeing that the bikes are ne or them, that thats all they need.They can then buy a subscription plan which allows access to the various multi-modal vehicles. You couldreplace all the vehicles o YS at some time. The rst people could get a better price. The auto companies coulduse a buy-back o certain cars, or cash down or towards a mobility service subscription.

Other Examples

Kellys Island in Ohio and Hilton Head in North Carolina have a model o disallowing or deterring car useso that walking and biking is more prominent. Places can choose what they want to be i they want the buzzo city lie or i they want to be ast paced with cars running through. The choice must be with the peoplethrough a process which allows them to become aware o what the various possibilities are. It increases thesense o consumer options across a whole range o liestyle issues. This model doesnt take things away, it oersa larger palette. It is an enrichment model, enhances quality o lie.

Bob: Chautauqua, NY is an enclosed walkable community. There is a parking lot on the edge o the gate.When they enter, they cannot take their vehicles. Once youre there it becomes only walking and bicycling.


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There are small grocery stores, pharmacies, youth center, etc.

Community in Germany is car-ree. Most cars on the outside are private rather than shared. It wasnt agreen eld but it was easier than putting in good roads within the community.

You are looking or a system that can reclaim public roads and re-write the rules so that private vehicleshave no inherent right to use public roads. There are all sorts o examples where this is happening incremen-

tally. The new transport director in New York is taking cars out o certain areas o the city. They have beoreand ater pictures where beore it was a tangled mass o cars and now people are reading books in the middleo the street. Its now a concrete park. She is getting push back primarily or commercial ventures. There areexamples o where people are taking back the public roadway. There is the complete streets movement in theU.S., which means whenever you look at a public thoroughare; it should be sae and accessible or all transitoptions. Thats gaining currency in the U.S. right now. Finding the place that has the political mechanism willbe the challenge.

Philosophy/Benefits

Rather than waiting or people to believe that ridesharing has become a necessity, oer attractive traveloptions, broadening the palette o oerings beyond private vehicle and public transit. Rather than creatingridesharing options, creating attractive alternative transportation options. There is a disconnect in todays transport systems. There is nothing called private transport, because thereare not private roads. The whole business o allowing private cars unbridled access to public roads doesnthold certain tests o objectivity. By that argument, there is nothing called public transport thats about pullingpeople out o cars and into buses. Its not the public that transports; it is always about personalized transportsystems. The debate needs to be shited to how we can provide personalized mobility/transportation servicesindustry.

One allacy premise is to replace the car with the bus (misleading and counterproductive). Youre askingpeople to do something they dont like and unless they are orced, they wont. I they have attractive, personal-ized transport optionsi you make sure the one kilometer walk is not intruded, not severanced. You dont

want to deer people rom walking because they might get hit by trac. A biker or pedestrian would like a route that is sae, uninterrupted and pleasant. Today when we walk orbike its right next to trac so its not pleasant. It should induce them to walk an extra mile. It would be thatthere are more people that are taking that route. Peer-to-peer rub-os. It becomes a social phenomenon.Instead o working at the gym, we would do a nature walk. This would be a health benet. This would radi-cally bring down healthcare costs.

We are sharing the planet. The need or sharing the car is that it has our or more seats. I there were singleseat private cars, there wouldnt be a problem.

The model can adapt itsel to be density agnostic. It could be in the range o a ew thousand. Presumablyyou could have an upscale community with 500 people. It would have things or every purpose and taste. You

could create new communities to t your taste. We wouldnt shit the physical inrastructure. The rst thing isto use your current inrastructure and create a landscape that is meaning.

Creating a chart o good growth and bad growth model or transportation. Annual models versus biannual.Cost o car is 0.6 and benets in terms o utilization and occupancy is 10 times (so 16 times). More accelera-tion versus more eciency.

There are ideological prop ups in terms o my reedom includes ree, uninterrupted, unbridled access toroads, which makes cars more like stray dogs in terms o system regulation. This creates problems because youcant manage it because you dont know where its coming rom. Cars are like second hand smoking in thatthey are a hazard. They can bark, deecate on your property, bite you, etc.

Horses are or courses. Automobile doesnt do well in neighborhood trips. Rather than a source o reedom,


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it is a source o deprivation. You dont have that luxury to drop your car anywhere and walk back home. Thestray dog keeps ollowing you and you dont want it.

