Option 2: Comcast-style “multi-modal” juggernauts

Price for cities: free.

free. User experience: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Effect on car usage: ❓❓❓

Big corporations want to fill the void where consultant-built apps have failed.

Whether it’s…

Didi (🚖🚘🛴🚲)

Uber/JUMP (🚘🚲🛴)

Lime (🛴🚘)

Grab/oBike (🚖🚘🛴🚲)

Lyft/Motivate (🚘🚲🛴) or

Daimler/car2go/myTaxi (🚘🚖🛴)

…commuters today have more options than ever. Better options than ever. And a better user experience than the monstrous multi-modal apps built by you-know-who.

However, just like Comcast refuses to let you watch some channels unless you subscribe to their entire package, today’s multi-modal juggernauts might eventually do the same. But in this case, more than ESPN is at stake — it’s our cities’ car-free future.

More channels, more choice. Urban mobility is no different. But with the stakes so high, mobility operators can’t be as flippant as Comcast. We can’t afford to close mobility channels — yet in some places, it’s already happening.

Take car2go, owned by Daimler. Previously, car2go published its vehicle locations online with an open API. It meant anyone could add car2go to their platform: whether it was a scooter app, a ridehail app, or an app for public transit. It made it super convenient to compare options or plan a multi-modal trip. But now, it’s not. Now Daimler pushes you to use the proprietary car2go™ app to find car2go™ vehicles or book car2go™ trips.

It’s where the rest of the industry could be headed, with mobility companies yanking support for open APIs: no shared vehicle locations, no transparent prices, no way to plan or book a multi-modal trip across providers. It would make multi-modal transport way less convenient than it already is — and car ownership, as attractive as ever.

If other companies follow Daimler’s path:

You won’t be able to see all your options in third-party apps (i.e. Apple Maps, Google Maps, Transit).

(i.e. Apple Maps, Google Maps, Transit). Planning (or paying) for a multi-modal trip will require juggling apps. AKA no easy way to compare surge pricing, waiting or walking times. Worse — you’ll have to stitch together each leg, manually.

AKA no easy way to compare surge pricing, waiting or walking times. Worse — you’ll have to stitch together each leg, manually. Don’t want to juggle 10 scooter/bike/car/ridehailing/transit apps? Of course you don’t. But it will give rise to Comcast-style, multi-modal juggernauts.

Moreover, it risks cannibalizing public transit. If juggernauts only make money by putting butts in seats (or foots on scoots) what incentive will they have to aggressively promote public transit, the only sustainable — but also, the least profitable — way to move people across wide swaths of city?

If we don’t find a way to make it easy to combine shared mobility services with one another AND public transit, cities will remain shackled by cars.

But we can avoid that Comcast future. There is another way.