Changing How We Move: Modes of Mobility

WSP's People and Place Podcast presents 'Changing How We Move,' a new series hosted by Shifani Sood. Join our host as she interviews Jules Flynn, CEO of Zoomo, and Shanti Ditter, National Technical Executive at WSP Australia, about modes of mobility and creating a more active and sustainable transportation system.

The speakers discuss the benefits of active transportation, such as improved health, safety, and economy, and the importance of creating safe and accessible spaces for all users of the pavement, including pedestrians, cyclists, and micro-mobility devices.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a fundamental shift in the way people move and interact in their environments, with more people using micro-mobility devices and walking. This presents an opportunity for policymakers to create environments that allow these different modes of transport to occupy space in a safer way.

The podcast also addresses the need for holistic thinking and strong leadership in creating safe, accessible, and sustainable transportation systems that benefit all users.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Shifani: Hello and welcome to the People & Place Podcast by WSP. This is our podcast series, Changing How We Move. I'm your host Shifani Sood, senior consultant at WSP. I want to start by acknowledging the traditional owners of the lands upon which we all stand today around the country and wherever you may be joining us from.

I'd like to also pay my respects to elders past, present, and emerging. This series explores the how and why of decarbonising our transport, the different modes of mobility and how we will enable a green efficient and fair future. The movement of people and goods in Australia is one of our biggest contributors to carbon emissions.

We need to change how we move and find more sustainable solutions to limit the impacts of global warming. There are a million ways to reach our destination, so join us as we consult the experts and discuss how we are changing how we move. 

On today's episode, I'm joined by experts Shanti Ditter, National Technical Director of Planning with WSP and Jules Flynn, Chief Operating Officer at Zoomo, to talk about modes of mobility and the conflict on the curb.

Jules and Shanti, welcome to the show. Can you please tell us a bit about yourself? 

[00:01:17] Jules: Hi my name is Jules Flynn. I'm Chief Operating Officer at Zoomo, an organization that provides light electric vehicles for logistics. I have been in the urban mobility sector for most of my career. Working in Australia, Europe, and the US and have a long running interest in all topics to do with active transportation and sustainable cities.

I'm also on the board of directors of the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, which is a US based global NGO that focuses on sustainable transportation issues around the world.

[00:01:54] Shanti: Hi, I'm Shanti Ditter. I'm the National Technical Director Planning at WSP. I have a long interest in transport, active transport in particular, probably around 20 years, having written the first round of policy in South Australia for cycling, and more recently, last year I wrote the first South Australian walking strategy, which has won an award through the planning institute.

And I have an active role in providing advocacy and advice to clients around how space has changed to create safety for our environments.

[00:02:30] Shifani: Yeah. Fantastic. Thanks for that. So to begin with, most of our cities are designed around cars as the primary mode of transportation. As we introduce more modes, there is increased competition for space on the curb, footpath, and streets. How can we plan our cities and precincts to enable us to move in safe, convenient, healthy, and environmentally conscious ways?

So public transport, walking, cycling, and micro mobility are repealing alternatives to the private car. Jules, can you kick us off by telling us about your work at Zoomo? 

[00:03:05] Jules: Zoomo provides light electric vehicles, so e-bikes and things that are like e-bikes, but bigger to last mile logistics. Our mission is to transition from internal combustion engine modes to sustainable modes, those kind of last miles of logistic systems. And we do that by providing the vehicles, providing servicing, and providing software to bring it all together.

We're an Australian company, headquartered in Sydney, but we operate around the world in seven different countries.

[00:03:41] Shifani: Amazing. Hey, just for our listeners, can I get you to explain what you mean by last mile logistic? 

[00:03:47] Jules: Yeah. So think about things that come to your home or to a business, physical goods. The chain of delivery of those goods may stretch across cities, across continents, even across the world. We focus on the last part of that journey, where the product is literally taking the last kilometre or two in its journey to reach the end consumer.

And what's important about that part of the logistics chain is it often happens in our cities, in places where commerce and happens in people live and is a part of the logistics chain that is particularly suited to a transition to sustainable modes and e-bikes and low electric.

[00:04:27] Shifani: Thanks for that. What are some of the advantages in making the shift away from people towards shared and active modes? Something you've said Shanti to me earlier, which really resonated, is that we need to give legitimacy to all shared and active modes. I'm keen to unpack that and understand from your perspective the advantages to moving away from the car.

