Author: Phillip Mintchin / Source: The Next Web
The urban mobility market has come a long way since London’s first horse drawn bus service in 1829. Even in the last five years, the rise of digitally-enabled ride-hailing mobility solutions such as Uber or ViaVan, or dockless on-demand mobility solutions such as Ofo and Mobike have significantly changed how Londoners get around.
However, with urban density expected to reach 66 percent by 2050 and the growing expectations of on-demand in urban societies, cities are under constant pressure to reinvent their transportation systems.
While regulators in cities such as Helsinki, Los Angeles, and Singapore are embracing this emergent movement of mobility as a service (MaaS), and are actively reshaping how urbanities get around, London’s TfL risks stifling innovation. Although the market is estimated to be worth $156 billion by 2022 according to PWC, London’s regulators are condemning efforts by imposing lengthy and complex regulations, driving away disruptors and innovators altogether.
So how can a modern metropolitan city, that’s already on the brink of losing international appeal due to Brexit, properly accommodate the needs and expectations of a modern on-demand environment and preserve its global reputation?
London’s lagging behind
Let’s first consider London’s current transport infrastructure. There have certainly been some new entrants, for example ViaVan, a joint venture between Mercedes-Benz and US ride-sharing startup Via, launched in London’s Zone 1 and 2 earlier this year, six months after its rivals Uber and Taxify lost its permanent licenses.
Indian ride-hailing app Ola, which just started to operate in parts of South Wales, is also planning to expand nationwide by the end of 2018. Meanwhile it’s hard to escape the lurid colours of the various dockless on-demand bike-sharing companies such as Ofo or Mobike, which give users the ability to pick up and drop off a shared bike almost anywhere in the city.
However, innovators are caught in complex and time-consuming negotiations dealing with each of London’s 32 boroughs separately as they are fighting for a standard regulation across the entire city. The process for new entrants to gain regulator approval is long, complex and expensive, and often ends in refusal as we’ve seen with scooter-sharing firms such as Bird or Lime.
These companies continue to struggle to overcome the legal roadblocks in the UK because electric scooters, segways, and hoverboards classify as a…
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