Auto has been a wonderul innovation. But it turned bad because it got carried away. It was a good dogat some point o time. We didnt take care and it is coming back to haunt us. The car also deprives you o anexchange with people that you have while walking. Car to car exchanges can be less pleasant. Even i you just

see other peoples aces, you can see how they are and care or them. It deprives the intergenerational exchangeas well.

It will allow lots o people to cross the chasm and induce people who have been thinking a while aboutgiving up their car to do so. When youre doing regular biking, it needs to be clean, because youre breath-ing deep. Enthusiasm is one part and you have to be practical during a longer period. A big actor that deterspeople to biking and walking is the street experience. Bike paths are sometimes not very attractive. I wouldrather have more space. The bike paths are choked or space. I would preer some lateral space. I you tookroads originally made or vehicles, you would create more width.

Re-retailing, creating these horizontal malls, is one place where jobs could be created. It requires lots o netuning o the street congurations. It also suppresses the cost o living as it creates more disposable income.

Pre-automobile village lie with the advantages o connecting to another village within a hal an hour. Youget the pace o lie and agrarianism and localization o pre-auto village lie. Without as many capital expenses,incomes dont need to be as high and people could recreate locally more. You dont have the isolation o pre-automobile village lie. Sections o urban areas would be more village-like and involve more interaction amongthe people. You can set the pace o the place. The place must refect the aspirations. Dierent locations couldset dierent speeds. As soon as we do that, we need to distribute these services so that you dont have things onthe outskirts; you have it in the neighborhoods.

All congurations are possible and the community determines it. How decentralized or centralized isdecided. The biggest problem when having too many people in a place is too many cars, parking, etc. Manypeople walking creates a certain vibrancy. You can have village lie which has a lot o empty streets possibly.There is a sense o distress and need to do things quickly.

There is an implication or small, local communities that we can now envision in a way we couldnt beore.The only thing we do now concretely or small, local communities is gardening. In India there are 44 storesper 1,000 or 10,000 people and in the U.S. its 3. We used to have small, local businesses and now we go tostrip malls and Wal-Mart. In history, looking at people living at low energy level you have India, Indonesia,etc. This allows us to go into the topic o localization at the level o commerce and household small produc-tion manuacturing and maintenance skill. Village-level commerce can be envisioned much more easily.Prosumer we shouldnt just be consumers. Its more like do-it yoursel.

I you go back 100 years you had street cars that had reight trailers or delivery. There were reight street-cars that ran at night. In the north o Norway, they run buses that are hal a bus and hal a truck. People sit inthe ront and in the back are huge palettes. 100 years ago the progressive transportation was streetcars.

The reason why there is congestion is not that people make bad decisions, its because they dont pay orcongestion they cause. I they have to pay or it, then they would be able to choose the routes or themselves.Whether to make, when to make, where to make and how to make the drive and the route choice.

It mimics everything a private car does and tries to do it better. It leaprogs over the Bus Rapid Transit Sys-tem. The system doesnt mimic people wanting to have a mess and leave the mess. There is a price to retainingyour car and the whimsical value. We should pay or what we use. You want to make judicious costs. It costsyou more every time you book a trip because you have to pay or road maintenance. It is inclusive o all whimsand ancies. Keeping a private car will be much more expensive it will pay its true costs (congestion, parking,roads, insurance, etc.). It shouldnt be xed costs and then marginal costs are just $0.15 so you overuse it.

We take a ull cost, ull benets objective. Comort, convenience, accessibility (all other needs) has to be


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taken care o. For the car to work or you, you need the reedom to drive or to take a backseat ride. You needthe reedom and value added o choosing co-riders. The reedom that comes rom being hands-ree and havingaccess to internet, music, etc. The driver has voluntarily opted or doing this and gets rewards. Driver pro-ciency helps create a ritual around it and creates game play.

Land use will change in the system because prices have ull cost. When transportation becomes more

expensive at marginal costs things change. Land use is a bigger problem than transportation. Real estate crisisis a land use crisis. Exurbs will collapse they only make sense when gas is cheap. Suburbs will be ghettos andcities will be revitalized.

