In Part 1 of “what moves you”, I discussed the demise of ICE. No, not melting polar ice, but the Internal Combustion Engine. Transportation is changing. The vehicles’ power source is not all there is to it, however. The whole concept of getting from point A to point B (and back?) is changing. Vehicles may be driving themselves. Ownership of cars may turn into ownership of transportation capability and have nothing at all to do with a car.
If this seems strange, and you think it’s a game-changer, consider what the car itself did to society when it first arrived on the scene. It was a huge pivot in the entire concept not only of moving people around but in the way that cities and commerce and social networks grew.
The inspiration for this Part 2 comes from a great article by Carlo Ratti and Assaf Biderman in the most recent edition (July 2017) of Scientific American.
The focus of the article (and the special report within this issue of the magazine) is on cities. This article is called “From parking to paradise”, and is (I believe) a tribute to the Joni Mitchell song, “Big Yellow Taxi”, in which she sings, “they paved paradise, and put up a parking lot”. The article talks about how the possibility exists to reverse that trend (thus… parking to paradise, not the other way around).
Here are some of the ways that ‘what moves you’ is going to change in the future, and how project managers will be leading the way – because this is change, and that is what project managers lead – change.
Traffic Control
Have you ever thought about how much fuel is wasted, and emissions arrive simply based on the fact that traffic sits idle at an intersection?On top of this there is the frustration and sometimes anger (and accidents) that occur at sloppily-designed intersections. The concept here is that vehicles would be given time slots to pass through intersections.With the increase in autonomous (or at least intelligently-communicating) vehicles, city planners could eliminate traffic lights.Studies show that twice as many vehicles may be able to pass through intersections in the same timeframe using this method of ‘batching’ vehicles into timeslots, based on their requests to pass through the intersection.
Shared Vehicles
What percentage of time do you think cars sit idle? 50%? 70%? 90%? Keep going. It’s actually ninety-six percent. That is a resource that is perfect for a sharing economy. Already, Zipcar and Car2go have taken advantage of this huge resource. Does it make a difference? According to the article, every shared vehicle removes the equivalent of 9 to 13 cars from the streets. A study at MIT showed that with such sharing, the ‘mobility demand’ for a city like Singapore could be met with only 30% of its existing vehicles. Imagine that: 70% of the cars (and the accompanying noise, emissions, manufacture, maintenance, and disposal of such – gone.
Shared Taxis
The authors used data from 170 million taxi trips and studied the effects of ride sharing to these trips, finding that taxi sharing could reduce the number of cars needed by 40%, with only minimal delays for passengers.
We get New Jersey Back!
Here’s another trivia question for you. How much of the USA is “parking lot”? Guess. No, really. Guess. Turns out, it’s an area almost as large as New Jersey. With the changes that the new transportation (yes, I am going to use that word) paradigm provides, much of that parking would no longer be needed. What does that look like? New public spaces, parks, playgrounds, more living space…
Risk = Opportunity + Threat
There is a lot of positive risk here (as PMs we know this as opportunity). However, it must be managed properly. Of course, there are safety threats. If we put too much faith in computer-driven cars, it could bring a whole new meaning to a system crash. Here’s another one. If autonomous cars become so inexpensive that public transportation is less utilized, this could backfire and there could actually be an increase in the number of vehicles in cities.
Still, the article concludes that if the transition is done thoughtfully (which I interpret as with good long-term project management practices) the shift to these new transportation mechanisms will achieve “a safer and more pleasant urban experience”, reflecting “the very mission of our cities, which dates to the …first human settlements 10,000 years ago – bringing us together, regardless of the kind of vehicles we are moving in”.
We should look back at history. Not long ago we lived at close proximity to work didn't need a ICE car, efficient mass transit. Check who close them in the early 1900!
"A statesman is an easy man, he tells his lies by rote. A journalist invents his lies and rams them down your throat. So stay at home and drink your beer and let the neighbors vote!"
SA is “parking lot”? Guess. No, really. Guess. Turns out, it’s an area almost as large as New Jersey. With the changes that the new transportation (yes, I am going to use that word) paradigm provides, much of that parking would no longer be needed. What does that look like? New public spaces, parks, playgrounds, more living space…