[00:04:49] Shanti: That's a really interesting question, Shifani. Australia in particular has had a long tradition of sprawl spread and therefore dependency upon, the private motor vehicle. 

So how do we shift that is really the question, so that all modes of transport have a place to play in being able to get people from where they need to get to. 

So imagine Australia being a place where if you could depend on public transport, for example, you could hop on a bus or a tram or a train to get the most distance side of where you need to get to.

However, there's a gap between that final place or destination you're trying to travel to.

How do you do that? Do you use shared mobility? Do you use foot, or are you a pedestrian or do you cycle? What are those modes actually being able to give people choice, and I think this is what the question is, what choices do people have to be able to get to the places they need to get to?

[00:05:52] Shifani: And to a large extent, choice is defined by the way cities are designed, right? So you're, you're in Adelaide and the way Adelaide's designed in some ways dictates how we move around. And I think also, so what's interesting is how we move goods. So we'll pivot a bit to Jules now. I heard you speak at the Micro Mobility Conference last year.

It was a very engaging talk, and I do share your passion about shifting the way we move goods. I'd like to ask you the same question - what are some of the advantages in moving away from the delivery van model towards other modes and why is this something we should be pursuing?

[00:06:29] Jules: I think what's interesting about logistics in last mile is the benefit of moving away from big, heavy vehicles is not just the sustainability benefit and there are actually other kind big benefits for people in cities. 

And that importantly, also you can see straight away and kind of have an immediate and local impact in a way that the carbon considerations don't always. And so what are they? Well, congestion is one. So moving away from big heavy vans that are taking up kerb space, a double parking, maybe delaying buses in public transit is a direct material benefit for people who are living in cities and working in cities as you make that transition for logistics. 

I also think that general safety and accessibility of active transport for all is increased by having more logistics move to these modes.

I think it further validates the idea that bikes, e-bikes, cargo bikes, any kind of bike is not just something that is a recreational activity or something that is very limited in scope for the use cases, but it legitimises the idea that actually you can do a lot of things with a smaller light electric vehicle with an e-bike.

And if I have my groceries show up at my door on the back of an e-bike, maybe I'm gonna think, well, perhaps I can go and do my shopping on a bike and I don't need to take the car when I go. And so you start to broaden the concept of the applicability of non-traditional car modes in our cities. And [00:08:00] I think that's hugely important in terms of multiplying the benefits across all the considerations.

[00:08:06] Shifani: You've raised some really interesting points and I really, the last one really resonates with me, which is around the changing of behaviour, not just for moving logistics, but for people in general as well. Shanti I'd like to go back to you and just explore that first question a little bit more. So in terms of benefits or advantages of moving away from the car for moving people so you and me. 

What are the advantages? And I know you are very passionate about health and I know you're very passionate about equity, so I'm really keen to touch on those aspects. 

[00:08:39] Shanti: That's really good question Shifani, simply because it's actually got a multiplicity of reasons other than just health. So some interesting statistics that perhaps I can share with you. The Australian Institute for Health and Welfare in 2017-18 actually identified that two and three Australian adults over the age of 18 were overweight or obese. 

Now we know that being overweight or obese results in a health burden, which then results in a cost to health, so that's one impact. The other thing that I think that's important is a point that Jules you made around safety.

So if we create environments where the mode of movement is different, you result or create an environment that is inherently safer for people. So the incidents of accidents with collisions and those sorts of things may be minimized. 

Now I'm not suggesting that that's going to happen automatically, there's a whole lot of other stuff that has to happen, in addition to sort of changing the environment. We have to change the speed environments in which motor vehicles in particular travel. So creating 30km environments is an outcome that I think we should be looking at as well. 

Back to the question though, that I am passionate about, which I think is important to think about, is by changing attitudes towards how we use transport, all modes, can potentially have a great impact on the health of our community. 

So there's a question there about education, I think. So how do we educate our community around how we change the narrative about how we move. So whether it's by bike or a micro mobility scooter, or whether we are walking, you know, how do we get around the place?

That has these consequential benefits on the environment, on our health, on the economy.

[00:10:40] Jules: Could I chime in on this one?

[00:10:41] Shifani: Yeah, of course. 

