Ian Robertson notes: “Sounds exactly like the Transit Service Provider you’ve written about.”
Augsburg has the first German city to introduce a mobility flat rate. For a fixed monthly fee starting at €79, residents of the city will be able to gain full access to a range of mobility services.
Alongside public transport services, Augsburg has been offering car sharing and rental bikes. This municipal utility now combines the offers and centralises them in a nationwide unique flat rate. …
The scheme is the outcome of a year-long test phase conducted by Augsburg Stadtwerke. The city has long been endeavouring to attract more people to use public transport, including plans to make all trams and buses within the ‘City Zone’ free to use from 2020 onwards.
Ian is right: Augsburg has become a TSP, providing “Mobility as a Service” (Maas) as part of the New Mobility. All kinds of names for more or less the same thing.
It’s important to note that TransLink is taking the initial step as well:
We are excited to say we are partnering with with Evo Car Share, Modo Co-operative, and Mobi by Shaw Go bike share to help make multimodal travel easier, more convenient and more seamless for residents in Metro Vancouver.
It’s a trial program at the moment – specifically the Shared Mobility Pilot Program. But it’s important than the public agency is taking the lead, because it’s only a matter of time before the big private sector players maker their moves. (Is that Amazon I see?)
Note that most cities already charge a fixed fee (usually property taxes) which allows you to drive as much as you want, whenever you want. This is just new for the lower-externality mobility offerings…
A fixed fee that allows you to drive as much as you want is one of the problems. A fixed fee that has people without cars paying for those who do is another problem.
The BUFFET: ALL YOU CAN EAT ALL YOU CAN DRIVE MODEL.
Not good. Makes for porkers.
Freeways are not free. Free parking is not free. Cycling is as close to free as you can get. As ecological as you can get. As healthy as you can get.
And how will the free transit model play out? Like university students who drive near, park, and hop a bus for the last bit?
When there was a lengthy transit strike here, the indigent used the opportunity to ferry around bags of cans; don’t know what else. Would I take a bus sharing space with them and the psychologically armoured smart phone zombies. Rhetorical question. Am not now have never been never will be a transit user. Unless incapacitated.
I wish some of the fat cash wasted on these schemes was diverted to subsidize bicycle mechanics – to give them a living wage. There are a ton of unused bicycles out there that need attention.