Best of LinkedIn: Future Mobility & Market Evolution CW 51 - 02

00:00:00: brought to you by Thomas Allgaier and Frennus.

00:00:02: This edition highlights key LinkedIn posts on future mobility and market evolution in weeks fifty one oh two.

00:00:08: Frennus supports enterprises with market and competitive intelligence, decoding disruptive technologies, customer needs, regulatory change and competitive moves.

00:00:16: So product teams and strategy leaders don't just react but shape the future of mobility.

00:00:22: Welcome back to the deep dive.

00:00:24: We've spent the last couple of weeks sorting through some of the sharpest insights from mobility pros on LinkedIn really looking at the pivot from you know hype and experiments to

00:00:33: reality

00:00:33: to reality exactly.

00:00:35: the focus is now on integrated efficient systems that actually work in the real world.

00:00:40: Yeah, that operational rigor is the big story.

00:00:42: It feels like the consensus is that mobility is finally being treated as critical urban infrastructure, not just a collection of side projects.

00:00:49: So how are we going to break that down?

00:00:51: for this steep dive?

00:00:52: We've clustered it into three main themes.

00:00:54: First, the big efficiency pivot in shared mobility.

00:00:57: Second, the major reality check that autonomous systems are facing right now.

00:01:02: And third, how all of this is forcing a much more rigorous approach to governance and frankly just pricing the use of urban space itself.

00:01:11: All right, let's unpack that first one then.

00:01:13: The shared mobility reset.

00:01:16: It feels like the days of scale at all costs are just... completely over.

00:01:20: They're gone.

00:01:21: The conversation now is all about sustainability.

00:01:24: Gunnar Frau put it really well, saying the narrative for twenty twenty five has finally moved from hype to proof.

00:01:30: So car sharing isn't dead.

00:01:31: It's just maturing.

00:01:33: Exactly.

00:01:34: It's growing maybe eight percent to around one hundred twenty nine thousand vehicles in Europe.

00:01:39: But here's the critical part he mentioned.

00:01:41: The winners won't be the ones with the biggest fleets.

00:01:44: It's the ones with the best utilization rates.

00:01:45: That's the only thing that matters now.

00:01:47: High utilization is the only path to sustainable unit economics.

00:01:51: We saw what happens when you don't get that.

00:01:53: I'm thinking of Gregory Ducange's take on the Renault Group and mobilize shutting down their car sharing.

00:01:57: Oh, that was a sharp analysis.

00:01:59: He basically called it a failure of the automotive mindset.

00:02:02: Right.

00:02:03: They were trying to solve an operator's problem.

00:02:05: They had the cars, they had the money, but not... that entrepreneurial discipline.

00:02:10: Things like managing turnaround times, fighting fraud, all that operational grit.

00:02:14: It was an operations failure, not a technology failure.

00:02:18: And that's a theme we'll see again with autonomy.

00:02:20: But it's not just operational, is it?

00:02:22: There's a huge policy problem here, too.

00:02:24: Oh, absolutely.

00:02:25: The sudden closure of Zipcar UK was a massive red flag.

00:02:29: Lars Christian Grudemulsen and Michael Solomon Williams really highlighted that one.

00:02:33: They did.

00:02:34: It showed this huge misalignment where councils were prioritizing parking revenue over the actual public good of shared mobility.

00:02:42: It's pretty staggery when you see the numbers.

00:02:44: It

00:02:44: is.

00:02:44: In one London borough, they were charging a car share vehicle up to eighteen times more for a parking working permit than a privately owned car.

00:02:52: Eighteen times.

00:02:53: So you're basically financially punishing the solution you claim you

00:02:56: want.

00:02:56: You've doomed it from the start.

00:02:58: And it's why the UK is so far behind.

00:03:00: You've got what?

00:03:01: Point seven shared cars per ten thousand people?

00:03:04: Compared

00:03:04: to Germany's five point four.

00:03:06: Yeah.

00:03:06: That gap has nothing to do with technology.

00:03:08: It's all regulatory friction.

00:03:10: Okay, so on the flip side of that, micromobility seems to have really found its footing.

00:03:15: It really

00:03:15: has.

00:03:16: It's proven its value.

00:03:17: I saw a great personal story from Andy McNaught about how his e-bike commute in London just completely changed his daily, lifeless stress.

00:03:26: Less money, less time.

00:03:27: And that's not just a feeling, right?

00:03:30: There's hard data to back that up.

00:03:31: There is.

00:03:32: Bojan Jukic cited data showing a really high social return on investment.

00:03:37: for every one euro of public money that goes into bike sharing.