Benets/Features o the MetroLITE system:

1. Advance Travel Inormation No Waiting2. Better Vehicle3. Better Roads4. Better Driver5. Green Corridor6. Fewer Signals Foot/Cycling over bridges

7. No Congestion8. Right o Way9. Turn-by-Turn Navigation Assistance10. Real-time Incident Management11. Reserved Parking12. Smartcard Payment13. Option to Ride or Drive (earn Mileage Points)14. Passenger Telematics

Objections/Responses

Dicult to understand. Smart Jitney is much easier to convey that you give up your car or park it moreoten and ride with others.

Is it legal? What about liability? Would there need to be legislation? Could there be a lawsuit? There may beprovisions or reerendums. In Sweden, the laws were tweaked so that those who lived in the community hadthe say, not the outside visitors. There may be a compensation issue or those who have invested in parkinglots, meters, etc. There are zoning laws that say that a certain number o parking spaces with each business.

o But those may be business risks. We need to learn about the state, local, ederal laws and the precedence.We need a lawyer to come up with new legal rameworks.

What about Zipcar? ZipCar has lost lots o money. It has been propped up as a showcase.

o Zipcar does nothing or increasing the occupancy o vehicles. It just deters more requent trips. Neurideoers reward points or drivers and riders who coordinate their travel plans in Houston. The numbers o usersdont cross one in ten thousand in terms o ridesharing.

o We belong to a similar fock o organizations doing ridesharing projects, but we speciy a whole new system.Theres more interest working with AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, etc. What were trying to do here is not rideshar-ing. Unless Zip Car was able to incorporate ridesharing, it wouldnt make a dierence. I it doesnt make adierence o more than one percent in ten years, then it doesnt make a dierence.

Even though Zip Car had a limited impact on the environment, it changed peoples minds get some people togive up their car and have a good experience with doing so. So people gained a lot o experience and learned a lot.

What about the obstacles o legacy, inertia and ideology? Old habits and feets o vehicles in which weve


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sunk the investment. Inertia in terms o breaking out o the habits. The role o preerence reversal in our lives.I our car is in our garage, we will use it. We get in our car because its there.

What about bad weather?o During extreme weather conditions, there could be exigencies. Wind chill actor in cold weather is not aselevated due to low speeds o the vehicles. Also, you can allow vehicles to come in or some days/seasons.

Can this be implemented incrementally? I am picturing that this is in act happening incrementally. I couldpicture the Hyde Park neighborhood or some areas in San Francisco. The early adopters would be the rst todo it, but not everyone would get on board immediately. Some would give up their cars.

o No. Thats the biggest challenge, you almost need a conversion point. You need to nd the neighborhoodthat is ready to convert.

o With an incremental approach, you dont create that auto-ree (sae) zone so it loses momentum very soon.

Its not going to be an easy sell to anyone around the world, not just the U.S. YS has lots o people whoconsider themselves environmentalists, who have the longest commutes in the region.

o It has to be a multi-pronged approach. You can also get ederal attention to how its integral to get a hookon a two billion dollar decit. I you can see that picture, you would appreciate how to create a model, i YS or

the Miami Valley region decides to be a rst mover. It would set it up or worldwide attention and be lookedat as a hub. It could become its bread and butter and it becomes an investment.

The challenge is that there is no YS to decide. No elected body could make the decision or the commu-nity. The kind o scenarios that popped into my mind were abandoned college campuses that are going outo business. It would seem easier to re-populate with like-minded people, these campuses. We wanted to buya bankrupt college campus and create a multi-generational community. People chose to buy cars, the autoinrastructure wasnt imposed upon them.o People didnt choose in a reerendum to abandon the tram lines, they were bought up by GM anddestroyed. What do people really care about and what do they need. This is one o the most likely propositionsthat comes closest to refecting peoples aspirations and that marries the communication technology that has its

own attractiveness (peer-to-peer messaging, etc.). Why do we need mobility?

o There has to be dissemination because individuals are not sel-sucient in terms o creating and achievingtheir goals. We want more cosmopolitan than parochial. We want to move out o our box and expand theboundaries. Humans are explorers. We can have the best o both worlds in a way we can enhance both worlds.

