Urban Commuting in 2016: At the cusp of a Revolution

Intra-city travel/transportation has attracted a lot of interest in recent times. Since

the advent of transportation, as we know it, there hasn't been much change in the
basic model. There is public transport, personal transport and private taxi for urban
commuting. Their operational style hasn't changed much except for more routes,
faster public transport options, better ticketing model, etc.
With changing urban lifestyles and increased environmental awareness, the
inefficiencies of the current transport model have pushed the cities to the limit with
a need for massive transformation. Mass pubic transport often doesn't provide a
direct connection in a travel need and the timings are not very favorable. The mass
public transport infrastructure, typically geared for peak capacity in the morningevening start/end of day office timings, is quite underutilized in other hours.
Private vehicles/taxis, which is a more personalized transport, is less environment
friendly and is also under-utilized with empty co-passenger seats.

Luckily, the world is changing fast and recent trends have had a big impact in the
urban commute models through a socially connected world. Smart phone apps like
Facebook/ LinkedIn/ Whatsapp with high-speed data services assist on-boarding
travel providers and travel seekers in real-time. GPS mapping of these smart phone
users help in dynamic routing which in turn enable low-cost powerful server
computers to perform complex matching of service providers with seekers based on
a certain set of variables.

Most other sectors have seen a trend towards a standardized market place giving
more options and lower prices to the consumers/service buyer. Some examples are:
in financial trading markets, there is a trend to migrate from bilateral trading to
exchanges, online shopping which started as single merchant portals are now
marketplaces with multiple merchants selling products and in intercity travel
portals, there is a market place for flights and hotel accommodation. However, the
intra-city/ urban commute has been a less focused area with little success. Mass
public transport has typically been the domain of the government and the only
changes we have seen are in smart ticketing, capacity increases and new routes.
Even city taxis have been large dominated by a single association with fixed archaic
rules.

Some of the changes have been started by avant-garde startups like Uber, Ola,
Shuttl and Zipgo to name a few. It can be seen the market is still fairly immature
and there is much to be done. Services like Uber are closed systems (taxi providers
are only Uber affiliated or registered) and there isn't a market place. The services
need to be safe and reliable so that a big barrier in security of individuals in
connecting providers and seekers is taken out. More commoditization and dramatic
increase in ride-service requests and requesters will further drive efficiency and
costs without hurting the profit of the providers. Automobile manufacturers, who
are currently absent in the scheme of events, can be a big game-changer in how and
what type of vehicles are sold or owned today.
As we see traffic jams grow bigger and bigger the necessity to fix this has never been
greater. There is also a big drive to reduce emissions and promote environment
friendly models. The attitude of urban residents has never been more amenable to

sharing space and being part of change. Urban travel is at the cusp of an
exciting yet complex revolution. While the goal is to ease urban commutation, the
road to the holy-grail has various paths. How will the existing startups and future
players enrich and transform our urban commutation, is going to be an interesting
game to follow & experience in the days ahead!

Cusp of a Revolution Will 2016 be the year of Innovation in Urban Commuting or will it be a
year when our Cities will slip into an Urban Coma?
In the first half of 20th century, a bicycle ride was a luxury for Urban commutation.
For the past few decades, our school books have taught us the word pollution. Our newspapers and
environmental magazines carried articles on seemingly dangerous effects of ignoring pollution.
Pollution, was more of an air quality index than a complicated daily life problem.
Today, in 2016, pollution has come alive. It is known to mankind as an experiential agent of
respiratory disorder. As our city roads begin to burst at the seams, the society calls for an intelligence,
innovation and/ or a technology-driven solution to save the mankind from the cusp of slipping into an
irreversible respiratory disorder.
The problem space can be modeled in three main areas:
Abstraction It is important to abstract the market into different entities/players. Breaking the market
in this fashion helps in division of labor and more specialization of services. In urban transport, there
are primarily three entities 1. Travel providers (like government, taxi organizations, self-drive taxi
entrepreneurs and part-time/amateur car-pool services), 2. Travels seekers or service users, 3. Market
place which links the provider and seeker communities. A marketplace entity will be the facilitator that
creates travel options which the provider and seeker can subscribe to.
Standardization A service or commodity to be priced competitively and sold in large numbers has to
be standardized. In current urban commuting terms this could be train or bus routes and airport shuttles.

