Sharon Malki

🚶🏾‍♀️ I’ve recently embarked on a new project, and it’s all about diving into the world of passenger experiences in transit spaces.

🌈 On top of the basic transport and mobility means and the required amenities, the literature points to a few factors such as: a welcoming, accessible, safe, easily recognized environment, as well as one that involves place-making, and one that is connected to local cultural activities.

✨ It may sound easy, but turning those words into reality is not a walk in the park. Especially when it comes to placemaking. When it happens it’s magical, but it doesn’t have 100% chances of success.

🎯 While I’m still trying to figure out (with Gali Freund) what are the main principles that we will have to turn into measurable criteria, I stumbled upon a gem of an example, right around the corner.

🚇 Picture this: a 160-meter-long tunnel for pedestrians and cyclists at Ostbahnhof, Munich eastern station, right between Orleansstrasse and Friedenstrasse. A local collective named “die Städtischen” turned this place from a dodgy tunnel into a bright and welcoming place that will also soon host local art exhibitions (for more details check this link). In order to make the magic of placemaking they raised almost 100,000 euros and spent a month painting the tunnel with four tons of pink paint.

🚲🚆🚌🚗 2 takeaways from Frost & Sullivan India webinar on multimodal mobility, moderated by the supper talented Chanchal Jetha 🛴🚲 and with my insightful panel companions: Sandra Witzel and Lisa Jane Grace.

1️⃣ Thinking Like a Car Designer for Public Transport Comfort:
Our benchmark is private cars, and the car industry is doing quite a good job when it comes to customer experience and design.
So, in order to attract more users, high comfort standards should be applied for all riders throughout the whole journey:
➡️ weather protection
➡️ heating / cooling according to the season
➡️ signage
➡️ quietness
➡️ sense of privacy
➡️ seats comfort
➡️ internal and external design
➡️ lighting (inside the vehicle, on the station / platforms and on the streets)
and so much more.  

2️⃣ The Impact of Emerging Technologies:
Chanchal and the Frost & Sullivan team did a great work in showing some of the main trends that will most likely affect the industry. I referred to 2 trends I find significant:

Continue reading “2 Takeaways on Multimodal Mobility”

 🚀Advancements in connectivity, data analytics, and integration are reshaping the way we travel and access transportation services. The magic of public and shared mobility really works when it is well-integrated! But people remain in their cars when it partially works or completely fails.

🌟 I will take part in a webinar organized by Frost & Sullivan India Think Tank on July 25th, where we will explore “The Multimodal Mobility Revolution: Driving Change with Digital Best Practices.”

🙋‍♀️ I will be part of a super talented all-female panel discussing fascinating topics that will affect the future of mobility:

🚍 How can Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) enhance passenger experiences and promote a shift towards public transportation?

🚍 How do Demand-Responsive Transport (DRT) services complement conventional fixed-route public transport systems?

🚍 What contributions can technology companies make to enhance the efficiency, safety, and sustainability of public transport operations?

For registration click here.

⛱️ Let’s talk about the season we’ve all been eagerly waiting for – summer & where it meets us, public transport riders.

🌞 As we witness the consequences of our actions on the planet, it’s clear that summers are becoming longer and hotter.

🥝 This calls for fresh perspectives on the passenger experience in public transportation, not just in Germany but across neighboring countries as well.

💡 It’s crucial to rethink the design of public transport vehicles, particularly in terms of non-opening windows and absent cooling capabilities.

🚇 In order to provide a decent passenger experience, we can no longer ignore the necessity of air conditioners in metros, trams, and buses at this time of the year. Public transport riders are part of the solution, in terms of climate change as well as better urban environments. As such we deserve a comfortable journey experience, even during scorching summer months.

💨 Granted, implementing air conditioning systems may require more energy and result in additional pollution. However, this is an opportunity to invest in innovative solutions that focus on energy-efficient cooling (and heating) sustainable methods.

🔍 It’s time to embrace innovation rather than turning a blind eye to the sweltering heat of June and July.

🌬️ And just saying that today is the first day of Air Conditioning Appreciation Days which are celebrated from July 3 to August 15. The days are marked to acknowledge the invention and role of air conditioning in modern society (link can be found in the comments).

🎯 Our world is full of distractions, and it seems it’s getting worse. When it comes to displaying important traveling information, it is crucial to ensure a clutter-free and distraction-free environment for improved user experience.

🚆 As an example, let’s take a look at a German local train dynamic signage.