But there is a political system. You can only get something through i the median voter elects that. Themedian voter likes their car very much right now.

o They dont. Why do cars have to be sold so hard, using all the tricks in the book?

This would only work i we had a dictatorship and we implemented it, and then in 10 years asked people, ithey would like to continue it. They would have learned, and have had dierent experiences. Then give them

the choice to go back to the old system, or keep the new system. Right now we have a system o everyone hav-ing their own car and this is just an intellectual exercise.

o Another way this gets done is that you run a campaign and you let people see in clear light how they arebeing consumed.

Seems to be much easier to implement and sell in China and India to skip over the private car ownershipperiod. It will be hard to overcome the learning in the U.S. This will make people better o than not owninga car, but hard to convince people in the U.S. who wont see that theyll be better o. But they still have anaspiration to own a car. Why better in the U.S.?

o No, its not because the source o the memes are here in the U.S. The system requires GPS. You need morethan the Germany truck systems.


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10 ExploringInnovativeTransportationSystems:DiscussionswithVikashChandra

Some say that there should not be separation between bikes and cars.

o The issue i you have lots o bikes, they should be separated because it will be too many. I there are a ew,then you have to protect them. The likelihood o people biking and getting hurt gets so low that many morepeople bike.

The reason why car-ree neighborhoods (like in Freiberg, Germany and some cities in Caliornia) are so

controversial is because no one knows about re-sale value because what i parking is not in ront o your house?In Germany the contract comes that you have to sign that you will never own a car. I you dont sign it, youhave to move out. They dont know how to enorce the contracts. What i a child becomes an adult and wantsto own a car?

Do these radical models have they been able to infuence more people? There is a pattern o stunted growthin a lot o these initiatives and there is not an organic growth. They are still in combat mode, those who persistwith notions o owning a car versus not owing a car. This tango is an underlying philosophy.

o No intention to undermine these projects, but they havent moved to the next stage in due course. Theyvestagnated and dragged everything with it. By creating hub and spoke is how you increase occupancy. But thenit is a land use question. You wont mimic the car 100%.

You still have to deal with people. Look at the YS Village Council. The devil is in the implementation.Hard to judge the technical part o the MetroLITE proposal. It would be hard or people to accept it as a way-o-lie. Maybe in 30 years when/i we see the rst signs o global warming. When things become dire, peoplewill ght or their survival.

o Going back 50 years to anti-Communist and racist eelings in the U.S., those are not strong anymore. Inthe uture, it could be accepted but today it wont be accepted.

Seems like a socialist transportation system because it is one large system. Mega-systems have mega-ine-ciencies and there will be very little room or innovation. There is no competition or decentralized decisions.Private transportation is decentralized decision-making.

o Every stretch is up or competition similar to how Telecom systems work. This is about customizationand personalization. Every one o these home zones will refect the personality o people living there. There isa disconnect o people and their habitats. It will aect orms so that it changes the unctions. There are aspectso good capitalism and good socialism.

I global warming turns out to be a bigger problem than wishing or, we would totally just get rid o thecar. We did it or thousands o years. The little step urther to get rid o personalized transportation is not hardater youve given up the car. But the consequences o getting rid o the car are much better than this system.

Does it eliminate the auto mechanics?

o They could retrot the cars with electronic systems (or navigation and location identication) and airline-like seats (armrests). There is a lot o engineering and design around it.

What about privacy?

o Privacy issue is dealt with due to everyone carrying cell phones. There is non-disclosure even though thedata is there. Our notion o privacy has to get re-negotiated with cell phones, electronic banking,, etc. On allthe carpooling sites, you have posted peoples names and destinations, so there is less privacy here.


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ExploringInnovativeTransportationSystems:DiscussionswithVikashChandras 11

Implementation Ideas

General

Plan to create a consortium o banks, telecom, auto companies, media and entertainment and energy. Startwith the metro area, then scale up to states and the country.

Need to connect with Wright-Patt and see i there are any Air Force applications that could be used. TheGPS system may need another 24 satellites in the next ew years.

The way we plan to implement it is by creating consortiums. Exploring who are the people who are gener-ally concerned about doing good and addressing larger problems. Cuba lm is about how to anticipate thecrisis. Crisis-ridden responses are not eective because they are too late.

