BEAST #7

68
#Technology | Mobility
UBER OR THE
NEW MOBILITY
INTERVIEW
ORDER BY ALEXANDRE KEILMANN
No other startup has disrupted an industry like Uber disrupted
mobility, one of the biggest proof being the creation of the word
«uberisation». A simple app, an irreproachable service and a growing
demand made Uber one of the most envied – and sometimes even
hated – company in the world. Jo Bertram, the Head of Northern
Europe at Uber, will share Uber’s vision during ICT Spring. BEAST
met with her to discuss the future of mobility.
Uber’s mission is the help with the creation of a new mobility. In the
cities where Uber is available, transportation habits are evolving.
According to you, what are the biggest mobility trends?
For us, the future of urban mobility is a shared mobility. By getting
more people into fewer cars, we can reduce congestion and
regain the spaces taken by parking lots. The key factor here is
technology. Carpooling is not a new development - in fact, quite a
lot of cities have tried to introduce it as a means to reduce traffic.
But the idea never really took off, mostly because it’s just too
hard. However, once our operations reached a certain mass, our
engineers noticed that Uber had a lot of duplicate rides - People
going to the exact same place at the exact same time. That’s when
we decided to introduce uberPOOL, a service which encourages
people to share their ride with other people for a cheaper fare.
UberPOOL is today available in over 30 cities worldwide and has
already helped reduce 500 million miles driven, save 23.5 million
litres of fuel and cut carbon emissions by 55,560 metric tons in
the first 6 months of 2016.
What is currently being done at Uber to develop a sustainable
business, reduce emissions and, more generally, preserve our
environment?
Besides uberPOOL we have also introduced UberGREEN in
Portugal and France allowing people in Paris, Lisbon and Porto to
order environmentally friendly vehicles to get around their city. In
London we also recently launched a trial with electric vehicles and
partnered with Energy Savings Trust to publish a report evaluating
our programme. During this trial, drivers who were using fully
electric vehicles saved more than half a metric tonne of NOx and
22 metric tonnes of CO2 during the course of the trial compared
to a hybrid car.
Can you share some figures with our readers?
Uber is currently available in over 450 cities across 73 countries
and more than five million Uber trips happen each day. Over 1.5
million active drivers use Uber to connect to over 40 million
monthly active riders.
We have heard that Uber is working with Mercedes-Benz
to develop an autonomous fleet. How true is this?
Today, 1.3 million people around the world die in car
accidents every year. 94% of those accidents involve
human error. This is a tragedy technology can help solve.
This is why we have announced an agreement with
Daimler among others to introduce and operate their
own self-driving cars on Uber’s ridesharing
network.
What does it mean for all the Uber drivers?
Of course, self-driving cars won’t launch overnight and it is
reasonable to expect that there will be a long transition phase and
that this technology will create new opportunities. For example,
since ATMs were introduced in the last 1990s, the number of
full-time equivalent bank tellers has actually increased rather
than dropped as people feared since banks were able to lower
the cost of operating branches.
Who do you consider to be your biggest competitor? Taxis?
Autonomous cars?
One of the main challenges we’re trying to tackle today is
congestion and that in itself makes the private car our biggest
competitor. Next time you’ll sit in your car, stuck in traffic, have
a look to your right and left and most likely you’ll find one
passenger in each vehicle beside you.
People are pushed into car ownership by design—urban design.
The reason for that is that public transport can’t get you to
your front door. What we find however is that when people
have access to a safe, reliable and affordable way to connect to
their city, they’re ready to give up on the private car ownership
and use Uber to complement to existing public transport
infrastructure. Today, to give you one example, in Brussels 30%
of all trips end or start close to a metro or train station. This shift
in mentality is happening already today - A recent independent
study found that a quarter of all Londoners who have let go of
their personal car have done so because of the availability of
alternatives.
Are there talks to have Uber in Luxembourg in the near future?
How important can the country of Luxembourg be for an
American startup?
Luxembourg has the third most expensive taxi
service in the world, is the country with the
highest car ownership rate in Europe and
turns out to be one of the last countries
in the European Union where people are
unable to get an affordable, reliable and
safe ride at the touch of a button - so
naturally we are interested in offering
our service and provide better
mobility solutions here too. Although
we have met with the relevant
authorities, no plans to launch in
Luxembourg exist at this stage.
«
Enterprise
mobility
made
simple !
DANIEL MUSSARD
Mobility Solutions Expert
Wireless
Device Management
Mobile Fleet Management
Convergence
Collaboration
Managed Mobility Services
Consulting
Service Level Agreement
Solutions Design
ictexpertsluxembourg.lu
»
BEAST MAGAZINE #7
(MIT Research for reference)