What you call mobility is changing.
Electronomous’ insightful “Global Thought Leaders Predictions for Mobility 2023” is pointing toward a mobility landscape that is becoming more individualized and shared. Tailored to increasingly specific needs from users that no longer demand private vehicle ownership. As such, the hypothesis of “Peak car” seems like a fact that has finally dawned on us — that private car distance traveled per capita is at its highpoint and will from now on steadily decrease over time.
We are entering into a new era of mobility with previously unimagined initiatives and trends spurred by the post-covid era and imminent climate change:
- Steady ridership is decreasing. Public transport agencies will have to redefine themselves from “one size fits all” into a larger landscape of “Mobility as a Service” (MaaS) and collaborate with other mobility services to suit the post-pandemic mobility user.
- Shared mobility is on the rise. The younger generation no longer considers private vehicle ownership as either feasible or desirable. And people have gotten a taste for what it means for their transportation habits in cities that no longer encourage fossil-fuel private car use.
- Cities, municipalities and public authorities will play a bigger role in reshaping our streets from private to shared ownership of vehicles and will have to co-create the new shared mobility landscape together with citizens and operators to keep up with the increasing demand. A promising sign is that government agencies are starting to actively fund modal shifts. But they will have to find new ways of collaborating built on a foundation of trust that allows for data-sharing. Which brings us to the next point.
- Data will be the necessary lighthouse for navigating a complex transition to the future mobility landscape. Finding ways to enable the exchange and free flow of data through so-called Mobility Data Spaces will become ever so urgent to develop systems of collaborative action between operators, public transport agencies and local authorities. Because remember, building a new mobility landscape means changing behavior.
- Getting everyone onboard will therefore become an ever more urgent challenge. Maintaining the boom of shared mobility services in a sustainable manner is difficult for both operators and local authorities. Together with public transport agencies, they will have to take seriously the challenge of user convenience and include new and broad demographics to meet the climate action plans and equal accessibility in the new mobility landscape.
But what’s missing?
The role of payment solutions will become essential. Its role will shift from a mere transactional service to an overall coordinating and nudging facilitator if integrated with Web 3 blockchain technology, the next generation of web services built on digital currency transactions. It will be an entirely new type of payment solution that eases collaboration by enabling data sharing and speeding up broad behavioral change by providing financial incentives and convenient ticket systems for the last-and-first mile.
A payment solution running on a public blockchain has the potential in revolutionizing the way we work together in the attainment of a common goal. It does so by collecting the huge amount of data that mobility users generate and optimizes the way it’s stored, distributed and used, by making it accessible on a neutral and open network.
The current and inefficient Web 2 payment solutions force operators to process and store the data of their mobility services on their own isolated networks, selectively shared on non-standardized APIs. Meaning that data, the fuel for collaboration between private and public actors alike, is trapped in transaction silos and remains out of reach for the common good.
Instead, think of it as a digital wallet that uses digital blockchain currencies by which you pay for all mobility options within a network of operators, providers and stakeholders. Such a digital wallet would not only increase user convenience by providing a single interface from which to access last-and-first mile tickets and easy payments for each operator, service provider and public transport — but also function as the open Mobility Data Space that all stakeholders can draw from in developing their mobility services and co-creating the new mobility landscape.
Competition AND collaboration.
Roads, cities and transportation modes are undergoing a rapid transition. Public transport agencies are forced to redefine their identities. Municipalities are struggling to find what role they will play in either leading the change or stopping it in its tracks. Operators are disconnected and separated in their services which makes it hard for the customer to rely on shared and multimodal transportation. It's a problem of cohesion and coordination in a world that is changing at a fast pace.
A functioning shared mobility ecosystem requires a network of services working seamlessly together, which entails that various mobility actors must interact with each other in both a competitive and cooperative manner. Running on public blockchain technology, a digital wallet can process data in a standardized format that allows for integrating a network of mobility providers. Providers will be able to engage in healthy competition — cooperatively in an integrated mobility network.
Payment solutions of this kind will therefore play an important role as the facilitator of efficient change that brings every piece of the puzzle into a coherent whole. It will cement a mobility landscape that nourishes the means for healthy competition between operators as well as collaboration between actors across sectors — all in the effort of writing the new social contract of tomorrow’s mobility.