[00:10:42] Jules: Yeah, because I really, I mean I agree absolutely with Shanti's perspective here, and I think that the public health benefits of active transportation are wildly kind of under-recognised and under-represented in the policy discussions globally, but particularly in Australia, where I feel like the debate focuses very narrowly on helmets and crashes.

Note, those are important topics, but I really think it's appropriate to think about the complete public health impact of active modes, which is overwhelmingly positive. There was a great piece of work done by Columbia University that actually assessed kind of bike lane construction as a public health intervention in New York City.

It kind of put head to head the public health payoff of building a bike lane versus investing in dialysis or, you know other of medical interventions and bike lanes by far have the highest, you know, return on investment from a public health perspective when you line them up against things we traditionally think about spending a lot of kind of, you know, public health money on, because they encourage an active lifestyle and provide physical security and increase the number of people that are on the road, which itself has a safety impact. 

And I just think that there's an opportunity to view the public health benefits more concretely in the policy debates in Australia.

That will lead to, I think, a more kind of appropriate allocation of public resource. To things that enable active transportation. 

To give you one more example, another program we ran in New York where I was involved in running the city bike program, the bike share program there was called Prescriber Bike, where New York City Department of Health enabled medical professionals in certain locations to prescribe as a medical intervention, a free bike share membership in certain cases where there was kind of risk of pre-diabetes onset or similar conditions.

To kind of explicitly recognize active transportation as a public health intervention and medical intervention. I think that kind of thing is really powerful.

[00:12:51] Shifani: I think you're right. That's a really great example. And more and more we're seeing articles around doctors prescribing a walk in the park or a walk in the forest as a remedy. And I know Shanti, you also have an example where the health sector and transports come together. 

Keen to hear about that too. 

[00:13:06] Shanti: Yes Shifani, I was really fortunate, I was engaged by the Heart Foundation, in fact, last year to write South Australia's first walking strategy. 

That strategy was actually funded through Wellbeing SA, a state government agency, and by its now, It's about wellbeing. So you'd think, why is a health-based organisation preparing a walking strategy?

The answer is simple though, that the health agency actually understands the importance of ensuring that physical participation in sport is important. But what are the incidental methods of getting people moving? 

And we all know that if we can walk. We can get exercise now Heart Foundation actually prescribes 30 minutes of walking or physical activity per day, or 150 minutes per week, and it's done numerous amounts of research to sort of support the point that physical activity of 30 minutes a day, actually can reduce the incidence of heart disease, diabetes, stroke, and there's a multitude of other based diseases. 

So, back to the point around Wellbeing SA preparing a walking strategy, I think it's really interesting that in this instance in South Australia, a health-based agency has taken transport.

In this case, walking as a method of supporting the health outcomes of the South Australian community. So, it wasn't a transport agency driving this outcome. 

Although, having said that, the piece that's important about the Wellbeing SA intervention is that it involved all the agencies that needed to be involved, including transport, health planning, recreation, and the like, to have a buy-in into the preparation and the [00:15:00] implementation of the plan.

[00:15:01] Shifani: I am going to bring us back a little bit into the placemaking side of things now. So we've talked a lot about the benefits of shifting away from people and vans for deliveries, for example, but with more modes to move, comes competition for space on the road and the curb as well.

So what are the problems our cities are currently coming to terms with when it comes to sharing our street and space on the curb. Now Jules, I'm really interested in your perspective from your business model and see what you think the challenges are here. 

[00:15:32] Jules: Yeah, I mean, I think that the core challenge here is that it's, it's valuable real estate that has not been appropriately allocated historically, that's kind of the core of the problem. 

Now, coming back to Australia, everyone talks about real estate and prices and everything, and it's pretty frightening, but it's a good reminder that we really value space in our cities, and I think for the longest time we haven't appropriately allocated that very valuable public space that is at the curb of all of our streets.

The most important thing in thinking through that policy problem is to make sure that you are optimising for people and citizens of our cities and our communities, and you're not optimising for a car or a particular mode or a historical trajectory that has established certain norms and expectations around your ability to park for free, and take up this very valuable space.

But it's a challenge because, you know, as we were talking about before, there is this increasing appetite from people for things to be delivered. And there is still a very high mode share in Australia, a personal vehicle usage. And so the challenges of how you allocate the space between those competing needs and all the other needs, public transit services, utilities, that's a real challenge.