📊 On one screen, we see information dedicated solely to providing passengers with the crucial details they need for their journey. A clear and concise display of relevant information, such as arrival times to stations on the route, last station, trains name, the date and time.   

🚫 However, on the second screen, we notice a commercial advertisement grabbing attention away from the vital information. Furthermore, it makes us look harder to try and find the information regarding the next stops, that were just presented, while it repeats twice information such as date and hour. Gazing at this screen can be frustrating for passengers who are trying to gather relevant details quickly.

🗝️ To ensure a user-focused experience, it’s essential to design dynamic signage that emphasizes clarity and usability. Here are a few key considerations:

1️⃣   Prioritize Information: Display only the essential information that passengers need, keeping it concise and easy to comprehend.

2️⃣   Minimize Distractions: Avoid incorporating commercial content or unnecessary elements that divert attention from critical information. If you are 100% sure you can’t avoid advertising, make sure to keep them away from essential passengers’ information.

3️⃣   Clear Visual Hierarchy: Use visual cues such as size, color, and positioning to guide users’ attention to the most important details.

4️⃣   Test and Refine: Continuously evaluate the effectiveness of the signage and gather feedback from users to make improvements.

💶 The 49 euro ticket just kicked in, but transitioning from private to public and shared transportation is still a significant challenge.

🍼 Families with young children present a great target group with unique needs.

🥨 When our family moved to Munich, we made a decision to live without a car.
It’s easy to get around the city on foot or by public transport, but exploring the beautiful nature around requires a bit more planning. Traveling with children on public transport is an experience in itself, and we’ve learned a lot along the way.

➡️ Here are 4 elements that can be taken into account by planners and decision-makers when encouraging families with young kids to transform their rides from private cars to public transport:

Continue reading “Traveling with Kids on Public Transport”

🍾 Pop-up bicycle lanes have been a significant trend in urban mobility during the Covid-19 pandemic. Cities that were quick to implement such lanes were able to promote alternative mobility options in a way that would have been almost impossible under “normal” circumstances.

📺 Recently, the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) hosted a webinar featuring two case studies of pop-up bike lanes that became permanent fixtures: one in Guadalajara and Zapopan, Mexico, and the other in Bengaluru, India.

🎯 Here are some of the main points I took away from the Guadalajara and Zapopan case:

🚲 Temporary lanes were set up during the pandemic, which later became permanent.
🚲 These lanes were about 1.8 meters wide, part of roads with multiple lanes and relatively high speeds, requiring clear separation between the paths and the lanes.
🚲 The temporary measures such as separation poles later advanced to include landscaping and concrete. Eventually, the network grew to 100 kilometers, representing a 100% increase.
🚲 However, this progress was not without opposition. Some vehicle owners opposed the creation of bike lanes, leading to demonstrations to express their resistance.
🚲 Despite this, the lanes received 45% support from non-riders, and the number of female riders increased by 41% between 2021-2022.
🚲 This success was largely attributed to cooperation between local authorities and the Ministry of Construction’s extensive community outreach and engagement efforts.

🚲 Andreas Roehl has a solid track record of encouraging bike riding. He served as the director of Copenhagen’s bicycle program and as the director of mobility & urban space.
 
💡 Røhl, who is currently a consultant at Gehl – Making Cities for People, spoke at MCube – Munich Cluster for the future of Mobility in Metropolitan Regions most interesting event in Munich earlier this month about bike networks.
 
🕳️ At the event, titled “Future of Mobility – Bikes first” Røhl talked about several barriers to the development of bike networks:
 

1.  The weather- biking can be tough in rough weather (Røhl mentioned cold weather, but extreme heat is also a factor).
2. Cross sectors Benefits- different sectors often don’t share benefits well. Bikes ease congestion on roads, ease parking conditions and improve bikers’ health.
3. Multiple small projects- running in parallel, in order to widen networks, make the projects harder to manage.
4. Marketing- to encourage bike riding, most transport departments need to develop marketing capabilities, which they often lack.
5. Political patience- building a bike network usually takes time, and politicians sometimes struggle to wait while they are facing public criticism.
6. Bike infrastructure is too cheap- the cost of bike infrastructure is “too low” compared to other infrastructure projects. Companies love heavily budgeted projects (that’s worth a post in itself!).
 
🚶🏻‍♀️Would love to hear your thoughts about sustainable mobility and some barriers that you have encountered.

