Public transport around the world is being undermined by emerging mobility business models such as Uber, an expert from the Transport Systems Catapult (TSC) has claimed.
Paul Zanelli, chief technical officer at the TSC, made the comments at the Association of Directors of Environment, Economy, Planning and Transport (ADEPT) conference in Manchester, but argued it was too early for specifics on this trend.
Dr Zanelli predicted that fewer people, especially in cities, would own cars in the future. Aided by digital technology they would purchase mobility when they needed it he argued.
Highlighting the rapid growth of the taxi app, Uber, he argued: ‘The private operators’ world sees the disruption that’s coming up as a huge opportunity. They’re not going to do that [change travel habits] in a structured way about how we plan public services.’
Dr Zanelli went on to say Uber was already undermining public investment cases in America: ‘The challenge is increasing uncertainty. How do we work today with all these challenges coming in the future?’
Dr Zanelli - the future is (nearly) now
When speaking to Transport Network, Dr Zanelli said it was not possible to highlight examples of current spending by local authorities that would produce fewer benefits than expected because of future changes in mobility patterns.
‘I don’t think we know that,’ he replied. ‘The challenge is the uncertainty. We might have to accept that we’re going to make some decisions today that are going to be wrong, but at least we’ve had the debate about what we can change today which will be future proofed.’
It has been argued that demand for parking would reduce if people take up the new mobility services, instead of purchasing cars and leaving them out of use for 95% of the time. Dr Zanelli foresaw consequential opportunities to gain economic value from land, which is currently occupied by parking.
However, he did not see this as a reason to cut back on investment in new multi-storey car parks or park and ride because major changes in behaviour were likely to take longer than 10 years.