We need to now get our gear together on creating specic proposals and start calling up these olks at theTIGER grant. Deadline extended to June 30. Great i MVRPC could partner with us or a DOT proposal. Itcould be another track. We want to increase the reach and create a campaign where hundreds o local govern-ments come to the table. DOT could ront us to a tune o $10 million to do test marketing o this completecampaign. I have gured out where we get the skill sets rom. We have to start working on a proposal.

Need to call up the Naveen Lamba, the global ITS head or IBM (based in NY). They have a great initiativeor Smarter Planet where they have papers. One is called Smart Railroads which was used or a Danish project.They might have money or a pilot project.

Though it can be demonstrated in a small place, its best to implement countrywide. One o the criteria orapplying or TIGER unds is that you can demonstrate success by February 2012. This could save the autocompanies instead o reinventing the wheel.

Over land bridges could be built or roughly $80K $100K each. Some o the larger ones may cost a bitmore.

Stimulus money will create a new legacy o carbon use putting money into roads. Raising CAF standardsis a bad thing i you lower the price o driving, people will drive more. The land use will suer. We need to

increase the cost o driving. Government is dealing with the Great Depression rather than climate change. Wecould put money into bus rapid transit rather than into cars and alternative uels.

This could be put into a New Solutions report and it might take months. Instead o 50 pages o notes, wewould have something. It would be a total transportation system rather than a quick x or reducing con-sumption.

Community Solutions primary unction is getting new ideas out into the world. We need to decide i thisis a priority. When we talk about a one or two day workshop, i we can oer something like this, we can showhow deeply we think. The question is who runs the shops? We need to bring it back into the neighborhoods.This is an expansive version o what happened in Cuba. It will sound outlandish to people and be shelved inthe short term. It will be necessary or local commerce to expand and we can show how it can be done and inan orderly way, not haphazardly.

Then you can create a competition between communities as to who are going to benet the most by beingrst movers. Various communities could bid to become MetroLITE ready. This creates a buzz that spreadsover the entire region, so people dont eel like theyre the only specimens being converted, especially when itchallenges their habits. It would be a well planned marketing campaign, as GM does a campaign. A personal-ized mobility services campaign. It creates a draw rather than pushing it and tying our ates to people thinkingavorably o it. There are market orces (AT&T, Sprint, Microsot, car companies) that have a lot to gain romit.


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Marketing Ideas

The rst chart o the presentation is that we have a serious resource problem (not that it will be un). Then youbring in the higher quality, that as we reduce consumption, we will live dierent but wont be deprived. People aremore likely to make a change i they see themselves happier ater the change. This system talks about the ways we

will be better o and how we can respond to the shocks and crises, unrelated to their probability o arriving.

We need an animation lm, a usage scenario or the public. The presentation is or developing the consor-tium. Its or transportation planners, local governments, Department o Transportation, companies, etc.

We tell people that they have their right to keep the car. We dont even say that the prices will be high. Wetell them that the way you use it, you will pay or use. There have been objections rom people who use theircar very judiciously who would like to pay only or car usage.

Rather than circulating vehicles, you could say hop ins, hop outs. Need a better description o the transerexperience. First you got your mornings walk. Then you had your head covered in the people mover and sawyour riends. Then i you like driving, you get rewarded with ree mileage points. You have a sae ride becauseyoure with a good driver. I youve had a ew drinks, youve ridden saely. Another benet is that your child issaer, the air will be cleaner, and there is less noise pollution. Youll save money and wont eel guilty about the

end o the planet. This is a narrative, illustrative approach. For transportation planners, Id say heres what were doing and why were doing it and the technology thatwe have. For the public, there would be a marketing campaign (pump priming) that could be a presentationwith the narrative or a short lm.

I we were presenting this to Council, we could develop the theme o the public roads and how they willdegrade with the current cost scheme. Then we could talk about the climate change impacts. We could explainhow it works and the benets.

Who gets hurt could be a chart. Could include businesses that need to shit and re-skill. Auto mechanics,parking lot attendants, police? Could put where those who might lose their jobs get re-skilled in. Talk aboutcrime abatement as getaway is not as easy. Vehicles tted with remotely controlled emergency response sys-tems. There is a pool o service sta that are skilled in driving in case no one wants to drive. The producer andconsumer are merged (prosumer, do-it-yoursel). They could also be service mechanics, parking attendants,shiting bicycles huddled up in one location, cleaning, up-keep, re-ueling, and charging customers. They couldbe public or private employees.