🎡 A simple comparison between the recent public systems rank conducted by the Oliver Wyman Forum, and the University of California, Berkeley’s Institute of Transportation Studies on the one hand, and the Monocle‘s quality of life survey 2022, on the other, indicates that many cities that are on the top of the list of public transport systems also score highly on the quality of life. *
 
🏪 In this comparison, two interesting cities stand out: Hong Kong and London, ranked 1 and 10 (respectively) in terms of public transport systems.
 
👥 Hong Kong offers the perfect density conditions, where public transport operates the best, with 7.5 million residents spread over a 1,104-square-kilometre. However, it doesn’t appear high on Monocle’s quality of life survey.
 

🧰 London was ranked the best place to live by Global Finance in 2022. Ranking factors included: economic strength, cultural interaction, livability, environment, and accessibility. Nevertheless, it did not make the top 25 of Monocle’s quality of life survey 2022.
 
🧭 public transport plays an important role in creating great cities that are pleasant to live in. This helps turn cities into human-centric spaces, which we seem to love.
 
* Rankings are sometimes biased because they attempt to represent a wide array of cities and countries. And by doing so living behind some great cities in the same country.

🚎 We went to Salzburg, Austria,  and we loved it and its bus based transport network!

🔍 One of the things that I liked the most about the Salzburger Verkehrsverbund GmbH website is its transparency:

🗓️ Schedules are easy to find, as well as changes in them

⛏️ Events and construction works that affect the routes are published

💬 They seek feedback from riders– sometimes it can yield valuable insights into improvements that are needed.

🎥 You can see a designated bus lane along with narrow roads in the old city, both types of buses, and more in some of our video impressions.

📙 The biography of Yuval Fogelson, a curbside mobility specialist, connects between tactical urbanism, curbside management, and dynamic transportation management. They all share an aim for good urbanism that benefits people. 

📌 Fogelson was born in Israel, experienced relocation as a child, studied architecture and urban design in the Netherlands and Australia, lived in South Korea, Israel, Brazil, and now lives in Canada.

👩🏻‍🤝‍👨🏽 In Brazil, he founded together with several colleagues what became one of his great passions – tactical urbanism projects that create dramatic changes through simple and low budget planning moves. And yes, this was back in 2016, before tactical urbanism became a buzzword. Their collaboration resulted in the creation of the Urb-i – Urban Ideas website. Urb-i includes hundreds of inspiring public space transformations from around the world.

📚 From Brazil, Fogelson moved to Vancouver, Canada, and went back to school. He was accepted to the “Transportation Infrastructure and Public Space Labs” (TIPS Labs) at The University of British Columbia– an interdisciplinary research group that examines the potential and implications of future transportation infrastructure. There he conducted a study entitled: Transitioning into New Mobility: Future Curb Space Design (Please check out the video below for more details).

Continue reading “The link between tactical urbanism, curbside management, and dynamic transportation management”

🚗 Car sharing is a promising format that supplies people with another option of giving up car ownership.
 
💷 The car is the only urban phenomenon still entitled to free use of public space (in some cases). As cities are charging hourly parking fees on more and more streets, and eventually will ban private car parking on the streets, car sharing would most likely become a very useful means of transport. Nevertheless, it’s also extremely useful today in some cities, but presents some new challenges.  
 
🔧 One of the challenges is related to damages that can happen when multiple users drive a shared car in a short period of time. My conversation with Ildiko Rita Csapo, Sales Research Analyst at DriveX Technologies, an AI-assisted vehicle inspection startup, revolved around this topic.
 

Continue reading “Car Share Damages by Artificial Intelligence Tool”

✨There are two interesting examples promoted by the Munich municipality that I came across in the last few weeks, that I hope will inspire and provoke thought:
 
🌈 Public and shared transport offers for new residents– after registering in the municipality, new residents receive an email with a form where they can select which mode of transport (public and shared) they would like to experience for free or at a reduced rate. Among the alternative mobility options available are: a subscription for several days to MVG public transportation, shared bikes and e-bikes, scooters, and shared vehicles.
 
🚲 Second-hand bicycle fair– organized by Munich’s mobility department. Residents were invited to sell their used bikes by contacting the municipality via a link at the municipality Munich’s website prior to the event, and second-hand bicycle dealers were also invited to participate. The event was held in a large hangar, easily accessible by public transportation, with an adjacent outdoor space for trying out bicycles (in the rain☹). The atmosphere was pleasant, with a cafeteria, a technical service from the Munich municipality that provided objective professional advice and bicycle fittings, and easy and quick checkouts for those buying bicycles for themselves or their children.
 

