Ride AI

This week Oliver interviews journalist David Zipper about the quietly brewing war over mobility data that is being played out between cities and shared micromobility operators. David is a Resident Fellow at the German Marshall Fund and a Partner in the 1776 Venture Fund, where he oversees investments in smart cities and mobility ventures. Following his tenure as director of NYC Business Solutions in Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration in New York City he served as director of Business Development and Strategy for two mayors in Washington, D.C. David has written a number of articles in Slate, Fast Company and The Atlantic covering, among other things, the rise of the Mobility Data Specification which we see as one of the building blocks to supercharge micromobility’s growth, and underpin the future operating systems for mobility in our cities. In this episode, we dig into: - What is the Mobility Data Specifications, and why are they significant? - Who are the major players arguing for or against MDS? - What are the implications of widespread adoption of standards in this space? - What will happen in the event of the preemption bill AB1112 passing in the California Senate, stripping cities of the right to collect the data that MDS provides, including the city that is leading the development of it. It’s a fascinating conversation about the politics playing out at the local and state levels as cities build new solutions. For a more detailed read, check out the article from Slate that David wrote: https://slate.com/business/2019/04/scooter-data-cities-mds-uber-lyft-los-angeles.html Unfortunately the good quality audio on David’s side got cut off around the 30 minute mark, so we default to the Skype recording. As always, let us know what you think on Twitter: @oliverbruce or @davidzipper

In this episode, we release the content from a recent MM Meetup call with Horace where he unpacks 'What makes Micromobility Disruptive?'. This was recorded from a call for our paid subscribers via the Substack newsletter, and grants exclusive access to Horace to ask questions on a monthly basis. It helps support the work that Horace, myself, James, Chase and Luke do to generate content for you guys, and grants you exclusive benefits like discounts to Summits, exclusive swag, early access to content and a community of other micromobility enthusiasts. See more details below. On the call, they cover: - How the current phase of scooters are similar to the Motorola Razr of the mid-late 2000s. - How dependent on infrastructure is Micromobility’s success? What can we learn from the deployment of both cellular and autonomotive infrastructure development? - The difference between adoption and disruption. Why adoption will come regardless, and what about disruption is predictable? How can we use language to track adoption? - What is micromobility actually disrupting? Why is it hard to convince others to see the market for something that is additive. - What segments are existing OEM’s not serving with their car products, and what opportunities does this present to micromobility providers? How is this causing them to flee the low end? - How disruptive are traditional electric vehicles? How is this different? - Micromobility deserts - what will happen in exurban areas? How does this track with the trend of urbanisation? - Christensen says that automobiles weren’t disruptive themselves, but the Model T was. Horace explains why.

In this episode, Oliver interviews Nick Lovett (@nicklovettnz), Transport Policy Planner at the Christchurch City Council in New Zealand. Nick runs the scooter trial with Lime, and has recently expanded the programme to Beam (Singapore) and Flamingo (a local competitor). As noted in earlier episodes, Christchurch has been widely praised for his progressive stance embracing micromobility. In this episode, we dig into the wider lessons both entrepreneurs and regulators can take from Christchurch’s example. Specifically, we cover: - The primary things that entrepreneurs need to understand when dealing with regulators - How regulators like Nick are thinking about the rise of business models like Lime and the new leading programme from Bird - The challenges with having cities adapt quickly to new transport modes, and what entrepreneurs need to watch out for. - What regulators are balancing while seeking to embrace micromobility in their cities.

In this episode, we publish the Software for Micromobility panel from the Micromobility California Summit. In this panel, Stacey Randecker Bartlett (Co-Host, The Flying Car) hosts a conversation with William Henderson (CEO, Ride Report), Tiffany Chu (COO, Remix), Alex Kirn (CEO, INVERS), Jake Sion (COO, Transit App), Victor Pontis (CEO, ScooterMap) about how software is enabling and empowering micromobility to be adopted into cities. Specifically they cover: - Whether they see the emergence of one app to rule them all - How software is integrating these services into a multimodal solution that can replace the job to be done of cars - How software enables the remote fleet management for shared assets - The software that cities are adopting to manage both shared fleets, as well as planning for their roadspace - What cities are starting to learn when they’re empowered with software - How MDS is working and not working for cities and operators - The challenges around privacy in software and open data standards - Their take on the potential for autonomous micromobility Be sure to get your tickets to Micromobility Europe (Berlin, 1st October), as well as sign up to the MM Newsletter at micromobility.io

