WEBVTT

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Just over a hundred years ago,

NOTE Paragraph

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moving around cities 
was slow and expensive.

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You had to use a horse and carriage.

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

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

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the horse carriage industry
basically went bust.

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

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It provided the people the freedom
to move around cities.

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Some studies suggest 
that it created the middle class.

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Fast forward to today,
a hundred years later.

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

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There are about 1.2 billion cars 
on the road today.

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70 million new cars are added every year.

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

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it looks like this.

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(Laughter)

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

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Freedom!

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

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(Laughter)

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

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with four empty seats,
creating massive inefficiency.

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

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The public transportation
will win over private car ownership.

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

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By the way,

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how many of you came here today
using public transportation?

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(Mumbling)

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Well, not that many,
not really surprising.


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Public transportation
in many cities is not that good.

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Mostly due to the high cost
of infrastructure.

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Digging subway tunnels is in the billions,


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new neighborhoods become fashionable,
demographics of the city change.

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

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Buses have rigid routes, rigid scheduling.

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

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Probably a long time ago.

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Take it a step further.

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

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

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

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The answer is obviously "No."

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By the way, who do you think is paying

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for all of the infrastructure 
of public transportation?

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It's you guys. Through your taxes!

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The infrastructure and the digging
of subway tunnels,

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

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Even the ongoing operating expenses

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of most of the world's
public transportation systems

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is 50% subsidized by our taxes.

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

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

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

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until I would finally get home.

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I was sitting there, sweating,
thinking to myself,

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

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

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I right away called
my friend Daniel Ramot,

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

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a dynamic shuttle system.

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

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through a centralized
optimization software,

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

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

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in real time.

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

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within a few minutes, a van, a shuttle,

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

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and take you to a corner
near your destination.

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

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

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everything is computed in real time.

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

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We set out to form "Via" -

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the world's first
on-demand shuttle network.

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

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

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computed in a real time.

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

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then it would ask you to walk a block

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

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Nothing is pre-set, everything is dynamic.

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

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very modest: five vans, Upper East Side,

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midtown Manhattan,
during commute hours only.

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


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

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in Chicago and in Washington, DC.

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The main feedback we've been
getting from our users

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is that it just makes sense.

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You share the ride
with people headed your way,

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very convenient,
at a very affordable price point.

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

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is the new smoking.

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(Laughter)

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You take a whole car, four empty seats:

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you create emissions,
you create congestion,

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you create massive inefficiency.

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

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

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

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other people are sitting on those seats,

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and this is when it
starts to be interesting.

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You're probably thinking to yourself,


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

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How how long will it take?"

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This is a very challenging
problem to solve.

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To create an efficient and convenient
transportation platform

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requires a lot of software engineering,

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solving a very challenging
algorithmic and mathematical problem.

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These are the challenges we had to solve

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in order to serve
the tens of millions of people

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that have enjoyed our service so far.

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Our goal is simple, we wanna provide you

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with an efficient and affordable way
to move around cities.

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We are partnering with cities, 
municipalities,

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public transportation operators
to help them transition

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

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to a dynamic, on-demand solution.

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By the way, our infrastructure is data.

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Instead of spending billions
on infrastructure,

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

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

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Consider also taxis, when you use a taxi,

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

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

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in New York city's iconic yellow taxis.

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

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

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Remember a hundred years ago?

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You couldn't move;
private cars solved that.

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Today, the private car is the problem.

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Again we can't move.

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So I want to leave you with this thought:

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Cities will ban the use of private cars

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and will allow us
to move freely around the city,

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using on-demand shuttle networks.

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Traffic will be gone,

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we will regain the freedom
to move around our cities

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and that will have
a huge impact on our life.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)