🚏 In order to reduce the use of private cars, we must constantly promote alternatives. There is certainly some inspiration here for local authorities seeking to deepen their impact on changing travel patterns of their residents.
 

We recently moved to Munich, Germany. I have so many things to say about this, but as someone whose mobility is one of her greatest passions, I would like to briefly talk about urban mobility challenges comparing Munich to Tel-Aviv (Israel). These are initial thoughts gathered mainly from watching my new surroundings, and I’d love to hear more insights.

Let’s start with my bottom line- I tend to believe that due to Munich’s wide main streets, it’s easier to develop mobility alternatives to private cars, and provide the carrots without being immediately forced to use the policy sticks.

With wide Munich’s main streets, it’s easier to:

Continue reading “Mobility challenges Munich Vs. Tel Aviv”

📢 The shared mobility industry is growing and changing rapidly around the world. Chanchal Jetha 🛴🚲, a shared mobility analyst who regularly posts worldwide news on shared mobility, is the closest to a one-stop shop for this wide field of knowledge.
 
📝 During her post-graduation degree, she took an inclination towards market research and has been in that field ever since, currently she is working with Frost & Sullivan, a global consulting firm as an Industry Analyst.
 
🤿 She has dived deep into the ocean of Shared Mobility with a day-to-day filled with topics such as car sharing, micro-mobility, demand-responsive transport (drt), mobility as a service (maas) and ride hailing.
 
💡 I was intrigued when I came across her comprehensive posts about interesting developments in the field of shared mobility throughout the world and wondered how she gathered so much information and trends. So, we talked, and in addition to being really lovely, she also shared a few interesting perspectives with me:

Continue reading “Chanchal Jetha – Shared Mobility Knowledge Hub”

🗺️ Could well-visualized data help us better plan and use multimodal transportation?

🚌 For a moment, let’s state the obvious: Data is such an essential element of our decision-making, and today it’s hard to imagine using transportation systems without a trip planner. One of the current challenges is how to collect and *present* needed planning and operation mobility data in an accurate, rapid, and understandable manner to all.

📙 Here are two short stories about people waking up every morning to make the world a better place by making mobility information accessible, in Europe and Israel.

Continue reading “Multimodal Transportation Visualization”

🕟 Can you imagine starting a project that takes about 50 years to complete?
 
🚆 This is the case for the light rail in Tel Aviv metropolitan, Israel. NTA – Metropolitan Mass Transit System, an Israeli governmental company, began working on the first red line in 2009 after beginning plans in the 1970s. It is a 24 kilometers long line with 34 stations, half of which are underground, that will be open in November 2022.
 
 
👒 I was delighted to join a tour organized by Rony Bruell from The Israeli Women Environmental Forum, led by Gali Glatt Simhi, VP of innovation and quality at NTA. Our tour took place in the Allenby station (Tel-Aviv), where the construction was recently completed.
 

 
💡 Here are a few highlights I have learned on the tour:

Continue reading “The First Light Rail Line to Open Soon in Tel Aviv Metropolitan”

📃 European Parliament’s environment committee recently voted to ban new fossil fuel-powered vehicles from 2035 onward in the 27-country bloc. The European Parliament will vote on it in the coming months.


🎯 While these are excellent news, they will only have the desired impact if:

🌱 Electricity would be generated from “clean”, renewable, sources. It seems that it’s heading in a positive direction-Global renewable electricity capacity will grow by 60% from its 2020 levels by 2026, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

🚌 As for mobility, we will need to shift to more public and shared means of transportation, yes, even with all the great EVs around: public transportation, shared micro-mobility, shared rides (autonomous included), etc.

📺 In a recent Expert Panel Webinar organized by ChargePoint and BloombergNEF, Colin McKerracher, Head of Advanced Transport at BloombergNEF, and André ten Bloemendal, Senior Vice President Europe at ChargePoint, presented a few interesting E-mobility trends and forecasts. The following highlights caught my attention:   

Continue reading ” Is Europe on its Way to a Fossil-Fuel Clean Auto Industry?”

🌱 Bicycles can play a considerable role in sustainable short-distance trips.
A new global survey conducted by Ipsos across 28 countries found a few interesting findings:

1) Most people consider cycling important for reducing both carbon emissions (86%) and traffic congestion (80%).
2) People tend to use their bikes more often when they feel their surrounding is safe for biking.

🧩 Thus, promoting bike infrastructure is an important part of shifting our mode of transportation toward cycling.


