Nick Michell spoke to Mercedes Vidal Lago, Councillor for Mobility in Barcelona, about the city’s plans to reduce car journeys and encourage increased walking and cycling

How much of a problem is air pollution in Barcelona in relation to motorised-vehicles?

“Today Barcelona clearly exceeds the thresholds recommended by the World Health Organisation both for nitrogen dioxide and particles, especially in terms of average levels of these pollutants in the atmosphere. Air pollution not only causes more than 650 premature deaths annually in Barcelona, but also represents the deterioration in the quality of life for many people; an increase in cardio respiratory illnesses, and especially affects the elderly, people with respiratory problems and children may suffer from delayed cognitive development.”

“So fighting pollution is a priority for the Government, and we are willing to take bold steps. In November 2016 we presented the government measure “Program of measures against air pollution”, 58 specific actions to be developed during the period 2016-2020. Many of the measures are linked to our Urban Mobility Plan.”

The Urban Mobility Plan targets a reduction of 21 percent in the number of car journeys made daily. Is the city on track to reach this goal?

“The Urban Mobility Plan (UMP) sets out an ambitious target for changing Barcelona’s modal split towards sustainable mobility. It plans many measures to integrate the use of bicycles, improve surface infrastructure for public transport and most importantly increase tenfold the areas in which pedestrians may have priority. This is our most ambitious goal, the one that should have the highest impact on emissions and car use dependence, and therefore on completing the 21 percent decrease of car and motorbike use. The timescale for this was very short, 2013-2018, taking into account that the UMP was only approved in 2015. We are committed though to making a huge step forward.”

How important is the development of superblocks in encouraging increased walking and creating a more pedestrian friendly urban space?

“Today 20 percent of trips made in Barcelona are in a car or motorbike, whereas 60 percent of its public space is dedicated to carriageways. We must rebalance this in favour of pedestrians, bicycles and public transport, providing more space for sustainable modes. Beyond, we should recover urban space for social activities, such as resting, entertainment, interaction, or street markets, urban spaces where before we had traffic and car parks.”

“In 2016 we started the first pilot superblock of this term, in Poble Nou. We learned a lot from the experience, which allowed us to continue with the implementation of the programme this year. In 2017 we aim to start five new superblocks: Sant Antoni, Horta, Eixample, les Corts, and Gracia.”

The number of bike lane kilometres in Barcelona has increased by 21 percent, from 116 to 141 kilometres. What progress is being made on the aim to increase three-fold the number of bicycle lane kilometres?

“Barcelona has introduced a total of 23 bike lanes from the start of this term, and six more will be added this year. As part of the bike strategy, the city is continuing to expand the network of cycle paths and cyclists, with the aim of having an infrastructure that is safe, understandable, connected and set up to access the whole city by bike.”

“Since the beginning of this term, the number of bike lane kilometres in Barcelona has increased by 21 percent, from 116 to 141 kilometres and the city government continues to work to achieve the goal of 308 kilometres. This summer sees the start of the construction of 62.5 more kilometres.”

Continue reading:

https://cities-today.com/barcelona-reducing-daily-car-journeys/

• Priority for bicycles in Barcelona’s mobility plan.

A bill covering autonomous vehicles that the House of Representatives rushed to pass today threatens highway safety and leaves a regulatory void rather than enacting necessary protections, Consumer Watchdog warned today.

The bill, passed on a voice vote, under rules to expedite consideration, was being touted in some quarters as an example of new-found Congressional bipartisanship. “Bipartisanship is worthless when it produces a dangerous bill,” said John M. Simpson, Consumer Watchdog’s Privacy Project Director.

The autonomous vehicle bill, called the SELF-DRIVE Act, would leave a wild west without adequate safety protections for consumers, Consumer Watchdog said. The bill pre-empts any state safety standards, but there are none at the national level.