Road lie will increase with less wear-and-tear. Roads can also be redesigned to become more porous so raincan go through, walkways can have photovoltaic coverings, etc. Dependency on the grid is reduced.

We need to simulate the amount o accidents, but we can say it will be a saer community because weveimproved the prole o driving, vehicles, sequestration and homogeneity o feets moving together on one corri-dor, ewer vehicles, and ewer vehicles in pedestrian zones. Auto insurance is not needed because o reduced risko collisions. There could be chaperoned services or children (drops and pickups rom school, sports practice,and daycare).

We need a brie presentation on how we are dierent rom other programs. Then create something else thatresponds to their concerns.

Looking at MetroLITE versus conventional ridesharing systems. MetroLITE can give travel time assurancedue to monitoring all trac on the road and knowledge o road capacities. There could be places where GPSnavigation moves cars to dierent routes. This is the national MetroLITE version, rather than the local pilotproject.

On road saety and road quality service assurance because you identiy better drivers, there are ewer driv-ers and ewer cars on the road. We create a eedback loop between road demand and supply. You know vehiclemiles on every stretch o the road and can decide to add lanes, etc. The government or operator gets a percent-age o vehicle mile ares to maintain the roads.


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Questions about the viability o conventional ridesharing: Its hard to match start time, return time, etc., andto do it over a closed user group is almost impossible, unless you try really hard or its a actory with a closingbell. Its not the case or most work that we do today.

Enhancing the on the road experience, enriching your travel experience, not giving anything up.

Focus on the distressed areas and what people arent happy with (gas prices, going without ood to aord

driving to work, being stuck with larger cars) One way to tell the story is to take photos o whats wrong with this picture? You could show people whodrive in with bike racks on their car to go cycling on the bike path. We need to persist with Judys kind o think-ing. Our position is not getting rid o the car, but taming the car.

Use o energy audit sotware to measure and report on your energy savings. Hara is a kind o sotware youcan use. It is one o the most powerul tracking tools. It allows things to be validated by dierent parties.

Yellow Springs Ideas

Yellow Springs ts the bill and seems to be a good candidate due to the various economic, cultural, socialaspects.

Yellow Springs transportation problem is commuters coming in and out o town every day. Local employerscould help employees share rides. Many academics commuting to the nearby major universities.

Economically, Yellow Springs has lost its industry automobile parts manuacturer and Antioch College.Antioch buildings could be converted to value-added agriculture production acilities and shoe repair and otherlocal services.

Maybe Antioch represents new commercial spaces. Students could avoid debt i they make money and beproductive while they study. Antioch could be the school where this could be taught. The buildings becomethe manuacturing plants the retail centers (light, non-toxic). It is a training session. Permaculture is about reuseand wasting nothing and imitating natures ability to do it. Integrate sot permaculture with hard engineering.Then we could have the vision and its a timely way to start.

In Yellow Sprints, the transer stations could be at the municipal building at the northeast, one at the southend on US-68, and one at the western side at Dayton street around McGregor. Downtown would have no carsmoving through, as people would transer on the edges o town.

The visual element would enhance YS. Every weekend would be like street air.

Lots o people are traveling out o YS, could they log in into a business center which had desks, axmachines, etc. Slots could be booked. Its a combination o working rom house and working rom a businesscenter. Footprint is lower and relocation would not be necessary. Could be a survey o what the job require-ments are and what people would need in a business center.

Using the Smart Jitney or people that live in YS and work outside o town as well as or those who workin YS and dont live here. YSI and Morris Bean also likely have commuters coming rom local communities.Creative Memories promotes it and there is a group that regularly carpools but would like to see a broaderapproach, including networking with other local companies. People already come to YS to ride a bike on the bike trail and enjoy nature. It seems like a tourist town onthe weekends. Whenever you go to the vacation spots, they have great options or shuttles, buses, bikes, etc.There are technical aspects that are hard to ollow.