And yeah, I just think the core principle is to, you know, optimise for, for people here and not for historical precedent or for a particular inefficient mode, as unfortunately tends to happen. 

[00:17:00] Again, kind of an experience on this one from New York. We went through the process of densifying, the bike share network in Manhattan, and I don't know whether you've kind of been there in the, in the last couple of years, but if you go through Manhattan, like Midtown Manhattan today, there's bike share everywhere.

It really feels like there's a station on every corner. and the network was at about 30 to 40 stations per square mile, which is quite a lot. And there was a lot of, you know, concern raised from various voices about taking too much of the curb for bikeshare. And I think in those discussions it's also really helpful to kind of ground the debate in data when you can.

And so we did the work of actually calculating what percentage of the linear curb was being occupied by city bike in Manhattan. And even with that very dense network, which really felt like it was everywhere, I think we were at like one or 2% of the linear curb was actually allocated to this critical mode.

And so I also think there's a bit of hysteria sometimes around kind of the curb conflict and it's helpful to kind of anchor that in data whenever you can. 

And kind of the concern about losing 10 parking spaces becasue you're putting in a protected bike lane, doesn't sound as legitimate if you can say, yeah, that's 10 parking spaces, but still in like 85% of the curb in that area is still dedicated to free parking and we are talking about a half of 1% or whatever it might be.

[00:18:31] Shifani: You're really talking to all the challenges Shanti and I would come across during our daily workday. One, one of their key things, I think that. Should be mentioned, or what I really like about what you've said is that distinction between accommodating people not cars.

[00:18:48] Jules: I think about like big moves that have been made in other cities around the world, I think there's been kind of a political will to try some things out in a pretty big way. 

And you know, you can talk about examples from New York or London or Paris, but it'd be great to see an Australian city, a big Australian city, make a big move, even if it's on a temporary trial basis, to significantly reallocate space in the core. 

You know, the repeople of Times Square in New York is one that people talk about that I experienced, and I think there's a lot you can take away from that if you're, you know, elected official or you're a, you know, a senior policy maker where there's an ability to do things on a trial basis, pretty dramatic things on a trial basis. 

Which often turn out to be very popular and much more popular than you may be fearing as a policymaker, an elected official. But you have the cover of doing it as a, as a trial, as a pilot, that in some ways, you know, de-risks it. And I think it'd be great to see more of that in Australian cities.

[00:19:47] Shifani: Thanks for raising those really important points, Jules and at the risk of doing a little bit of marketing, WSPs put out a couple of reports, both of which I was involved in. 

One was around future ready curbside that talks about that space or productive use of curbside space, as well as unleashing the potential for micro mobility, in our cities and what those big moves are, which is how I've come across Zoomo. 

Those reports explore exactly the things that you're talking about, scaling up these trials that are already occurring about bringing active modes into the public debate, but also into the planning space. So Shanti, that's where I segue over to you from your perspective, what are the problems our cities are currently coming to terms with, when it comes to sharing our streets and space on the curb. 

I know we've talked about risk, safety issues, the conflict between pedestrians and the newer modes we're starting to see. So a little bit from you on that would be great. 

[00:20:45] Shanti: Look, I really like the way Jules has described our curb space as real estate, and in fact, it is real estate, it's community real estate. So I think the question or the answer to your question really is, how do we change the narrative in terms of educating our community around how space can be shared and the benefits that that sharing of space will, will bring to the community?

So that question is a question of educating our public officials, our policy makers, bringing to the for the value that this will bring to the economy. So there's evidence worldwide around where shared spaces actually bring more people to businesses and therefore allow business to thrive and flourish and therefore be more economically prosperous. 

So this package cannot be delivered by just changing what a curbside looks like. It needs to be delivered in the context of what are the overall benefits from the multitude of elements, whether it be the economy, the environment, safety, equity, fairness, all of those things need to be brought in together to be presented as a package if you like.

And it has to be done slowly and it has to be brought in with stakeholders and the people who are involved in the decision making as well. And because it is public space, it is a contested space as well where, every man and his dog, if you like, feel like they have a view and therefore their view is most important.

How do you balance those views? How do you engage with the community to sort of make sure that the community has the knowledge and the information to make the most informed decision? 

And that's the element that often gets forgotten about. A decision will be made about whether a curbside is used for parking or something else, without necessarily taking in the complexity of views of all of the people who occupy that space.