“Pre-empting the states’ ability to fill the void left by federal inaction leaves us at the mercy of manufacturers as they use our public highways as their private laboratories however they wish with no safety protections at all,” said Simpson.

“The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration needs do its job and Congress should give the agency the money to do it,” said Simpson. “The sad reality is that President Trump hasn’t even bothered to nominate a NHTSA administrator.”

The Department of Transportation has completely ignored a committee, the Advisory Committee on Automation in Transportation (ACAT) created by the Obama Administration to offer advice on autonomous vehicle policy.  It has not met since Trump took office.

Self-driving car developers claim to worry about a so-called state-by-state patchwork of conflicting safety regulations, that they claim would hamper innovation.

“That’s nonsense.  If NHTSA enacted Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards covering autonomous vehicles they would automatically preempt state safety regulations,” said Simpson.  “The House action was show-boating that actually puts Consumers at risk.”

Consumer Watchdog’s has released an in-depth study, “Self-Driving Vehicles: The Threat to Consumers.”  Read the report here: http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/sites/default/files/resources/self_driving_consumer_threat_report.pdf

• US House ‘Bipartisan’ Robot Car Bill threatens highway safety, Consumer Watchdog warns.

Metropia Inc., innovators of traffic congestion management platforms, today announced the launch of its online carpool pairing service to provide post-Harvey support to Houstonians who lost their vehicles to floodwaters.

An estimated 500,000 vehicles were destroyed in the flooding brought by Hurricane Harvey. As schools and offices reopen, the countless car-dependent Houstonians left without easy access to transportation will be reliant on the generosity of their fellow citizens for ongoing commutes until such time as insurance claims are completed, local dealerships are able to meet the incredible demand, and public transit is fully up and running to those who have access.

By signing up at houston-riding.metropia.com, Houstonians in need of a ride and drivers happy to share one can enter their starting location, departure time, and destination into the site, selecting it as a one-way or roundtrip carpool. Behind the scenes, Metropia’s matching algorithms will work to pair nearby drivers and passengers with a common destination and travel time, introducing the two via email for the purposes of forming a carpool.

The pairing process allows potential carpoolers to participate at their own level of comfort with privacy in mind. Once paired with another carpooler, drivers and passengers are given the name and email address provided by their match during signup and invited to reach out to discuss their carpool in greater detail. From that point, participants can share as much or as little personal information as desired. For example, those wishing to speak on the phone can exchange numbers, or those wishing to meet at a neutral pick-up spot can do so without sharing their home address.

“There are many outstanding programs established in the wake of Hurricane Harvey to help Houstonians get back on their feet, but our city’s recovery will still very much rely on the generosity of Houstonians in helping one other,” says Dr. Yi-Chang Chiu, Founder of Metropia, Inc. “This is a unique opportunity for Houstonians to lend a helping hand to their neighbors and show the heart that our great city is known for. If you have an extra seat available in your car, we encourage you to signup at houston-riding.metropia.com and share a ride with someone in need.”
• Metropia launches online carpooling service In Houston to match carless Harvey victims with willing drivers.

When I joined Uber for Business three years ago, we were a very small and scrappy group with a clear mission: to simplify ground transportation for business travelers. We realized that a lot of people were already using Uber on business trips, and we wanted to develop products and experiences that spoke directly to those users. From my first day, I was impressed with the entire team and our ability to move quickly. It was exhilarating to be surrounded by great people, building something that would provide real value to millions of people — creating a huge impact in a relatively short time.

Three years later, our team has grown to over 100 people, serving 65,000 companies worldwide. But even as we’ve grown, I’ve been struck by how much it still feels like working on a small team: we continue to move quickly, and we are still able to interact with and learn from our users and their concerns. Our launch builds on three important things in particular that we’ve learned along the way:

1. “Uber for Business” means different things to different companies. Soon after first launching Uber for Business, we saw companies setting up multiple accounts for different groups of people to access different travel programs. For example, a sales team may need rides available in every city, a new office employee might need rides from the train station to the office, and people working late could need rides home.

