Once you leave the well-kept, well-organized confines of a gated community and venture into the world beyond (which you were happy to leave in the first place), it is highly likely you will be, again, back in the rough-and-tumble of traffic congestion and those aggravating, unexpected delays in getting to your destination. When you think about it one of delightful benefits of residing in a planned community is the continuity and predictability of its transport system. These benefits are a function of the well laid-out roadway infrastructure and the kind of vehicle most people use—that is, a personal transportation vehicle. Can this success story be upscaled to a metropolitan area environment? Is this a starting point for addressing the issues of urban congestion and pollution problems? I think so.

Bear with me as I process a few factoids about urban growth and urban mobility. Having done that, I have points to make regarding the implications for personal mobility as relates to the personal transportation segment of the small, task-oriented vehicle industry.  (I would contend that gated communities and their transportation systems could serve as a model for much larger cities, but description of the linkages will have to wait for another article.)

Urban transport systems in the age of growing cities

Urban transport systems are much in the news. At least it’s not difficult to find such news (and I am not talking about the latest traffic report from your local news outlets). Simply put “new urban transport systems” in your browser and you will see what I mean. Leading consulting heavyweights such as Deloitte and McKinsey are vying for prominence in the rapidly emerging field of integrated urban transport systems and so-called smart cities.

And well might these renown think tanks entertain such a focus.  Across the globe urban centers are rapidly growing, especially in developing economies. According to the Ask Anything website, which has compiled population statistics of various sorts, 15 of the 20 cities of the world with populations over 10 million are in developing economies, such as Mexico, India, China, and Pakistan, and 5 are in developed countries. The United States has 9 cities over 1 million population, while China has a whopping 99.

The fact that there are, throughout the world, so many significantly large urban centers, coupled with the fact that most are steadily growing larger (no flight to the suburbs here), makes it clear why so much emphasis is being placed on urban mobility, transportation infrastructure, and transport-related information and management systems.

Innovations in urban transport

Growing congestion and pollution issues are pushing cities to take action to improve their urban mobility systems. Not surprisingly, a significant emphasis in developing countries is on public transportations systems, primarily busses. With masses of relatively low and middle-income families migrating to urban centers, multipassenger vehicles are a key component of modernization.

In developed countries the situation is somewhat different. With higher income families in cities or commuting in and out of them, conventional, privately-owned automobiles are the major, if not dominant form of urban transport (but certainly not the only form).   Europe leads the way in innovative urban mobility solutions.

While clearly there are differences in context with regard to urban transport issues, the worlds of developing and developed economies share something of a common vision and concept for future urban mobility, and that is mobility as a service, or MaaS, as it is often acronymized. The concept and its implementation imply mobility minus individual ownership.

In Deloitte’s newsletter, Deloitte Insight in an article by Scott Corwin, et al (March 2018), the authors note that in Helsinki, Finland “…residents have been able to use a MaaS app called Whim to plan and pay for all modes of public and private transportation within the city—be it by train, taxi, bus, carshare, or bikeshare.”

The article goes on to point out that, “Anyone with the app can enter a destination, select [his or] her preferred mode of getting there—or, in cases where no single mode covers the entire door-to-door journey, a combination thereof—and go.”  Moreover, “Users can either prepay for the service as part of a monthly mobility subscription, or pay as they go using a payment account linked to the service.”

What is so neat about Helsinki’s innovative plan, is that it invokes the market system: “The goal is to make it so convenient for users to get around that they opt to give up their personal vehicles for city commuting, not because they’re forced to but because the alternative is more appealing.

Small vehicles will play a key role in MaaS systems

It is highly likely that small vehicles, particularly electric powered vehicles, will play a major role in MaaS systems, probably in the form of on-call, personalized fleets, ultimately in autonomous mode. My conversations at the PGA with representatives of Elwee, a Swedish company, Garia from Denmark, and Navitas of Canada, confirm on a personal, if anecdotal basis, that Europe is a hotbed of mobility innovation and transformation.

Will U.S. companies play a role in this emerging market? More pointedly, will any of the Big Three of the golf car industry play a role? They have the technology, engineering, and manufacturing capability to do so, but do they have the vision?

A critique of the present day small, task-oriented vehicle (STOV) industry

Product advances in this industry are painfully incremental. Thanks to Polaris a whole new sport and vehicle type sprang up in the late 90s and enjoyed continued growth until about seven or eight years ago. Because of its inspired management, Polaris sales continue to grow, albeit at a decidedly slower pace, through gains in market share. But the industry and the market, as a whole, has essentially reached the point of “flatness” that is characteristic of all product cycles. The same, of course, can be said of markets in which golf car-type vehicles participate.  The battle is largely for market share, not gains through overall market growth.

Ford Motor Company, on the other hand is reaching out and mobilizing in new directions. The company appears at the Consumer Electronics Show (now an annual event for Ford) and at the 2018 CES, its representative, Marcy Klevorn, President of Ford Mobility, gave the keynote speech entitled, “Mobility Solutions and the Move Toward Smarter Cities”. Ford has the vision.

Well, you say, Ford is a big, automotive company. And I say, Ingersoll Rand, Textron, and Yamaha are all very big companies. Well, you say, Ford makes the vehicles that most people buy, and I say, Ford does NOT currently make the vehicles that will be the leading types in MaaS systems. In fact, I would say the divisions of the above, obviously, Club Car, Textron Specialty Vehicles, and Yamaha Motors could have an early advantage, especially in the U.S. market, should they, with corporate backing, choose to go forward with a vision of MaaS systems.

Impact on dealers

MaaS systems would have a significant impact on dealers—hardly putting them out of business, but rather putting them in something of a new business with a different customer base. But a customer base that needs their skills and could offer potential growth unlike, as a group, they’ve seen for a while.