ONE’S COMMUTE MODE IS MORE THAN MERE TRANSPORTATION

BY JEREMY MULLINGS

Smart cities must feature smart commuting, which includes sustainable, efficient, and attractive mass transit, carpooling, vanpooling, biking, and walking. To highlight the benefit of these modes and motivate commuters to switch to them, we need to talk more than transportation with the public. We need to demonstrate how these modes fit into the lifestyle that commuters pursue or are currently living.

People say the Department of Transportation loves to build massive roads, bridges, and interchanges, and they love people who drive single-occupant vehicles. But they’re also deeply invested in public transportation, seaports, airports, and, of course, programs like mine: transportation demand management. We are here to highlight the benefits and expose the values of these other modes of transportation that hopefully can appeal to folks and get them to reconsider driving alone.

We do a lot of engagement, but unlike your traditional transportation decisionmakers, where you objectively share this information with the public and allow them to make informed decisions, we have the luxury of trying to convince people to do things. We are in the business of hopefully changing your behavior. If we’re lucky, we’ll convince you that there are options outside of driving alone, the No. 1 cause of congestion and a significant impact on air quality. We’re talking about smart cities and cities of the future, and there has to be a robust public transportation system.

The private sector has these brilliant ideas to get people out of cars and onto public transportation. But the problem is they don’t present these ideas from a consumer-focused standpoint. That is where a lot of technology companies fall short. We know the market is the people, and we put the people first.

I’m not here to tell you I ran an empty bus efficiently. I want to know why that bus is empty. And the reason the bus is empty is that it’s not appealing to the market.

I spent several years at the Florida Department of Transportation, and many people said that millennials would be the generation that would take public transportation. But in 2015, millennials became the dominant segment in the workplace, and the opposite happened. Car ownership went up, vehicle miles traveled went up, transit ridership went down, walking was stagnant, and biking was stagnant. To compound that, transit funding continued to increase. We can’t use that excuse anymore. We need to put better products out there.

What comes to your mind when you hear the word bus? I’m sure you’re thinking exactly what people said. It was a difficult conversation with my colleagues who run the bus service to tell them that a huge part of their approach is wrong. If we look at this from a consumer standpoint, not treat customers as if we are giving them a public service or a social service but treat them like consumers, we would do better, not asking folks to lower their standards and accept what it is, what we’re capable of putting out and what our budget allows, but instead understand the public’s need and work with the decision-makers and the policy-makers if we need additional funding to get there.

If we’re talking about building a smart city, it will be reliant on public transportation. And that public transportation is going to have technology integrated into it. That’s where the public is now. But how about we make the product more in line with what the public wants?

I have been exposed to dozens of demos from technology companies that can turn this thing around and make transit much more attractive. But they are not selling that portion to the decision-makers or funding entities. It’s reminding the funded entities that we have a product we’re trying to appeal to consumers. It’s not a social service. Once we start to think like that, the products will get better. And we’ll begin to educate the decision-makers on why we do what we do. And it’ll be a more welcoming environment for the private sector. Once government workers hear the word “profit,” they often automatically think it is evil.

I think Brightline is changing the game in South Florida. It feels almost like you’re in an airport and about to board a plane. I rode Brightline for the first time a couple of weeks ago, and it was an amazing experience. I purposely eavesdropped on people in the station. Most of the people were first-time riders, which was surprising to me. There didn’t seem to be a lot of commuting. It was folks going off for special events. A comment I heard more than I expected was how nice the place smelled. And my understanding is that they infuse scent into the station.

When talking to the folks from Brightline, they say a word that many people in my industry don’t use: experience. They talk about the experience of the user. All people in my world talk about is timing: I’ll get you there in 30 minutes. My on-time performance is 70%.

There’s another commuter rail here that I like as well: Tri-Rail. Obviously, it’s no Brightline, but Brightline is opening the eyes of people who ordinarily would not consider jumping on a train. Now they see Brightline, which puts them in a position to wonder: What is this Tri-Rail thing?

The Brightline focuses on something that not many transportation companies do: experience.