[00:22:52] Shifani: And so another question for the two of you, but I'll start with you, Jules.

People seem to be very attached to the four wheel private vehicle or the delivery van in the delivery space, right? So what can we do to change attitudes towards that multimodal transport, people moving we've heard that narrative many times, but when it comes to moving goods, that's new. 

So how can we shift the behaviour of businesses and encourage enterprises to transition towards micro mobility? 

[00:23:23] Jules: Yeah, I think it's a really important question and I think there's important actions that, the government can take and important actions that, that businesses can take. I think in terms of the policy side of things and the kind of the the government intervention side. I think there are investments in the built environment, physical infrastructure, that are very important.

Whether you are using an active mode to get to work or to get to school, or you are considering using it as a business to deliver your product. 

The first thing on your mind is, you know, is this safe? You know, is this [00:24:00] something that I want, I wanna do myself, have my employees do, and the construction of safe, active transport infrastructure.

Is, you know, the most literally concrete thing that the government can do to foster that. There are more targeted things, and I think if you look around the world, you see governments kind of intervening specifically for businesses and logistics. 

France has a program where they will subsidize a cargo bike for small scale businesses, specifically for the logistics functions.

And I think. , you know that smart policy and they're at targeted interventions in the public sector. There's the power of the purse and your ability as an a procuring agency and body to be thoughtful about how your employees and your work is being done and what modes you were using. 

And then there's the whole public health kind of aspect, which we touched on before. So lots of things that can happen, you know, through policy interventions and public interventions. 

And then on the business side, I think what's interesting and exciting [00:25:00] about kind of the transition in the logistics space is that in many cases it it's justified kind of purely on hard economic grounds, and you don't have to consider or value necessarily the ancillary benefits around sustainability, safety, public health to want to do it as a business. 

Because the running costs of a light electric vehicle, the productivity of that vehicle in a congested environment, beats kind of on a cold, rational basis, you know, traditional polluting modes.

And so I think that's, that's really exciting and it's something that I think all businesses should be taking a close look at to see where that may apply within their operations and their own supply chains.

Building out from that, there are those other benefits and, and more and more organizations certainly take those seriously and have clear targets around net zero and sustainability. And so being thoughtful about assessing opportunities. In your transportation systems in that regard, I think is the other [00:26:00] other thing to consider here.

[00:26:02] Shifani: Yeah, thanks for that. Now, this is a mandatory question, Jules, and I have to ask. So are we really going to have drones flying about delivering our online shopping in the near future? 

[00:26:14] Jules: Uh, you're not gonna have Zoomo drones doing that, I can tell you that.

[00:26:18] Shifani: So what's more realistic in the short to medium term? 

[00:26:20] Jules: Yeah. I mean, I think a kind of a growth outwards from a traditional two-wheeled bicycle form factor is what is more realistic. 

We are operating in Europe already three and four wheeled light electric vehicles that have their kind of DNA in the bike world that are a little bit larger, can take a kind of a bigger payload, have some weather protection for the operator.

And I think that's actually that kind of incremental evolution of the bicycle form factor is powerful and I think it's gonna be much more meaningful than kind of air based drone deliveries, which, you know, we'll have a place, I'm sure at some point in our supply chains and infrastructure, but I don't think it's gonna be kind of in urban centres or even suburban areas anytime soon.

[00:27:08] Shifani: I just had to ask that. Pivoting over to you, Shanti. Uh, this is something of, I know it's one of your passions, but there was this very interesting research that came out of the UK recently. What it found was that people are more accepting of driving related risks than equivalent risks in other parts of life.

An example of this is, uh, 75% of people questioned, agreed that people shouldn't smoke in highly populated areas where other people have to breathe in cigarette fumes. Logical, right? Yet 17% of people agreed that people shouldn't drive in highly populated areas where other people have to breathe in exhaust fumes.

So what that suggests is we see risks differently. So I'm gonna pose this question to you, Shanti. How can we plan our places better or retrofit existing places to meet our multimodal transport needs, while also creating places for people rather than vehicles?

[00:28:09] Shanti: That's an interesting question Shifani, retrofitting I like Jules's idea and it's one that you and I have spoken about before about trialling and testing. Often, policy makers, decision makers are frightened to sort of make these changes because these changes do cost money. So, trialling and testing and approach is often a good way of, as Jules has said to test and see if it's going to work. 