00:03:41: You get about one euro and ten cents back for the community.

00:03:43: Yep.

00:03:44: through less congestion, better air, better health.

00:03:47: It's a genuine public works investment at this point.

00:03:50: I also wanted to touch on Lynne Katonga's work in Kenya with G. Rani.

00:03:53: It's such a smart approach.

00:03:54: It's

00:03:55: brilliant.

00:03:55: Instead of forcing a new tech solution on people, they're

00:03:58: just formalizing what's already happening, neighbors sharing rides, that kind of thing.

00:04:02: They're removing the social friction, as they call it, just making it easier and more reliable to do something people already want to do.

00:04:10: And that idea of formalizing systems is a perfect segue to our next theme.

00:04:14: It is.

00:04:14: Theme two.

00:04:15: Autonomy's inflection point.

00:04:18: This is the moment the real world stress test really begins.

00:04:22: Success isn't about a cool new sensor anymore.

00:04:24: Now, it's about fleet up time and solid integration.

00:04:27: The rubber really met the road with that San Francisco blackout, didn't it?

00:04:30: It really did.

00:04:31: Ruben Dominguez-Eibar had a great post on it.

00:04:34: When the traffic lights went out, the Waymo Robotaxes just... stopped blocked intersections

00:04:40: but the Tesla's kept moving.

00:04:42: Right, because they rely more on vision and learned experience.

00:04:45: That single event just laid bare the different philosophies in how these systems are trained.

00:04:51: It

00:04:51: was a huge learning moment.

00:04:52: A massive one.

00:04:53: Philip Koopman called it an entirely foreseeable common cause failure.

00:04:57: Meaning they should have planned for something like a power outage.

00:05:00: Of course, or an earthquake or a wildfire, the system just defaulted to being fragile.

00:05:05: And Jay Lotta made the point that autonomy without functioning infrastructure is fragility.

00:05:10: So as these systems scale globally, that becomes a huge problem.

00:05:13: A massive one.

00:05:15: And they are scaling.

00:05:16: Leonard Ku highlighted that China is probably furthest ahead in pure volume.

00:05:20: Baidu's Apollo Go has done seventeen million rides.

00:05:24: Wow.

00:05:24: And two hundred and forty million autonomous kilometers.

00:05:28: They're aiming for profitability.

00:05:30: Waymo in the US is close behind on weekly RADs, maybe two hundred fifty thousand.

00:05:34: We are well past the pilot phase.

00:05:36: But what about Europe?

00:05:37: I always hear we're high on the readiness index.

00:05:39: We are, and that's the paradox.

00:05:40: Yeah.

00:05:41: Kui pointed out the Netherlands is number one on the readiness index, but deployment is almost zero.

00:05:45: We're stuck in these extended pilots.

00:05:47: And the risk there is we just become dependent on US and Chinese tech.

00:05:52: That's the risk, which is frustrating because the safety data is so compelling.

00:05:55: It's the strongest argument for AVs, right?

00:05:58: Debo Castania and Ben Iriff both shared Waymo's data.

00:06:01: Something like a ninety-six percent reduction in injury claims compared to human drivers.

00:06:06: That is a staggering social benefit.

00:06:07: The key phrase there, though, is if deployed correctly, which brings us back to policy.

00:06:13: Always.

00:06:14: David Zipper asked a great provocative question for Europe.

00:06:17: Why do you even need robo taxes?

00:06:19: It's a fair point.

00:06:20: Our cities are already safer.

00:06:21: We have better public transit.

00:06:23: Exactly.

00:06:23: So if you just... dump AVs onto the street without strong policy, you risk clogging up the roads and disrupting a transit system that already works pretty well.

00:06:33: Burn Grush made a similar point.

00:06:35: That policy on pricing and integration is what will decide if these things are a benefit or just a new kind of traffic jam.

00:06:42: Which brings us right back to operations.

00:06:45: Bojan Jukic absolutely nailed it when he said the future of AVs is an operations game, not just a software game.

00:06:52: So the skills you need to run a successful car share are the same skills you'll need for an AV fleet.

00:06:57: Precisely.

00:06:58: And that's where the money's going.

00:07:00: Jukic projects that by twenty thirty five nearly a third of the market value will be in fleet management.

00:07:05: The unsexy stuff.

00:07:07: cleaning, charging maintenance,

00:07:08: and the totally unsexy stuff.

00:07:10: Mastering that today is basically training for the Avi Olympics tomorrow.

00:07:14: And that intense focus on the nuts and bolts of operations brings us to our final theme, policy, governance, and integrated systems.

