This week we're joined by Andrew Salzberg, Head of Policy at Transit App. Andrew talks with us about Transit's Guide to Open Mobility as a Service and discusses how policy can create a better travel experience for everyone.

The Guide to Open Mobility as a Service is found here.

Follow us on twitter @theoverheadwire

Support the show on Patreon at http://patreon.com

If you heard that there was a piece of technology that could do away with traffic jams, make cities more equitable, and help us solve climate change, you might think about driverless cars, or hyperloops or any of the other new transportation technologies that get lots of hype these days. But there is a much older, much less sexy piece of machinery that could be the key to making our cities more sustainable, more liveable, and more fair: the humble bus. Steve Higashide is a transit expert, bus champion, and author of a new book called Better Busses Better Cities. And the central thesis of the book is that buses have the power to remake our cities for the better.

Missing the Bus

Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of 99% Invisible ad-free and a whole week early.

Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Last March, renowned tech journalist and prognosticator Kara Swisher wrote a New York Times opinion piece with the headline, "Owning a car will soon be as quaint as owning a horse." In it, she declared she would sell her own car and vowed she would never again own an automobile. "The concept of actually purchasing, maintaining, insuring and garaging an automobile in the next few decades? Finished," she wrote. That column set off thousands of outraged commenters — and activated the radar at The War on Cars. We sat down with Kara at the Vox studios in downtown Manhattan to talk about what it's like living without wheels of her own, why she loves scooters, and whether we'll ever get the Star Trek Holodeck we've been promised.

Support The War on Cars on Patreon and receive stickers, T-shirts, exclusive access to special audio content and more.

Buy an official War on Cars T-shirt at Cotton Bureau.

Rate and review The War On Cars on iTunes.

SHOW NOTES:

Kara says owning a car will soon be as quaint as owning a horse (New York Times)

Times readers tell Kara she has no idea what she's talking about (New York Times)

Kara's update on life without her own car (New York Times)

Kara tours Paris by scooter (New York Times)

Follow Kara on Twitter.

Listen to Kara's Recode Decode and Pivot podcasts.

Is the Star Trek Holodeck closer than you think?

Find us onTwitter @TheWarOnCars, Aaron Naparstek @Naparstek, Sarah Goodyear @buttermilk1 and Doug Gordon @BrooklynSpoke.

Email us! thewaroncars@gmail.com

Getting around cities today can be challenging. Streets are congested and chaotic, and new modes seem to be popping up daily, adding to the confusion. Cities won't just need physical infrastructure to prepare for these growing mobility options, but the digital infrastructure to help coordinate them all.

In this episode, hosts Eric Jaffe and Vanessa Quirk explore the future of mobility: author Horace Dediu talks about micro-mobility; TriMet's Bibiana McHugh tells the story behind GTFS and the OpenTrip Planner; MaaS Global CEO Sampo Hietanen explains the concept of Mobility as a Service (MaaS); and Sidewalk Labs' Corinna Li explains what Mobility on Demand could be like in the city of the future. For a link-rich transcript of this episode, click here. 

City of the Future is produced by Benjamen Walker and Andrew Callaway. Mix is by Zach Mcnees. Art is by Tim Kau. Our music is composed by Adaam James Levin-Areddy. If you want to hear more of Adaam’s work, you can check out his band, Lost Amsterdam.

Waiting is something that we all do every day, but our experience of waiting, varies radically depending on the context. And it turns out that design can completely change whether a five minute wait feels reasonable or completely unbearable. Transparency is key.

Wait Wait...Tell Me!

Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of 99% Invisible ad-free and a whole week early.

Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Sheryl Gross-Glaser of the Community Transportation Association of America discusses the importance of transportation to having a full life, mobility management, and mobility as a service. She shares with us a vision of being able to find transportation options, book a ride, and pay for it all in one place with the goal of services that are available to all.

Links related to this topic on Mobility as a Service:

​National Center for Mobility Management

​CTAA AV Principles​

AARP's work on Universal Mobility as a Service (MaaS)

​

​

​

​

With GM's Cruise autonomous division backing away from its goal of deploying robotaxis in San Francisco this year, the gang discusses the pros and cons of different approaches to this unique moment in the autonomous drive space. Cruise's pivot from overambitious goal-setting represents one approach, Tesla's continued bluster and trend-defying confidence is another, while Navya's woes show that even seemingly more-pragmatic strategies can lead to overblown expectations and financial and technical challenges. These three case studies anchor a wide-ranging discussion about the expectations and realities of self-driving vehicles, how the hype got so out of control and how to start to bring it back down to earth.

This week on the podcast we're joined by Candace Brakewood a Civil Engineering Professor of the University of Tennessee and Jonny Simkin of Co-Founder and CEO of Swiftly. We talk about real time transit information including its history, benefits, shortcomings, and potential futures.

This week we're joined by Shailen Bhatt, President and CEO of ITS America. He talks about how we can use technology to reduce collisions, how we should spend infrastructure money, and what policy should focus on and change from a transportation and technology standpoint. He also talks about the problems with the communications spectrum and how conflicts are arising as technology improves vehicle communications.

There's a war quietly raging right now, over something you probably never guessed people would get worked up over: an open data standard that allows cities to manage shared mobility services. Launched by two-time Autonocast guest and LA DOT General Manager Seleta Reynolds, the Mobility Data Standard is tipping the balance of power away from well-funded startup invaders and towards city officials... and startups are fighting back. David Zipper of the German Marshall Fund, Citylab, The Atlantic and more has been covering this conflict better and for longer than anyone, and he joins the show to help Alex, Kirsten and Ed make sense of it.

This week we're at the Shared Mobility Summit from earlier this year in Chicago. Laura Bliss of CityLab moderates a panel of agency leaders including Stephanie Pollack, CEO of MassDOT, Randy Clarke, President and CEO of Capital Metro in Austin, and Sadhu Johnston, City Manager from Vancouver British Columbia.

The panel talks about whether it's too late to address climate change through transportation, how the introduction of ride hailing will work with local regulations in Vancouver, how Austin has been watching the evolution of shared mobility from TNCs to scooters, how buses matter for the future of transportation and much much more.

If you'd like to skip to the conversation portion past the presentations, fast forward to 41 minutes.