So, if you can trial and test and there, and then implement based on, you know, what you've found, that is a good way of doing things. The other question I think is, how you sort of change the narrative that this place is going to look different and sometimes governments need the private sector to do that for it to prove how something is going to result in a beneficial outcome, by changing property values and the like, so that you know things can be funded.

Because that's often where the rubber hits the road, how something is going to be funded to achieve an outcome, to create a benefit. In terms of new places, I think really the narrative needs to shift back to sort of what is the benefit that we're trying to create and what's the environment that people wish to live in? Which then gets to this point around how people transport themselves to and from places.

And so the environments where people can have high accessibility to services and facilities is obviously going to be the environment where people are going to be more susceptible or more able to walk or cycle or use active modes to transport themselves to places. 

So in an Australian context, I think the densification of places is one of the things that really has to be looked at more seriously. The problem that we've got is urban sprawl has been allowed, it continues to be allowed, which therefore then perpetuates this need to be reliant on particular modes of transport. 

So there's a number of things that have to happen there. So leadership, education densification, changing the way we live and changing the way we interact with the spaces that we occupy.

I think people provided a great example for us where, you know, we were all confined to our backyard, so to speak, where we were suddenly getting in touch with our neighbourhoods. And we saw how, you know, city centres were, were struggling with businesses having to close down, whereas the neighbourhoods where, you know, the little cafes and the little shops existed, tended to thrive.

So there's an interplay of things here that's happening both in cities as well as in the regions where environments are being forced to change based on how people's behaviour has changed. 

And as we know, it's far harder to change an environment, as in it takes time and cost, than it is to change people's behaviour, and often there's this lag and how you actually manage this lag is something that I think governments are going to grapple with, particularly because it costs money.

[00:31:26] Jules: Could I just build on that? Cause I think it's a, it's a really important point and I think there's a particular opportunity in Australia right now, with e-bikes to change behaviours because the e-bike is this magic piece of equipment, which extends the reasonable range for a lot of people to use an active mode to a distance, that I think becomes really meaningful in the density of Australian cities. 

Where previously, maybe you had to have a certain level of fitness and and confidence to, in the Australian suburbs, kind of make your shopping trip on a bike or go to school or take your kids to school on a bike. With an e-bike, with the densities we have, that becomes a lot more plausible.

And so I think even before you kind of think about longer term changes in density, there's an opportunity today that the e-bike technology brings that we're just starting to see the beginning of.

[00:32:20] Shifani: So what you're basically saying is e-bikes have a place in our version of perhaps the 15 minute or the 20 minute city, in the Australian context, where the weather's sometimes very hot sometimes wet and cold, and so e-bikes opens up quite a lot of opportunities, right? That's what I'm hearing.

[00:32:37] Jules: Absolutely, and in particular the, the distance, I think for Australia in particular, having e-bike give you that extra reasonable range, brings a lot more into your radius of movement with active transport in Australian suburbs.

[00:32:52] Shifani: Now, one thing I'd like to touch back on is both in terms of Shanti placemaking and Jules in terms of deliveries. Why are e-cargo bikes, trailers, e-trikes, e-quads? Taking off internationally, but not here. And some of this you've already answered. So we don't need to touch on those matters again. So that's one challenge.

And I think you've touched on, on cost, on fear policy not being in the right space, infrastructure not being quite there. It's not quite safe at the moment. So there's a lot of points you've touched on. Is there anything else from your business perspective that you've noticed, Jules, 

that you'd like to. 

[00:33:31] Jules: You know, one of the things that we are focused on at Zoomo is making sure that we are providing a fit for purpose vehicle that is high quality, and in particular provides good safety, both in terms of the mechanical aspects, but also the battery safety, which is, is an important topic in, in the light electric vehicle space.

And one where we are working hard to sustain, I guess an industry norm of safety and performance there. I think the challenge is there is kind of [00:34:00] mixed levels of quality out there in the market right now. And unfortunately some of those lower quality products are leading to fires that, you know, have real consequences.

And so I think making sure that we have good kind of consumer protections in place. On the safety of e-bikes and light electric vehicles generally, but specifically on the electrical systems and the battery systems is also a really important.

[00:34:24] Shifani: And that spans into the people moving aspect as well so, Shanti, from your perspective, and we've talked about the narrative around e-scooters, we've talked about pedestrian space and how that risk is perceived. So I'm interested to just hear your perspective and if there's anything else you'd like to add to this conversation?