00:07:21: Right.

00:07:21: This is about cities finally starting to treat mobility as a single comprehensive urban operating system.

00:07:28: Tomas Gubb or predicted that twenty twenty six will be defined by the shift.

00:07:31: The focus won't be on new apps.

00:07:33: No, it's on pricing street space, enforcing the curb, and having platforms that are actually auditable.

00:07:39: It's about performance and public value.

00:07:41: Because at the end of the day, physical space is the real currency.

00:07:44: Thomas Broughton had that great point about shared fleets being blocked by the last meter problem.

00:07:49: Yeah, if you can't park the scooter securely and legally, the whole service falls apart for the user.

00:07:54: And

00:07:54: that's where you see the innovation happening now on that physical layer.

00:07:58: Steven McGinn mentioned solutions like

00:08:00: Spark Park.

00:08:01: Right, turning chaotic parking into trusted managed infrastructure.

00:08:05: It's a physical digital solution.

00:08:07: But we still see this disconnect where cities aren't focused on that.

00:08:11: Lars Christian Crudham Olsen said that in micromobility tenders, cities often obsess over tech features.

00:08:17: Yes, they'll ask for ten centimeter GPS accuracy when what they really need is a plan to stop scooters from blocking the sidewalk.

00:08:25: Technology doesn't solve a human behavior problem.

00:08:27: Better management does.

00:08:29: And if you want a benchmark for good management, you just have to look at successful public transit.

00:08:34: Dr.

00:08:34: Arif Mehmoud's analysis was so clear on this.

00:08:37: Ridership growth isn't really about the vehicle tech.

00:08:40: Not at all.

00:08:41: It's about speed, frequency, and good land use planning.

00:08:45: He used the Dubai E-Four Hundred BRT as an example.

00:08:47: The bus rapid transit.

00:08:48: By giving the buses dedicated lanes, they cut travel time by twenty two percent.

00:08:53: And ridership went up thirty one percent.

00:08:55: It just proves that allocating physical space is the most powerful tool a city has.

00:08:59: When you see that kind of integration at scale, it's really compelling.

00:09:03: Like the vision Shafiq K. Abu Bakr shared about Dubai's ninety three kilometer climate controlled loop.

00:09:10: That's an incredible project.

00:09:11: It's not just transport.

00:09:12: It's a green corridor for walking and cycling all designed around their twenty minute city strategy.

00:09:17: And the climate controlled part is key.

00:09:19: You're overcoming a major local constraint.

00:09:22: the heat to enable that mobility.

00:09:24: It's a huge commitment.

00:09:26: And you see that integration happening across borders, too.

00:09:30: Felix Zuckschwert noted how in Spain, you have high-speed trains with French, German, and Italian DNA all running on the same system.

00:09:38: We need that kind of interoperability in our digital platforms.

00:09:41: We do.

00:09:42: And just as critically, that integration has to include everyone.

00:09:47: Max Whalen and Sammy Engstholm's work on the Small Code Creation Guide really drives this home.

00:09:52: You have to engage people with reduced mobility right from the start of the design process.

00:09:56: If you can make it work for them, you make it better for everyone.

00:10:00: So this whole deep dive really seems to circle back to the foundations we're building these new systems on.

00:10:05: The data, the policy, the governance.

00:10:07: It does.

00:10:08: Let's go back to that San Francisco blackout.

00:10:10: That was an AI failing in public, but Russell King pointed out a more subtle danger.

00:10:14: By a data collection.

00:10:15: Exactly.

00:10:16: His example was pothole reporting apps.

00:10:19: If only car users in wealthy areas use the app, the AI will learn to prioritize road repairs in those neighborhoods.

00:10:25: You're automating inequality.

00:10:27: You're automating and scaling existing inequity.

00:10:30: And that seems to be the fundamental question we have to answer.

00:10:32: So

00:10:32: it's not just a tech problem anymore.

00:10:34: Not at all.

00:10:35: The real question for all of us in mobility isn't just how fast can the AI drive.

00:10:40: It's this.

00:10:42: As we build these systems, are we truly designing for the messy real world and keeping human accountability in the loop?

00:10:48: Or are we just risking cementing those existing societal problems at a massive scale?

00:10:54: That is the challenge.

00:10:56: And it's a lot harder than programming a lane change.

00:10:58: If you enjoy this deep dive, new additions drop every two weeks.

00:11:02: Also check out our other additions on electrification and battery technology, next-gen vehicle intelligence, and commercial fleet insights.

00:11:09: Thank you for taking this deep dive with us.

00:11:11: We'll catch you next time.

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