This could be presented to the village. It would have to be an investment or nding routes, dividing up thecommunity, creating paths, etc. The dicult part is changing the behaviors o people that dont care. Whateverthey care or, as long as its not harming others, we will take care o. Demonstrating that it will benet andpossibly enhance their liestyle will give you the buy-in rom the larger audience. Money spent or bike pathsconnecting larger cities shouldve been spent on bike paths within communities.


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Travel Diary Study

Start with the Yellow Springs travel diary study. There should be no objections to collecting good qualitydata that will help with decision-making.

JAVA-enabled mobile phones are required to develop a travel matrix study rom travel diaries. JAVA is anoperating system or cell phones (an applet that can be downloaded).

You key in your time sign, so the time stamp gets recorded. At the end o the day, it gets uploaded. Thesystem takes the time stamps and the geocodes/location (GPS enabled phones). The time stamps and locationcodes then get mapped.

It appears on a GPS map as where people are starting and going. This lets us establish the location o hubs,where ridesharing hubs could be located.

Several thousand devices would be required or Yellow Springs, and they could get re-used in other commu-nities to do studies there. They take two weeks.

There have been good response rates in one UK example, it was 72%.

You could oer two options download the application or your current mobile phone or rent out a hand-set or two weeks.

To buy the devices, then rent them out the payback would be 24 to 30 weeks. They cost around $80 to$100 each..

E/I labs has procured some o these devices. A Yellow Springs study would be the rst on a comprehensivescale in the U.S. Similar devices exist in other areas.

This was discussed briefy at the MIT conerence, though pen and paper diaries were used more widely.MIT is more interested in understanding what would motivate someone to give up their car and share rides.

Partnering with IT Companies

AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, etc., have a big stake in doing this because it enables the satellite system to becomemore viable. The advantage o shiting rom 3G to 4G will be important. Phones will not just receive butrelays calls. This increases the bandwidth and its all IP-based. The applications have not come orth yet, butthis will be combined with GPS systems. Our rst phase initiatives will be sponsored by Telecom companies.Getting this cooperation (and the TIGER grant) will challenge our marketing skills. Nokia is developing aphone you can just tap to other phone or kiosk to transer data.

Logica is a new Dutch company that wants to be international. They have $4 to $5 billion in annual rev-enues and are the third or ourth largest IT company in Europe. There is an oce in Houston and New York.

Intelligent Transport Systems is one o their ocus areas. Vikash met with the head o intelligent transportsystems, Cees Dewjis. Also met with global innovation director

Logica has been able to ocus on innovation, rather than Indian companies which are ocused on outsourc-ing, so they cant productize solutions. They need to ront end solutions, innovate solutions.

Logica would be a good innovation partner or housing, ood and transportation. Vikash would be an advi-sor/consultant.

Should we do a rst approximation o how much energy would be saved by moving to this system? IBMcould help with these metrics. We have done this groundwork would you like to come in and strengthen ourcapacities to deliver? IBM would come in as the IT partner. They would sit down with us and determine howmany handheld devices we would need or the travel diaries? We would then nd a manuacturer. They wouldset up the database management and monitoring. We would co-own the system and do a negotiation. Theywould put in money or the early stages o the pilot.


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Other Discussions

Applying Technology Solutions to Plan C Options for Housing and Food

Would like to learn more about air fow dynamics and standard operating procedures o a Passive House.Passive house cost is 5 to 10% more How do the energy savings amortize over the period o the house? Sees

weatherizing millions o homes as a part o the stimulus agenda. Weatherizing multiple times is very dicult,Better to do it once at 90%. As a new idea, Pat said that this is getting a lot o resistance. U.S. Green Build-ing Council is promoting LEED buildings at 25% energy savings. Passive house says to ocus on the envelopebeore the appliances. $50K per house needed to retrot, or $100 million houses.

For the Passive house, the technologies and methods could be automating. Automating them could savea lot o costs. For organic arming to become as productive as conventional, you could do weather and soilmonitoring. Some o the processes o tilling, seeding could be automated. We need to make arming more userriendly, while trying to de-chemical the use.