But there is room for more commodity routes created by observing traffic patterns of people going
along a free-way or from a residential area to a business district or from a sector to a shopping plaza.
One needs to splice different combinations of short and long routes with different times during the day.
Standardization gives more opportunities for a provider to drive efficiency and lower travel costs. This
will also make commuters change their travel patterns so they can align with what's offered.
Optimization - This is about giving maximum financial return to the provider at least cost to the
buyer. This is possible only if the above two steps/stages are completed. Abstraction helps in more
providers entering the system contributing to better liquidity and service volume and standardization
enables matching of service seekers and providers. For a transport provider if the vehicle is in rental
with passengers whenever its running or moving and if all the seats in the vehicle are occupied that
would be 100% optimized. For a passenger/travel seeker who gets a direct connection from origin to
destination with the least travel time (this includes wait time) that would be 100% optimized. Reaching
100% optimization will not be possible but defines the boundary of the problem.
Uber-version 1 was trying to optimize the transport providers vehicle usage minimizing the non-rental
running of it and increasing the number of providers. The Uber-version2 is about filling empty seats of
the vehicle by providing ride sharing services. But the overall optimization is not quite pervasive and
only covers a set of users who are regular taxi users. At the other end of the spectrum there are
companies like ZipGo who are trying to emulate and improve public transport services by providing
more direct and faster travel options.
Intra-city travel/transportation has attracted a lot of interest in recent times. Since the advent of
transportation, as we know it, there hasn't been much change in the basic model. There is public
transport, personal transport and private taxi for urban commuting. Their operational style hasn't
changed much except for more routes, faster public transport options, better ticketing model, etc.
With changing urban lifestyles and better environmental awareness, the inefficiency of the current
transport model gives opportunity for a massive transformation. Mass pubic transport often doesn't
provide a direct connection in a travel need and the timings are not very favorable. The mass public
transport infrastructure, typically geared for peak capacity in the morning-evening start/end of day
office timings, is quite underutilized in other hours. Private vehicles/taxis, which is a more personalized
transport, is less environment friendly and is also under-utilized with empty co-passenger seats.
The world is changing fast and recent trends is having a big impact in the urban commute models:
socially connected world. Smart phone apps like Facebook/LinkedIn/Whatsapp with high-speed data
services assist onboarding travel providers and travel seekers in real-time. GPS mapping of these smart
phone users help in dynamic routing which in turn enable low-cost powerful server computers to
perform complex matching of service providers with seekers based on a certain set of variables.
Most other sectors have seen a trend towards a standardized market place giving more options and
lower prices to the consumers/service buyer. Some examples are: in financial trading markets, there is a
trend to migrate from bilateral trading to exchanges, online shopping which started as single merchant
portals are now marketplaces with multiple merchants selling products and in intercity travel portals,
there is a market place for flights and hotel accommodation. However, the intra-city/ urban commute
has been a less focused area with little success. Mass public transport has typically been the domain of
the government and the only changes we have seen are in smart ticketing, capacity increases and new

routes. Even city taxis have been large dominated by a single association with fixed archaic rules.
Some of the changes have been started by avant-garde startups like Uber, Ola, Shuttl and Zipgo to
name a few. It can be seen the market is still fairly immature and there is much to be done. Services
like Uber are closed systems (taxi providers are only Uber affiliated or registered) and there isn't a
market place. The services need to be safe and reliable so that a big barrier in security of individuals in
connecting providers and seekers is taken out. More commoditization and dramatic increase in rideservice requests and requesters will further drive efficiency and costs without hurting the profit of the
providers. Automobile manufacturers who are currently absent in the scheme of events can be a big
game-changer in how vehicles are sold or owned today.
As we see traffic jams grow bigger and bigger the necessity to fix this has never been greater. There is
also a big drive to reduce emissions and promote environment friendly models. The attitude of urban
residents has never been more amenable to sharing space and being part of change. Urban travel is
a complex and exciting problem to solve with different paths to the holy-grail. How will the existing
startups and future players enrich and transform urban commuting, is going to be an interesting game to
follow and watch in the days ahead.