Mobility is transforming. The issue of last mile travel and sharing is becoming increasingly important and discussed. A discourse that travels on the tracks of sustainability but also of pure and simple comfort for users. And in this sense the result brought home by Voi Technologyannounced as part of Smart City NOW it is truly exceptional, but only a first step towards a new concept of travel.
Voi Technology reaches one and a half million kilometers traveled
The announcement arrived during Smart City NOW, an event dedicated to the continuous transformations of cities, especially in the context of travel that was held in these days in Milan. Less than two years after its launch in the capital, the sharing scooters of the Swedish company Voi Technology have traveled more than one and a half million km.
A result that bodes well for the achievement of the legendary Milan in 15 minutes, a goal evoked several times, not only during Smart City NOW. The idea is to free the roads of private cars, favoring new types of mobility. Just look at the data to understand how positively such a result can revolutionize.
In fact, today80% of the public space Italian is dedicated to cars, impressive when compared to the already high European average of 50%. But not only that, cars are responsible for 12% of CO2 emissions, which we know well how harmful they are to the environment.
A positive impact that can be estimated, as Voi Technology did. By studying the numbers of customers who have admitted to having chosen the service as alternative to your own private carit has been calculated that these scooters have saved 50 tons of CO2 and 20 kg of PM2.5.
The future is Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS)
The way forward is therefore clear and passes through the so-called MaaS o Mobility-as-a-Service. This is another very recurring theme when it comes to urban travel and how it should evolve. A path that is not necessarily simple, but in which Voi Technology really believes a lot.
Underlying everything is the idea of simplification. In other words, it is necessary to render increasingly accessible the use of these services, facilitating the life of citizens who want to use them and therefore encouraging them to do so. You can go through various roads. From the possibility of quickly unlocking the various means, to the creation of specific infrastructures, up to legislative interventions.
Another key element is integration. Allow a easier access it also plans to streamline all the procedures for using this type of means, inserting them within a larger ecosystem, linking with other MaaS, whether public or private. A process that Voi Technology has already carried out effectively in various European cities such as Stuttgart, Helsinki and Berlin and which aims to introduce also in Italy.
A chat with Magdalena Krenek of Voi Technology
Magdalena Krenek, General Manager Voi Technology Italia
Of these and other topics we chatted with Magdalena Krenek, General Manager Voi Technology Italia. A way to better understand the position of the company, but above all to reflect on what could be the next steps to reach the mythical one Milan in 15 minutes and maybe even go further.
Let’s start from Milan in 15 minutes, which we have been talking about for some time: what can be the steps to get closer to this goal?
We believe that one of the tools to reach this “City in 15 minutes” in addition to sharing mobility services, understood in many different ways, whether it is on foot, by scooter, by bicycle, even the car (and who knows what could be added in future) and to create a system in which all these modalities come together, with the help of the MaaS, another concept that is talked about a lot.
So Mobility-as-a-Service can help us spread everything among citizens and increase usage. Both sharing mobility and active mobility, i.e. walking, for example, up to public transport. We need to connect all these worlds and make the city accessible in fifteen minutes.
The integration of the different operators in the MaaS is therefore fundamental, as is the experience in doing so. It has to be done right. What we have seen in other European cities has taught us that simply integrating is not enough. MaaS is not magic, it is not enough to create it and tomorrow everyone will convert to this tool and use only that.
We must also promote it, make sure that there is sufficient use of these systems and encourage it. Finding a connection with the real world is also very important. We have made some experiments and we have seen that for example installing a rack for scooters and bicycles in the interchange stations (whether it is the Central station, the metro station, the bus station …). In this way we are able to interconnect the different modalities even more and encourage multimodality.
Precisely from the point of view of city infrastructures, what are the improvements (in Milan but also in other cities) that can help the spread of this type of modality?
Our cities are currently not made for micro-mobility, but not for active mode either. Our cities are currently made for cars. To help this change, we can devote more and more space to other modalities that we would like to encourage.
We have thought of several ways to improve parking in the city today. We see well how unfortunately it is still a problem. We have invented a technology with which we verify the parking called Parking Assistant, which gives feedback to the user by telling him whether it is a good parking or not. We thus focus on the education of our users, gradually improving the approach.
In addition, we offer administrations the installation of our racks, which I mentioned earlier. Surveys show that most users would like to park correctly. There is no malice in possibly hindering other participants in the service. They just don’t know where to park.
Education is therefore fundamental. We invented the world’s first digital scooter driving school, free of charge. We encourage you by giving credits to use the service.
So more than free it is almost paid!
Exactly! Hence, education, infrastructure creation and creating this connection between digital and real are the key steps to follow.
Moving on to the bureaucratic side, which has been a great theme for the world of micromobility, how much is there still to do?
Scooters are currently equated with electric bicycles. We think this is actually right. What needs to be improved is the space dedicated to micro-mobility. If we think about the construction of new buildings, we must always dedicate a certain number of parking spaces to cars, but there is no rule on having to create a space for micro-mobility. Even just for private bicycles. There is really a lot to do there.
How realistic is it in the near future to be able to expand beyond the confines of larger cities?
We are already doing it. A prime example comes to mind of an expansion we did from Berlin – which is already very extensive – and we still got out of the part called Spandau. We have expanded there and we have even managed to encourage the use of public transport, integrating with our services.
A great success and we believe we can also do it outside other cities. It is very important because it is those areas there that must be connected to the rest of the city, even the less dense ones on the outskirts.
To know more about Voi Technology and their projects, we refer you to the official website of the company.