The German sotware is not user riendly its a tech based spreadsheet. We should be able to marry a threedimensional model o building with the specications and air fow dynamics. We can co-create new solutions

would help us tap the unding rom the economic stimulus. 3D solid object compression in a ew kb o inormation, and do simulations o passive houses. Creatingcomputer based training or passive housing is a big opportunity. Whenever we have to start writing there is ahard amount o work. There is a whole sector that serves this called E-learning. They specialize in taking downspecs and looking at the whole nature o learning. Some o their visualizers and program designers wouldattend the sessions. There are lots o companies that work out o India. In a more collaborative mode, wecould start out with some sort o agency we know o, with a lower cost estimate. Logica is not into e-learning,but many are Upside Learning is one. They could also create e-learning manuals or arming.

We could take up Robs arm as a pilot. We could study how things look. At the beginning it looks messy.We could help people with how to take out drudgery towards reproducibility, scalability, etc. It sounds likewe could apply systems thinking to arming. We could talk to Albert Bates. Soil tests and plant tissue tests

(because even with some minerals, i there arent enough microbial elements, then its not available to plants).Determining i the plants are able to withstand disease and be the most nutritious. We could talk to PeterBane and Sharon Astyk as well.

Systems review o organic arming so it could become more ecient, productive, scalable and reproduc-ible. What is the role o inormation technology in local, organic ood systems. Some to alleviate the drudgeryo organic gardening. Organic arming helpline this is already happening in rural India. This could ll thegap o ignorance in arming. This might be a reason to go back to Cuba. We could also link with VandanaShiva and the Land Institute. We could work with IBM to design, build, maintain and track energy savings inpassive houses, develop liecycle analyses, provide a graphical user interace or PHPP, nancing retrots, townbuilding energy audits,

We could also organize a workshop with IBM, biotech, permaculturists, etc., to create the high-tech sup-port system or organic arming.

Vikash Assumptions and PhilosophyPresentation: Eco-system Innovation by Design Synopsis of an Innovators Experiments in Real Life

Two worldviews: Microbial Microcosm and Consumerist Fanaticism. Inter-balancing them leads to the bestoptions.

Part o the problem with overcoming materialism is that items have meaning and memory. They are part othe rituals, which every society has had or generations. Unless we recreate the olklores in a way that pandersto both sides o our nature, we will not be successul.


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While everything has a shel-lie, we have a moral responsibility to avert premature collapse.

How do we move rom a take, make, waste existence? We exploit the soil to get our minerals and we usethem and dump them. Thats not how nature works. I we are to sustain all the way through, we have to livecradle-to-cradle. Reconditioning, reusing, composting, etc. Take the nutrients out o waste.

Progress cannot be about gaining some and losing a lot. The air and water need to be clean. While progress

has to march orward, we have to keep innovating and creating new systems which restore those values. Even as lie becomes ar less drudgery (how do we create time or arts, literature, culture), it must be in atango in a process o restoring what we have destroyed. The eedback loops become very important.

Consumerism is no accident we were designed to be here. We need growth, but we dont need growth byaking the reality. We need real growth, not cancerous growth. We need real wealth indicators.

One o the tracks was going overboard (consumerist anaticism) while the microbial microcosm was beingsubdued. Consumerism has been the dominant model governing most countries in the world, and has beenexperienced by more than one generation as the norm.

People collect their childhood experiences and the rituals around them. Even i people realize that the cur-rent reality doesnt serve them well, we dont have the other option ready.

One versus the other (agrarian and industrial) is not the best way orward its both and. A sustainableindustrial society which stimulates us in a variety o ways is the goal. We cannot relapse into the old age, agrar-ian world.

Coming to the confict between the natural support systems or armers versus green revolution (whichwas neither green nor a revolution). Pale green and blue catastrophe is a better name. It has caused epidemicso cancer, poisoning o air and water. From bread basket to basket case. India is struggling with imposition ogreen revolution on traditional agriculture.

IT companies have ailed to grow their domestic markets. We need lots more localization and collabora-tion/co-creation. There will be a lot o localization. The 20-30 miles trips will be 2-3 miles. But we need moreteleconerencing and teleporting. They have to be supplanted in certain situations by ace-to-ace interactions.


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AppendixPowerPoint Presentation Innovation or Transportation Systems: Snapshots o High QualityMobility Services or 21st Century Realities


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workshop report on v-smart/mobilityxs in ohio united states

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