In this episode, Horace and Oliver discuss Horace's visit to Christchurch, New Zealand for the ITSNZ T-Tech 19 conference. For those that don't know, Christchurch suffered a massive earthquake in 2011, levelling most of downtown and killing 181 people. The city has been rebuilt with great cycle/micromobility infrastructure, which has led to Lime Scooters and cycling as a modal being incredibly popular in the city. In this episode, we unpack: - why the concentration of political power in cities makes them more likely to be able to quickly adapt to micromobility changes - how the earthquake parallels the expected increase in volatility in environment we're likely to see from climate change, and how this benefits micromobility. - how sunk costs in infrastructure can and will hinder the adoption of micromobility, and why this is a mistake. - How the conformability of small vehicles allows them to permeate further into the city substrate in a way that larger vehicles cannot - How transport changes how we relate to cities, and the possibilities that we see with them. - How asset-light models suit an experience driven culture, and how this is a reflection of new forms of status. Be sure to check out micromobility.io for all the latest, sign up to our newsletter, and get tickets for Micromobility Europe which is happening on October 1st. Please also rate the show - it helps us get recommended to others. Cheers and let us know what you think on Twitter - @oliverbruce and @asymco

In this episode, we publish a panel discussion from the Micromobility California Summit in January. Derrick Ko (CEO, Spin), Michael Keating (CEO, Scoot), Sanjay Dastoor (CEO, Skip) and Sergio Romo (CEO, Grin) are interviewed by Cory Weinberg from The Information. They cover: - The scooter landscape as it was in January, and lessons learnt so far - The challenges they've faced ins scaling, and what they foresee ahead - Their changing relationships with cities - Which competitor company they respect the most - How OEM's such as Ford are thinking about the space. - How each of them think about capital raising, and the different approaches taken.

In this episode, Horace and Oliver unpack the Uber S-1 filing, noting, among other things: - The parallels between Uber's assessment of total addressable market and that which we've talked about on the Micromobility podcast. - The economics of short trips, and how these skew towards Micromobility vs Uber's existing rideshare business. - The strategy that makes the most sense for Uber to scale micromobility over the short to mid term. - We discuss the recent Barclays Bank report on micromobility that also further validates Horace's and Uber's analysis of the market potential. We also discuss the Micromobility book, the Micromobility Membership and the upcoming Micromobility Summit in Europe on October 1st. For details on all of this, please head to micromobility.io

New to micromobility? This episode is for you. Been with us all year? There is still plenty of depth and breadth being addressed. In this special episode, Horace and Oliver revisit many of the ideas of the first 20+. It is a great episode for both solidifying one’s understanding and introducing one’s friends and family. Specifically, they cover: - How Horace came to micromobility and why it was so initially captivating - The primary requirement of the micromobility definition (500kg) and the secondary requirements — motor and utility - Recent growth in global production ability and the China bikeshare bubble - The push and pull of micromobility - How success in disruption requires humility for both sides - The various pain points of modern transportation and how micromobility addresses them - Jobs to be done and the markets for micromobility - How the sharing economy allows us to no longer buy for the extremely rare use cases (six sigma) - Applying our intuitive sense for jobs to be done in computing to transportation - The significance of the lognormal distribution for car trips - The evolution rate of micromobility vehicles, which is orders of magnitude greater than that of automobility. - A few predictions - The adoption curve and the disruption principle - Efficiency gains of various modes and environmental impact of micromobility - The exponential growth of scooter companies in 2018 - The maintenance needs and vehicle design needs of shared vehicles

In this episode, Oliver and Horace discuss the Micromobility FAQ's and their significance. Specifically, they cover: - how it's categorised and why this is important - whether autonomous cars will make Micromobility irrelevant - Infrastructure and why and how this is an important question - How should we think about measuring success. The sponsor of the episode is Joyride, a software platform that lets you launch your own bike or scooter share system under your brand, with full consumer facing apps, and backend fleet management and integrations. Check them out at Joyride.city

In this episode, Horace and Oliver discuss the new Micromobility book that is up on Kickstarter. This is the first book from Horace in the space, and outlines why and how micromobility will take over the world. Get your copy here - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2092675260/micromobility-the-first-year?ref=27ap2v. Next up, Oliver and Michal discuss the latest news including the first Bird Platform launch globally in New Zealand, Voi's recent raise and Jump's latest data from Sacramento. Finally, we release the Venture Capital panel from the recent Micromobility Summit in California. We have Greg Lindsay, Director of Strategy, LA CoMotion moderate a panel with Julie Lien (Founding Partner, Urban Innovation Fund), Reilly Brennan (Founding Partner, Trucks.vc) and Damir Becirovic (Principal, Index Ventures).