Software is Eating Mobility
Ten years ago, Marc Andreesen, the famed Venture Capitalists and co-founder of Netscape, published a seminal post on how and why “Software is Eating the World”.
Andreesen captured what was becoming increasingly apparent, that software companies were beginning to develop solutions which were taking over businesses and industries based on physical products pre-Internet. Andreesen used high profile examples like Amazon dominating Borders and other physical book stores, Apple dominating music and Netflix dominating Blockbuster, etc.
This trend has only accelerated in the last decade and seemingly no industry is immune to the threats and opportunities software innovation brings. Mobility, the space I have spent the past several years focused on, is another one of those industries that is being absolutely transformed by software, for better or worse.
The Software Eats Mobility Pyramid can help frame the transformation of mobility, one of the most critical services that feeds our economy and improves our quality of life.
Maps
Let’ start from the base of the pyramid. Mapping tools have digitized and with every passing year, the data major mapping companies have like Google, Apple, TomTom, Here and others enable even more innovative business models and capabilities for users. Today when I see tourists pulling out a physical map I start wondering if I just went back to the 20th century as they are becoming a relic of the past.
LBS & Devices
The proliferation of digital maps embedded in the mass adoption of smart phones (especially in the developed world) have allowed for the introduction of location based services. Perhaps nowhere in mobility has this trend disrupted the status quo than in the taxi industry. While many legitimate criticisms of gig worker treatment and tax evasion exist with these business models, and arguably growing not declining traffic congestion, Uber and other massive location based ridehailling services (e.g. Lyft, Careem, Cabify, Grab, Ola, Didi), have transformed the user experience when seeking a taxi-like service to go from A to B.
Digital Payment
To make mobility easier, it should be easier to pay for mobility services from the growing number of digital devices travelers have access to. Cash in many markets is also becoming a rare sight. A growing diversity of digital payment solutions have emerged to allow us to travel from A to B and leave our physical wallets at home. One critical part of the transportation ecosystem which has been slow to support digital ticketing and payment has been public transit. Yet companies like Cubic Transportation and Masabi have been accelerating deployments of digital payment solutions for transit agencies around the world and I expect by 2030 we will see widescale adoption of contactless (EMV) type systems. This trend has been accelerated by the Covid pandemic as well.
CASE-Connected, Autonomous, Shared, Electric
In recent years we have seen billions spent on technologies that allow cars to become smarter, electric and autonomous. While there are many acronyms, one that has stuck is CASE which stands for Connected, Autonomous, Shared and Electric. Each one of those trends is supported by increased software capabilities tied to networking tech and artificial intelligence. While Tesla gets all the headlines, all the incumbents in the auto industry are racing to transform themselves into software companies, or buying software companies to get a jump start. And of course, stay tuned as traditional software companies like Apple and Google have also made investments to embrace the CASE revolution.
Shared Fleets
All of the aforementioned elements of the pyramid have created the enabling conditions, or a perfect storm, to support an explosion of shared mobility fleets in cities around the world. From carsharing and carpooling to the growing diversity of micromobility fleets from companies like Tier, Voi, Bird, Lime, Neuron and hundreds more around the globe, shared mobility fleets have taken cities and regions by storm. Furthemore a range of middleware fleet management companies like Vulog, Wunder and Here have also expanded to service shared fleet operators. While this space will see increasing regulation to address things like geofencing for where users can travel and park these vehicles, shared mobility is here to stay and when done right, can provide more choice and help solve first and last mile mobility needs for rail and transit users (and car drivers too), reducing congestion and emissions in cities.
The Holy Grail: Plug and Play Mobility on Demand
Noticeably absent from the pyramid at the moment is what I consider to be the holy grail of how software can power the mobility transformation. If our local, regional and global transportation system is to reach the promise of accelerating a path to zero GHG emissions from transport, and to make it easier for people to ditch their car dependence, we must make the aggregate User Experience (UX) for accessing all these digitally enabled services more seamless and even easier than taking your private car from A to B.
Today we have growing networks of EVs and EV charging networks, a growing diversity of LBS shared mobility fleets, growing numbers of transit agencies and rail operators embracing digital ticketing and payments and growing penetration of smart phones. What cities, regions and countries need now is a Mobility on Demand platform that seamlessly connects all these services, eliminates the information asymmetry for customers about which services and vehicles are available near them (without having to download 50 apps in each city), and allows users to pay for all these different services in one interface.
While connecting all these software enabled services around the globe is a daunting challenge, the growth of microservices and APIs (application programming interfaces) make such a Mobility on Demand platform possible. This is exactly what we have been working on at Iomob since 2018. After conducting trials with large public and private customers in North America, APAC and Europe in 2019 and 2020, this year, with great enthusiasm, Iomob will be deploying our enterprise-ready Mobility on Demand platform through major enterprise customers across multiple continents.
Stay tuned for news about our latest deployments in the coming months.
About Iomob
Iomob is a software solution that creates marketplaces for mobility.
Our platform lets cities and large transport companies create Mobility-as-a-Service solutions connecting buses, trains, cars, bikes, scooters and more. Travellers can find any service, see how it will take them to their destination, compare and combine options, and pay… in any connected App.