[00:34:43] Shanti: Yes, I think the media has a big role to play, it seems like there's often lots of media around accidents and crashes and those sorts of things that occur, involving particularly micro mobility type facilities. The piece that doesn't get picked up by the media when these accidents occur is that these modes of transport are required to occupy a space that is inherently not the safest. 

And so the narrative does need to change around what is the environment that needs to be created to enable these things to have equal access within our public space.

[00:35:28] Shifani: And that's the job that Jules, you, Shanti, and I am playing every single day right? 

And so what I'd really like to finish off with is, get you to summarize, right? So I'm hoping this is a really short answer. What are the three key points our listeners should take away from our discussion today?

Now, bearing in mind we do this day in, day out, this is who we are, this is what we live and breathe every day. But what are the key three things you'd like to leave our listeners with today? 

Start [00:36:00] with you Jules. 

[00:36:01] Jules: I think the first one for me is just to try to think more holistically about active transportation and light electric vehicles. Think more completely about the benefits going beyond just sustainability, including health, including the economy, including safety would be one. So wherever possible, try to frame discussions and decisions considering all those benefits, because I think that it's a really impressive slate 

Two, try things. Try things as a policy maker, as an elected official. There, there are ways to, you know, reimagine how we use our space, but do it in lower risk steps. 

And then three, I would say, if you haven't tried an e-bike, uh, go out and get one, borrow one from a friend, rent one, come visit us at Zoomo, that it will change your life.

[00:36:54] Shifani: Strong words there. Shanti, what are your three key points? 

[00:36:59] Shanti: Yeah. My, my three key points are, are similar but different to Jules's. You know, I think the legitimacy of all users of our pavement is something that really needs to be trialled and tested because at the moment that question legitimacy is often questioned, particularly if you're not a motor vehicle.

The second point I'd like to raise is around giving equal rights to all users, and this links back to that legitimacy question. So I, as a pedestrian or I as a cyclist, actually, I have equal rights to using the pavement as anybody else does. 

And the third point I'd like. To leave us with is that question of strong leadership. And I like to reflect on, you know, what happened in the Netherlands back in the 1950s. 

The Netherlands wouldn't be what it is today if it hadn't been for the strong leadership that its leader provided in the fifties to actually change how the curbside was used. So that's really important part of this conversation. 

[00:38:03] Shifani: Then I've got one last thing to ask you. What does the future of transport in Australia look like to you? 

[00:38:13] Shanti: Shifani, I'm really encouraged by what's going to happen in Australia going forward. COVID has fundamentally changed the way people move and interact in their environments. 

There are more people riding, there're more people using micro mobility devices. There are more people walking. There's lots of evidence pointing in that direction. 

By having those things happening will force governments and policy makers to make changes in how they create the environments to allow these different modes of transport to actually occupy space in a safer way.

[00:38:50] Shifani: What about Jules?

[00:38:51] Jules: I'm optimistic too. I see some of the progress that that Shanti's referring to. And I think that if you take a long view, we as, as a nation have a climate and have attitudes and values that I think will keep pushing us towards a much more active and sustainable transportation system. And, and, yeah, I think it, it looks like more, more active transportation, more time in the fresh air, less time stuck in traffic.

An electric transportation system more and more. Yeah, I look forward to that future.

[00:39:23] Shifani: Fantastic. I'm encouraged and both excited by what I've heard from you, Jules, today and from you Shanti. What I'm hearing is that there are a number of challenges, but we're getting there.

[00:39:33] Jules: indeed. 

[00:39:34] Shifani: Okay. It's been a fantastic discussion today. Thank you again to our guests, Jules Flynn from Zoomo and Shanti ditter from WSP, and thank you to our listeners for tuning in .

[00:39:45] Shanti: Thanks, Shani. That was wonderful. Thanks Jules .

[00:39:49] Jules: Thank you. It was a lot of fun.

[00:39:50] Shifani: If you would like to hear more about what we are doing in this space, please get in touch with us. Links are in the podcast show description. 

Continue to listen to our other [00:40:00] people and place podcasts on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts. You can also find us on LinkedIn and Facebook at WSP in Australia and on Instagram and Twitter at WSP underscore Australia.

Thanks and goodbye.