By Phil Tinn

To Dock, or Not to Dock?

The last few years saw a rapid  adoption of app-based taxis, shared bikes, and increasingly, electric vehicles across the world.  Despite the arrival of these new platforms and vehicles, 2017 wrapped up with another series of inconclusive efforts in defining the new order in urban mobility.  For all the love for new travel options offered through  bike-sharing and app-based taxis (commonly referred to as "ride-sharing"), the cities are facing difficult  transitions toward ensuring long-term collective interests—notably in the protection of public spaces and public transit systems.

Fueled by anxious VC money, the expansion of dock-less bike sharing systems across the globe enabled cities to rapidly demonstrate their participation in the active mobility movement. In practice, however, dock-less bike sharing frequently results in users parking their bikes in random public places.  Such behaviors are increasingly perceived as a "nuisance" by the general public, an example of which is documented in Kriston Capps' recent article.  If we park the shared bikes freely on the street today in the name of the "sharing economy,"  what else might be left  freely on the street in the future?  

Bike, Bus or... Uber?

Meanwhile, studies are  beginning to emerge that  point to the difficult relationship between urban public transit  and app-based taxi platforms such as Uber and Lyft. Contrary to the messianic vision promoted by former Uber CEO, Travis Kalanick—that ride-sharing services would alleviate traffic jams in places like Boston—a recent study from UC Davis reveals instead that app-based taxis contribute to generating more trips and to reducing the usage of active (walk, cycling) and public transit modes (bus). 

In fact, the negative externalities brought forth alongside the benefits  by dock-less bikes and app-based taxis underscore just a few of many tensions and gaps between the public and private sectors, in their pace and attitude toward deploying new technology for urban mobility.  After the countless skirmishes between Uber and local governments, and now the overly liberal adoption of public spaces by the dock-less operators, how might we minimize the negative impact of these catch-me-if-you-can dynamics by better anticipating and responding to mass adoption of other emerging transportation technologies such as  electric and self-driving vehicles? 

As we celebrate the launch of the City Science Lab @Taipei Tech in Taiwan, our network partners from Andorra, Hamburg, Helsinki, Shanghai and DENSO Corporation gathered in Taipei for an intensive 3-day hackathon to explore new approaches to addressing current and emerging urban mobility challenges. 

The event accommodated 120 hundred participants representing 15 universities and 8 countries, public and private sectors to explore new ways to enhance the  quality of life of through mobility-related interventions. 

On the third morning (46th hour) of the event, 19 teams submitted their proposals and prototypes.  Here are some of our favorites:

1. Cycling Beyond the Dock War 

The world of bike sharing today is largely divided by dock systems (e.g. NYC CityBike) and dockless systems (MoBike). While the dock system requires  considerable planning and construction in the city, the dockless system introduces a certain unpalatable disorder to the urban public space in the name of the "sharing economy."  At the same time, to ensure an adequate level of bike availability across the city, both systems require a labor-intensive manual rebalancing of the bikes from overflowing areas to where people need them.  Taking advantage of the Order and Flexibility of each method, the Racebook team proposed a social networking approach to personify the bikes into traceable entities, which in theory, would incentivize—through social awareness—bike users into parking their bikes at socially acceptable spots in the city. If the majority of shared bike users behave according to prediction, zones where bike users find it agreeable to park a bike will likely emerge. Can we anticipate bike sharing to become dock-less but zone-based in the near future?

Team Racebook:  劉丁綺 Cecile Liu ,  江品慧 Pin-Hui Jiang,  魏廷羽 Ting-Yu Wei , 耿敏庭 Miti Ken , 王麒銘 Qi-Min Wang, 董芃彣 Peng-Wen Tong

2. Shared Bike Docking Station goes Mobile  

Working on expanding the accessibility of shared bikes, the team of "Moon Bear Bus" explored a concept similar to expanding what tour companies do for leisure downhill cyclists, where bikes are brought along with the tour bus/van on a trailer to make bikes readily available to tour participants at the hilltop. In the case of Moon Bear Bus, a detachable bike storage is integrated as the belly of a double-decker bus, providing an immediate, seamless first-mile and last-mile interface between the bus journey and the cycling journey. In other words, where the bus ride starts is where the bike gets dropped off; and at where the user hops off the bus, the bike ride begins.  According to the team, this potential new service can bring bike sharing services to previously underserved areas, starting from along the bus corridor.  In addition, it would also provide an effective refilling mechanism by enabling the bus to pick-up/off-load bikes by the "cartridge."