❤️ The survey results show that people love bikes, even ebikes!
Bicycles were viewed favorably in all countries (from 93% in Poland to 64% in Great Britain), as were e-bikes (from 84% in India to 57% in Great Britain).

Continue reading “The Connection Between Mode Choice and Cycling Infrastructure”

📝 While there are many ways of approaching the desired vision, I believe we can pinpoint a few essentials that can significantly assist us.


🎓 I had a great discussion (thank you Zoom for making it possible!) about it with Maya Negev‘s students in the “Health and Environment Policy” course at University of Haifa. Many of them live in the Israeli periphery, so they know firsthand what mobility in rural areas looks and feels like.

🍞 The following are a few of the essentials we discussed:

Continue reading “Creating a Reality-Changing Mobility Project “

🪔  I have a confession: I’m a bike rider for the last 34 years and I have never ridden electric bikes.

🚴🏻‍♀️  Let’s be honest – bikes and e-bikes aren’t for everyone. It can be a viable solution for healthy people of certain ages, who need to travel not too far between A and B in a reasonable weather.

🌍  Having said that, I think cities have reached a point where every option that contributes to reducing our dependency on private cars and encourages the use of public transport and shared mobility means should be explored.

🏢  It seems that e-bikes are here to stay, whether privately owned or shared, and they change the way we feel in urban environments – as pedestrians as well as riders.

📋  movmi – Shared Mobility Consultants have published a whitepaper on e-bike sharing and they offer an interesting do-don’t policy list including the following topics:
legislation, equity and accessibility, sponsorship for operators, education for riders, infrastructures, number of operators in a city and city regulations regarding transportation demand management (TDM).

🖍️  Here are 3 trivia facts I’ve learned from the report regarding e-bikes:

Continue reading “E-Bike Ride Sharing – How to do it Right”

🚉  Has the time arrived for on-demand shared rides to be eulogized?

📍 As a true believer in the promising combination of technology and mobility – I really hope not. The question is more about where and how.

🏢  shared rides do not work so well as part of an urban mobility network, as public transport planner, Àmir Shalev, recently pointed out. Shalev drew his conclusion from the ridership data in Helsinki, and gave other examples such as New York City, Washington and various places where ridesharing services have stopped operating.

🏆  *BUT* other related good news regarding demand-responsive transport (DRT) has recently arrived: the on-demand-service ioki Hamburg (a Deutsche Bahn company) won the German Mobility Transition Award by the transport association Allianz pro Schiene. 

🗝️  There are a few keys to its success that I believe we could learn from regarding the potential of DRT:
🚏 The service is an integral part of Hamburg’s public transportation system.
💺 The service focuses on the first and last mile, and it’s being offered in 7 areas on the outskirts of Hamburg and in neighboring districts.
  💺🚏 In fact, 72% of journeys are used for the “first and last” mile and as a feeder to public transport. 💺🚏
🚘 1 out of 3 passengers leave their car behind.

Continue reading “On-Demand Shared Rides: Potential and Future”

☀️ 🚌 Wouldn’t it be so cool to hop on a solar-powered bus ride?


☀️ 🚌 This is what the folks at Sono Motors are working on. In addition to developing a technology for private vehicles, they are soon to pilot a solar electric bus with Münchner Verkehrsgesellschaft mbH (MVG), Munich Transport Company.


⚙️ 20 photovoltaic (PV) modules will be installed on the roof and sides of each bus, providing over 2,000 watts. A medium-sized fleet of around 300 buses could possibly save up to 2,000 metric tons of CO2 annually.


🎯 With such mobility solution, several urgent issues can be addressed simultaneously:

🛢️ Combating rising energy prices
💨 Reducing emissions in urban areas
🎐 Building a self-reliance energy market

🔋 According to Laurin Hahn, Sono Motors co-founder and CEO, solar electric vehicles reduce the charging time and protect the battery through constant charging, which allows the e-bus to operate longer.


🚍🚐 I find Sono’s solution exciting because it can also be integrated into existing fleets.

📸 Image by Sono Motors.

📰 The brilliant Asaf Zagrizak interviewed me recently for Globes, a prominent Israeli economic daily newspaper and a news site.

