Professor Steve Goldsmith interviews transit expert Andrew Salzberg, about why mobility as a service must be open, interoperable, and in service to the public. Salzberg advocates for shared and accessible mobility data across governments and private groups, as well as the public, in order to most efficiently and transparently move people where they need to go.
This episode a conversation between Professor Steve Goldsmith and transit expert Andrew Salzberg. Previously the director of transportation policy at Uber and a fellow at Graduate School of Design at Harvard Kennedy School, Salzberg currently advocates for open mobility as a service in Montreal, Canada at Transit. A twist on the "mobility as a service" idea, Salzberg argues that transportation technology must be interoperable in order for the public to gain the greatest benefits.
Tune in to hear Professor Goldsmith and Salzberg discuss open data, the Guide to Open Mobility-as-a-Service, and why new transit apps are like Facebook Messenger.
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Music credit: Summer-Man by Ketsa
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Stephen Goldsmith:
Hello, this is Steve Goldsmith, Professor of Urban Affairs at Harvard's Kennedy School, and you're listening to Data-Smart City Pod, where we bring on top innovators and experts to discuss the future of cities and how to become data smart.
Welcome, this is Stephen Goldsmith. I'm a professor of Urban policy at Harvard's Kennedy School. And, today we have with us, Andrew Salzberg who is head of public policy at Transit. And, formerly was director of transportation policy at Uber and a fellow at Graduate School of Design at Harvard Kennedy School. Has some interesting observations about mobility as a service. Pleased to have him today. Welcome, Andrew.
Andrew Salzberg:
Thanks for having me.
Stephen Goldsmith:
Yeah. Tell us just before we get to the issue at hand, what you did at Uber and what you do at transit. And then, I want to ask you about the recent report that you published.
Andrew Salzberg:
Sure. Yeah. So, I've been in transportation in some capacity for the last 15 odd years. And, for a long time at Uber, I ran a team that tried to be the connection point between the world of transportation at large and Uber itself and try and build some bridges there, particularly to the sustainable transportation world. So, helped to acquire a bike share company. Start the first group working on electric vehicles at Uber, build a product that was sharing data with cities, all the things you would do if you were an urban planning, graduate like me working at Uber. So, I did that for several years.
As you mentioned, I got to be a fellow for a year at Harvard and coming out of that, been working with Transit here in Montreal. And the big thing that Transit is fighting for, we could talk about in the context of the report. Is yes, we think there's a great potential future, where more and more of our mobility is available digitally, on-demand. But I think we have to set up some rules of the game to make sure that happens in a way that actually serves people and consumers in cities and delivers the most value for that system. So, that's what we put out with the guide that you mentioned is this idea of building not just mobility as a service, which a lot of people are talking about, but open mobility as a service. In a particular way, we can make these services more interoperable, more competitive.
Stephen Goldsmith:
Andrew, in your paper, Guide To Open Mobility-as-a-Service you recently wrote for Transit. I was interested in your analogy, if you will, to the difference between Facebook Messenger and email.
Andrew Salzberg:
Yeah.
Stephen Goldsmith:
And, I thought that was a nice way to think about this issue. Could you explain to us what you meant by that?
Andrew Salzberg:
Sure. Absolutely. So, I think, when we're thinking about the digital mobility future, it can be helpful to take analogies from other areas of tech. And, one of the big ones obviously is communication. And so, I think if you think about two different paths we might take in mobility, we can represent them in the communications world with Facebook Messenger and email. And so, if I think about Facebook Messenger, I don't have any particular interest in using Facebook Messenger, but if I want to message my cousin who happens to only use Facebook Messenger, I have to actually download that app just to be able to communicate with her. That's really different than email, where I might email you at a Harvard email from my Gmail account, and those connect to each other, so obviously that we don't even think about it. And, if you happen to have a Yahoo account or some other new services, those all work together so seamlessly. And we take that so much for granted, we don't even really think about it.
And, that's all because email was built on a data standard that is now actually I think 50 years old as of this year, that specifies how messages can be passed from one service to another. So, there's all people who have built email software that you can use, but in the background, they all communicate the same way. And, I think that has a lot of potential benefits as a model for how we might want mobility to work, where all these different services, no matter how different they are, in the background can communicate and pass you your ride or your transaction through each other without you thinking about it.
And, I would say candidly, if I think about most of the money in technology and mobility is probably more inclined to build something that looks like Facebook Messenger, right? I think everybody has an incentive of their app or their service as the center of it all and get more and more people to use it, through whatever way is possible. And, that email model where everyone works together and it all works seamlessly might not be in any particular company's interest, but I think it definitely is in the public interest. And, that's why we're promoting this as an idea.
Stephen Goldsmith:
So, if you think about open system mobility-as-a-service, at least to me, you could think about payment systems that work across modalities.