But the need for multiple accounts complicated things for our users. One car manufacturer we work with set up 35 different accounts for dealerships to book rides for customers within each region. Managers and administrators were having to juggle multiple accounts — exactly the problem we were trying to solve while building Uber for Business in the first place!

Our recent launch has redesigned our whole product so that a single account can set up multiple travel programs, each one with specific settings for different individual and group users. And it’s not just for employees: for example, recruiters can use Uber Central to book rides for job candidates, or to give visiting partners and clients door-to-door service while they are in the city. With this redesign, we’ve eliminated the need to jump between accounts — an administrator can log in to one account and get a bird’s eye view of all Uber usage across their entire organization. We redesigned our dashboard to create a more consistent experience when switching between our different products (Uber for Business, Uber Central)

2. Our clients want access to services beyond rides.

When most people today think of Uber, they think of pushing a button and getting a ride. However, over the years we’ve seen companies using Uber’s app in many different ways other than getting themselves around town. That has inspired us to create new services to better fit their needs.

Uber Central is a great example of this: it began as a product spun up after we saw how some companies (hotels, for example) were using multiple phones to order rides for clients and patrons. This not only required creating multiple accounts, but also using multiple devices to book rides simultaneously. Uber Central fixes that: it empowers any mobile phone or front desk within an organization to order multiple rides for guests that are paid for by the company.

Our recent changes to Uber for Business make it easy for us to give companies access to new services like Uber Central. Companies can now give specific people, like front desk attendants, office managers, and recruiters access to this new service from Uber.

Continue reading: https://medium.com/uber-design/redesigning-uber-for-business-a20b2744e2d4

• Rebuilding Uber for Business – as described in Medium.

People still dream of owning major assets such as homes and vehicles but the cost of ownership, the need to pay down rising debt and rising interest rates have created an “Attainability Gap,”  according to a new study by car2go.

The survey of 1,800 people in major U.S. and Canadian cities reveals that while 66 percent of consumers hope to purchase a primary home, only 34 percent believe they can achieve their goal in the coming year — revealing an “Attainability Gap” of 32 percent. Similarly, while 55 percent of consumers surveyed are interested in purchasing a car, just 46 percent feel that goal is attainable.

In response to this growing gap between what people want and what they can afford, consumers are increasingly turning to shared services as a smart, convenient way to save for important life purchases and achieve their long term goals.

“We’re seeing this trend reflected in our membership data,” explained Paul DeLong, CEO of car2go North America, the North American arm of the world’s largest, fastest-growing one-way carsharing service. “Millennials are one of the heaviest users of car2go and represent nearly half of our 800,000-plus members here. That same demographic is eagerly saving-up to buy their first home or car. Shared services like car2go help hundreds of thousands of people every day bridge the attainability gap through affordable access to services they need that also help them save for life’s major purchases.”

Savings and investments and ‘home purchase of primary residence’ were the top financial priorities of more than half (52 percent) of survey respondents, while 11 percent said they were still focused on paying off their student loans. Not surprisingly, respondents also viewed ‘affordability’ as the number one benefit of being a member of a carsharing service.

With car2go adding thousands of four-door Mercedes-Benz vehicles to its North American vehicle network, more people in cities across the U.S. andCanada will soon experience the ease and affordability of one-way carsharing while they build their savings. For this study, car2go surveyed 1,800 adult respondents in the following markets: Washington D.C.; Denver; Austin; New York City; Seattle; Vancouver; Calgary; Toronto; and Montreal.  Respondents were from all income brackets and did not necessarily need to be a member of a car sharing service.

With 2.7 million members and growing, car2go is the world’s largest, fastest-growing one-way carshare service. Over 800,000 of car2go’s members reside in the U.S. and Canada.
• car2go study finds “Sharing economy helps consumers bridge The ‘Attainability Gap’.”