💡  We discussed some of the insights I gathered during my time as the unit manager for roads infrastructure at Palestinian localities in Israel at Ayalon Highways. Brief highlights include:

📝 Ambitious plan as a key to success
💷 Funding challenges to achieve plans’ goals
🚍 Dedicated bus lanes in rural localities
🔋 Alternatives for rural mobility services

Continue reading “Achievements and Challenges of Rural Mobility in Palestinian Localities in Israel”

🚍  A global shortage of public transport drivers pose a threat to the operation of mass transit. The shortage is already having undesirable consequences for both drivers and passengers, and as the crisis worsens, the consequences will become even more severe.

💡  There are a variety of possible solutions, including the following:
💷 Wage increases
🚏 Improving the physical conditions of buses and last stations
📅 Increasing certainty at work – drivers are aware of shifts in advance
🌈 Reaching out to potential audiences such as parents, students, etc. to increase the number of drivers.

📺  This topic was addressed in a recent webinar by Intelligent Transport and Optibus.
Dave Joshua, General Manager, EMEA at Optibus, believes that driver retention is influenced by four factors: Mental health; Physical Health; Work-Life Balance and Driver Safety.
According to Joshua, many drivers prefer to work fixed hours throughout the week, since this increases their level of work certainty. However, quite a few drivers want the option to change and adjust to various hour mixes throughout the week, based on their lifestyles and commitments (such as students, parents, etc.).

🌈 A variety of roster mixes for the drivers contributes to their satisfaction and increases the number of potential employees, such as parents and students. In Optibus they call it: “Life Style Rosters”.

📊  The driving arrangement system of Optibus allows schedule optimization, among other things, by defining groups of drivers with differing characteristics, the degree of flexibility in hours, and adjusting tasks (driving routes) that match the drivers’ characteristics.

Continue reading “Global Shortage of Public Transport Drivers: What Can Be Done?  “

Calcalist, one of Israel’s leading economic news sites, recently published an article on the budgeting mechanisms for roads infrastructure in Israel, pointing the differences between two budgeting methods, to Jewish localities and Palestinians localities.

💡  I believe the state should focus on building the capacity of local authorities in various fields, and at the same time ensuring that they receive whatever is needed to improve and thrive.

📝 At the end of the article, you can find some of my thoughts on the subject:

“The government decided to outsource the [roads infrastructure] projects to management companies because direct investments through the local authorities did not produce the desired results – neither in terms of schedule, quality, nor budget.
The creation of a mechanism that evaluates the capacities and capabilities of local authorities, regardless of their sector, will enable authorities with the appropriate capacity to carry out the projects by themselves.”

📸 Photo by ivan-henao on Unsplash

📝 In their recent report on mobility as a service for 2022, FREE NOW highlights the enormous benefits offered by an app that can take us anywhere we want to be.

🛴 Currently, its own multi-micro-mobility app features: eScooters, eMopeds, eBikes, taxi, Private Hire Vehicles (PHV) and car sharing. They are providing these services through partnerships with: SHARE NOW, TIER Mobility, Cooltra, Dott, emmy sharing (Go To), VOI, and MILES Mobility, and they are planning to increase their partnerships with at least 10 additional companies in 2022.

🌈 It is great news for riders in European cities where FREE NOW operates. It is also good news for cities, as residents will be able to rely on shared mobility to replace partially or fully the use of private cars.

🚘 According to the report, by 2025, the number of private cars is expected to rise by 10 million in Europe. It will require additional 115km² parking space, equivalent to the size of Dublin. In addition, private cars remain parked 95% of the time, whereas shared vehicles are used up to six times more often on average.  

🛴 🌈 So, an increase in shared mobility options is beneficial to cities and their residents, both in terms of traffic congestion as well as environmental concerns. Having one-stop-shop for all means of mobility, including regular public transportation, also sounds like a good idea.

🗽 Having said that, do we want to be dependent on a single private operator for this one stop mobility shop? Is it better to have states and cities submitting their own bids while maintaining standards, regulations, and making sure all relevant information reaches their residents?

📊 Private initiatives are often able to come up with great solutions that governments will never be able to provide, however, on the other hand, privately controlled data has its own complications and challenges.

💡 What’s your take? for the sake of better and more sustainable mobility, is it wise to let agile private initiatives lead the way? Should cities and countries be more influential as integrators? Should a different approach be taken?

📸 Photo by Vlad B on Unsplash

📽️ Want to see four years’ worth of work in just a three minutes video?

✂️ The road infrastructure revolution in Palestinian’s localities in Israel kicked off.

✨ We have begun a new era with a wonderful team at Ayalon Highways, great local authorities’ leadership, an excellent long-term plan, the support of the Ministry of Transportation and the Minister, Merav Michaeli.