This news from Helsinki http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/jul/10/helsinki-shared-public-transport-plan-car-ownership-pointless is an exciting step forward on a number of levels:
– recognition of the need to shift from providing distinct transport services to providing customer-centred mobility services;
– deploying technology to provide that mobility on demand array of solutions for customers;
– transport as a utility – that obtaining mobility should be akin to our mobile phone contract, moving away form old-fashioned fares and ticketing to a rolling monthly/weekly contract for mobility that can be tailored to our specific requirements.
There is still a lot more that could be done. For example, shifting the market for mobility provision to a focus on the consumer-facing mobility provider or broker selling the monthly contract and then purchasing capacity from the infrastructure owner/provider. This would cater for new operating models that would be better suited to a completely integrated mobility offering from an infrastructure perspective while allowing a customer service provider to tailor specific offerings for customers…
I will come back to this in more detail in the near future but all ideas welcome!!
