The future of urban mobility | Oren Shoval | TEDxJaffa

Tired of sitting in traffic? Wish the public transit system in your city could be a viable way to move around? Oren presents the future of public transportation: on-demand shuttle networks. A fleet of dynamically routed vans adapts to the real-time demand and traffic conditions, and provides users with efficient and convenient mobility. Data is the infrastructure of the dynamic shuttle network which can be rapidly and inexpensively deployed in cities across the globe.
Oren shares the story behind Via: the world's first dynamic shuttle network.

Oren is a former consultant at McKinsey, and has spent 10 years in the Israeli Air Force developing and deploying real-time avionic systems. Oren holds a PhD from the Weizmann Institute of Science where he focused on finding simplifying patterns in complex biological phenomena.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

Just over a hundred years ago,

moving around cities
was slow and expensive.

You had to use a horse and carriage.

By the 1920s, there were millions
of private automobiles on the road.

And thanks to Henry Ford's
mass-produced used model T,

the horse carriage industry
basically went bust.

Now, the private automobile
had a huge impact on our lives.

It provided the people the freedom
to move around cities.

Some studies suggest
that it created the middle class.

Fast forward to today,
a hundred years later.

Again, we can't move,
there is just too much traffic.

There are about 1.2 billion cars
on the road today.

70 million new cars are added every year.

When you see a commercial
from a new car on TV,

it looks like this.

(Laughter)

Fast car, going on a highway,
looks like fun.

Freedom!

But actually, most of the time
we spend in cars looks like this.

(Laughter)

We are sitting in a five-seat vehicle
using only one seat

with four empty seats,
creating massive inefficiency.

What if I told you that in just
a few years, you won't buy a car?

The public transportation
will win over private car ownership.

I want to show you what the future
of public transportation looks like.

By the way,

how many of you came here today
using public transportation?

(Mumbling)

Well, not that many,
not really surprising.

Public transportation
in many cities is not that good.

Mostly due to the high cost
of infrastructure.

Digging subway tunnels is in the billions,

new neighborhoods become fashionable,
demographics of the city change.

It takes dozens of years, if at all,
until the new subway line gets there.

Buses have rigid routes, rigid scheduling.

When is the last time a new bus line
was introduced in your city?

Probably a long time ago.

Take it a step further.

Imagine there is a ball game about to end
in the local football stadium.

Do buses update their lines, routing
and scheduling in a real time

to accommodate the demand of people
coming out of the ball game?

The answer is obviously "No."

By the way, who do you think is paying

for all of the infrastructure
of public transportation?

It's you guys. Through your taxes!

The infrastructure and the digging
of subway tunnels,

the billions of dollars, the bus stops -
all that is paid using our taxes.

Even the ongoing operating expenses

of most of the world's
public transportation systems

is 50% subsidized by our taxes.

I believe we can put our money
to much better use.

A few years ago, I was sitting in a bus
in Tel Aviv that made endless stops,

I had to switch lines, walk 20 minutes
in the blistering summer heat

until I would finally get home.

I was sitting there, sweating,
thinking to myself,

"Why can't the bus adapt to what I need?"

Why the bus can't adapt to what you need?

I right away called
my friend Daniel Ramot,

and together we came up with the idea
of an on-demand, dynamic bus system;

a dynamic shuttle system.

Imagine a network of vehicles
that is constantly optimized in real-time

through a centralized
optimization software,

using data-phone traffic,
where people want to go,

and the routing and scheduling
of the system is always optimized,

in real time.

You book a route on your phone;
you tell us where you want to go;

within a few minutes, a van, a shuttle,

will come and will pick you up
at a corner nearby;

and take you to a corner
near your destination.

On the way, it will pick up and drop off
other people, just like a bus.

However, the routing, the pick-up spots,
the drop-off spots, the scheduling,

everything is computed in real time.

We right away realized
that this is the future of mobility.

We set out to form "Via" -

the world's first
on-demand shuttle network.

Instead of a limited set of bus stops,
every corner now becomes a bus stop.

Instead of fixed routes, fixed scheduling,
everything is dynamic,

computed in a real time.

For example, if there is a traffic jam
on the street you're on,

then it would ask you to walk a block

and reroute the vehicles
to pick you up at that location.

Nothing is pre-set, everything is dynamic.

We first launched our service
in New York city in September of 2013,

very modest: five vans, Upper East Side,

midtown Manhattan,
during commute hours only.

Our service caught on right away,
and since then we've powered

tens of millions of efficient
and affordable rides in New York city,

in Chicago and in Washington, DC.

The main feedback we've been
getting from our users

is that it just makes sense.

You share the ride
with people headed your way,

very convenient,
at a very affordable price point.

By the way, we believe that using
a whole car to get from A to B

is the new smoking.

(Laughter)

You take a whole car, four empty seats:

you create emissions,
you create congestion,

you create massive inefficiency.

At Via, we're in the business
of selling seats,

a seat is all you need to get from A to B.

Now, other seats in that vehicle
are physically connected to your seat,

other people are sitting on those seats,

and this is when it
starts to be interesting.

You're probably thinking to yourself,

"If I take this,
will it take me out of my way?

How how long will it take?"

This is a very challenging
problem to solve.

To create an efficient and convenient
transportation platform

requires a lot of software engineering,

solving a very challenging
algorithmic and mathematical problem.

These are the challenges we had to solve

in order to serve
the tens of millions of people

that have enjoyed our service so far.

Our goal is simple, we wanna provide you

with an efficient and affordable way
to move around cities.

We are partnering with cities,
municipalities,

public transportation operators
to help them transition

from a rigid set of lines
and schedules, rigid buses,

to a dynamic, on-demand solution.

By the way, our infrastructure is data.

Instead of spending billions
on infrastructure,

we're using data to provide you
with a very efficient service.

We are doing that in Paris,
in the UK, in Austin, Texas.

Consider also taxis, when you use a taxi,

again, you are using
a whole vehicle just for yourself.

A few weeks ago, we introduced
the ability to book a seat

in New York city's iconic yellow taxis.

You share the ride, you share the cost
and you reduce congestion.

So where is this new world
of on-demand shared mobility taking us?

Remember a hundred years ago?

You couldn't move;
private cars solved that.

Today, the private car is the problem.

Again we can't move.

So I want to leave you with this thought:

Cities will ban the use of private cars

and will allow us
to move freely around the city,

using on-demand shuttle networks.

Traffic will be gone,

we will regain the freedom
to move around our cities

and that will have
a huge impact on our life.

Thank you.

(Applause)