The Need for Digital Mobility
By Dan Sturges
 A little over 100 years ago, Henry Ford was about to launch his third car company (Ford Motor Company). Before his Model T, most Americans never traveled more than 25 miles from home in their entire lifetime! The auto has truly changed the world.
But with success comes problems: air pollution, global warming, our foreign oil habit, traffic congestion, parking stresses, and rising car ownership costs. Even if every new car sold is powered by hybrid or fuel cell drive systems, they will do nothing to address the traffic congestion that cities struggle with today.
To solve the total transportation puzzle, we need comprehensive solutions. We need to make car alternatives more attractive to consumers. We need to continue to improve telecommunication and transit offerings that reduce travel or move people more densely. New mobility innovations – car sharing, bus rapid transit, dynamic ridesharing, local vehicles, and telecenters – have been introduced but have difficulties because they have been implemented in piecemeal fashion.
Since transit is less effective in thin-cities (low-density communities and suburbs), mobility professionals have begun experimenting with renting local vehicles at transit hubs to help consumers conveniently travel the last mile to reach their destination. These cost-effective bi-modal solutions offer to greatly enhance the value of transit for many Americans.
Car designers and automobile stylists have a key role to play in making more compelling multi-mobility offerings. For example, who wants to ride in an ugly bus? It’s time for some curves...no more straight lines! Low investment, digitally-driven tooling can allow us to design a bus that looks like Audi made it and do it for much less than it would have cost a decade or two ago.
Two decades ago I began designing small vehicles while a student at Art Center College of Design, with an interest in vehicles that filled the gap between the motor scooter and the car. This focus ultimately led me to create the first neighborhood electric vehicle (NEV) with my partners. Today my design and company we started is now called the Global Electric Motorcar (GEM). I have heard there are more than 35,000 GEMs roving about the planet. It was the digital revolution that afforded me inexpensive CAD engineering support and a far lower investment to initially produce our NEV.
The digital revolution is also what will enable a vastly improved surface mobility system in the Untied States and around the world in the years ahead. We now require a more energy- and land-efficient transportation system. Digitally-connected, multi-modal systems offer to right size our mobility and help us choose the right vehicle or mode for the trip we will be taking. Automobiles designed to take us on a 3,000 mile trip across the country at 80 mph are not the best vehicles to reach a market down the street.
Introducing smaller cars is certainly a key aspect of tomorrow’s system. Safe travel corridors are needed. We also will employ technology to reduce the potential for collisions with incompatible vehicles. Lastly, we will need to work in new ways with those developing a new community, or those living in existing ones, to integrate more reasonable smaller modes.
In summary, digital technologies enable multi-modal systems, but also enable all-new ways to design, manufacture, and sell new vehicles and mobility offerings. They will play a key role in enabling us to design communities and their local mobility systems at the same time, in the same computer.
As I lead our new start-up, Intrago, into this area of last mile transportation solutions, I am convinced we will be moving faster and in more enjoyable ways for far less cost to consumers, communities, and the environment thanks to the digital revolution.
Dan Sturges is President of Intrago LLC (www.intragomobility.com), a transportation solutions company based in Boulder, Colorado, and a member of the U.S. Transportation Research Board
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