Team Moon Bear Bus: 吳岳霖 Yueh-Lin Wu, 劉文昇 Wen-Sheng Liu,  謝牧君 Mu-Chun Hsieh,  蔡巽亞 Hsun-Ya Tsai, 張紫婷 Zi-Ting Zhang, 彭雅柔 Ya-Rou Peng 

3. Biking Helmet Gets an AR  Upgrade   

Responding to the heavy usage and frequent collisions of motorcycles in Taiwan,  the Helpmet team conceptualized an AR-integrated helmet that provides safety guidance to the rider.  The concept consists of turning the presence of surrounding vehicles, as identified through sensors, into digital overlays on the street as seen through the eyes of the helmet user.  The overlay, for instance, would highlight adjacent lanes as dangerous to warn the rider if there are vehicles approaching through the blindspot. This way, the rider is prompted to not steer the vehicle to a certain part of the road where a potential collision might happen.

Team Helpmet: 張鈺佳 Yu-Chia Chang, 林謙耘 Chien-Yun Lin, 李嘉晟 Chia-Cheng Lee,  張智雅 Chih-Ya Chang 

4. E-vehicle Charging  Simulated at an Urban Scale 

As more cars, motorbikes, bicycles and even razor scooters become electrically powered, public agencies around the world are starting to wonder how to rollout charging stations for electric vehicles. Using GAMA, an open-source modeling and simulation platform, this team built a simple agent-based model simulating running electric vehicles on the streets of Taipei working with different numbers and placements of charging stations.

Team 42Milestone:  Hsieh Chang En, Fu Po-Ying,  Peng Yi-Shin, Pan Kuan Ling. Kuo Chen hua, Li Chang Yi

Overview:  From Vehicle to Infrastructure, and A.I. to Nudge

The hackathon kicked off with a series of presentations from researchers and partners of the City Science network focusing on tools and methodologies. To orient the participants' solution development toward real-world challenges, representatives from Andorra and Taipei City Government gave in-depth talks on their respective priorities:  

ANDORRA

• Increasing modal share and reducing the use of private cars
• Streamlining multi-modal transit experience
• Enhancing the experience and well-being of citizens, tourist and training athletes 

TAIPEI CITY

• Defining a strategy for charging electric vehicles of different sizes
• Increasing the accessibility of public housing and mobility of senior citizen using multi-functional self-driving vehicles  
• Identifying alternative, non-image based traffic signal communications

In addition, to bridge the  participating teams to industry relevant issues and capabilities, representatives from DENSO (Thermal Systems, MobilityIoT, ADAS) provided  on-site mentoring on the topics of Driver-Pedestrian, Driver-Vehicle and Vehicle-Vehicle interactions. 

The breadth of transportation modes, application areas and tools explored by the participants during the 46-hour period was nothing short of impressive. Three teams focused on improving pedestrian safety at the infrastructure level using AI and IoT devices.  Seven teams explored a wide range of cycling improvements, from using new human-machine interaction to bike lane expansion recommendation  analysis, and from reward systems to social-influences.  For the automobiles, four teams deployed augmented reality, computer vision and artificial intelligence aiming to increase driver awareness and road safety. One team sought to incentivize the usage of public transit by introducing a Tinder-like service for P2P learning, while another by implementing a dynamic passenger allocation system on the bus to reduce squeezing and physical bottle necks. 

This hackathon marked the third year of collaboration between the City Science group and its partners in Taiwan (Institute of Information & Technology, National Taipei University of Technology). It convened our public, private and educational partners from around the world to identify new urban challenges to address, and possible solutions for further iteration and deployment, collaboratively with our network of City Science Labs  in Andorra, Hamburg, Helsinki, Shanghai and Taipei, together with their local city governments. To find out more, join the conversation at the second installment of the Disrupting Mobility Summit at MIT Media Lab,  September 16-18, 2018.

Special Thanks

Professor Chaochin Su of TaipeiTech,   Director Lih-Jen Kau of City Science Lab @TaipeiTech, Deputy Minister of Education Yao Leeh-ter,  Claire Lin and Chingyu Yao of Taipei City Government, Minister Audrey Tang of the Executive Yuan,  Gary Gong of the Institute of Information & Technology, and Wu Min Hsuan of g0v, CEO Albert Moles and Miquel Galera of FEDA, Guillem Santacreu of Govern d'Andorra, Tri Nguyen Huu of IRD (France), Nuria Macia of ActuaTech, Yumiko Yabumoto,  Koji  Ota, Ifushi Shimonomoto, Shinichiro Nakamura, Tomohiro Miyachi, and Hiroaki Tanaka of DENSO Corporation, Jörg Noenning of Hafencity University, and Wolfgang Gruel of Daimler Mobility