Andrew Salzberg:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Stephen Goldsmith:
Or you could think about information systems that collect real time, usable, actionable data, that is more easily consumed, the user-experience is easier for the customer. So, let's go back to General Transit Feed Specifications, GTFS. And then, talk to us a little about when you use open, whether you mean payment systems, or information systems, or more than that.
Andrew Salzberg:
Yeah, I think in the long run, we mean all of it. But, why don't we start from the beginning, like you mentioned? I think, I alluded earlier to the fact that email works the way it does because there's open data standards that are at the core of it. It's not like you want to build a similar system around mobility. And as you point out, with the pretty clunky acronym of GTFS, we actually have a really good one already. So, for those who don't know, GTFS is the General Transit Feed Specification. And it's basically a file format that transit agencies use to pass their information to trip planning apps, most prominent Google Maps, but also services like Transit and others that consume that data, and then show it to you. So, almost anywhere that you're probably looking for your bus schedule, or planning a trip across town in North America in particular, all that happens because transit agencies share this thing called GTFS, which lets you do that.
And so, the nice thing there is that we actually have really good example, GTFS works quite well. It's really widely adopted. Lots of people consume it. Lots of people produce it. And so, we don't have to start from zero, when we think about email-like data standards in mobility. We can take what we've got with GTFS and start to expand it. And, actually we've already done that. So, there's something called GBFS for bike share and scooters, which I know you've written about more Stephen, that takes that idea and extends it to bike and scooter share system. So, you can find your nearest bike or scooter. And, we're currently working with mobility data to do the same thing with a wide group of industry partners for taxi, and ride-hail, and micro-transit replicate that success.
But, as you pointed out, all of those things are about information, basically. Knowing where the vehicle is, knowing how long it might take to get across town. Those are really important things, but they're distinct from being able to actually book and pay for something. So, there is, I think, a slightly harder nut to crack around payment, but even there we're seeing a good amount of progress. We mostly focus on mobile ticketing given that we're an app and there are places like Denver, where the RTD has a software provider named Masabi, and they have the ability to book and pay for your ride in other apps. So, in Transit now, in Denver, you can buy a ticket without changing apps. And that same service through the Masabi ticketing partner actually works in Uber and Lyft right now.
So, there are multiple people consuming the ability to pay for tickets. There's no one data standard for how that should be done. But, there are companies that have APIs or other tools to let you integrate their apps. So, I think payment is a little harder and a little further down the road. But, it's happening. And, there are companies right now that are actually building in a way that lets all services have access to the ability to pay for a transit ride.
Stephen Goldsmith:
On our site, Data-Smart City Solutions, and on the podcast we have predominantly public agency audiences, not consumer advocates.
Andrew Salzberg:
Yeah.
Stephen Goldsmith:
So, what would your guidance be to public agencies about how to stimulate a more open system?
Andrew Salzberg:
Yeah. I think that's a lot of what we try and write about in the guide. And, I think there actually are some really, really concrete things that people can do. So, one of the most obvious is in procurement. So, a lot of public agencies... I'm thinking about transit agencies maybe first and foremost, are actually paying some of these new mobility services to operate service on their behalf. So, during the COVID pandemic, we saw a lot of transit agencies implement new on-demand services. You might call them micro-transit, people have different names for them. And, in that context, if you're paying one of these vendors to provide service, there's a really easy opportunity to say, "In addition to running a shuttle for us, can you also make that data available to trip planning apps, like transit, and Google, and others, so that they can be integrated into these open mobility as a service system?"
So, throughout the whole Guide to Open Mobility-as-a-Service, which is available on the web, we have very specific guidance and recommendations for what different agencies can do. So, in the case, certainly around micro-transit, there's an opportunity to ask for more openness from your vendors. And, we actually have specific examples of RFPs that have been put out by transit agencies in North America, that has language that other people can copy. If it was up to me, it's always easier to copy somebody else's could work rather than create it yourself. So, in the micro-transit space there's some pretty obvious guidance. If you are a city DOT and you are putting out a bike share RFP, you can make sure that you're asking for not just GBFS. But, maybe also encouraging your vendors to be able to actually do third-party payment for bike and scooter share. If you're regulating taxi and ride hail, you can start to think about how do you open up more data for consumers as well?
So, what I think is interesting is that, obviously there's no Chicago Department of mobility as a service, or any other city in North America. What we actually have is, for each of the modes of transportation that have existed for a long time, you have the regulatory or procurement power to actually push some of these technologies to be more open.
So, that's where I think there's some really short-term opportunities for data standards that already exist or ideas that are already out there, for some of the things that are a little newer. Like I mentioned, a data standard for taxi and ride-hail data. There's an opportunity to get involved in some of those working groups, like I mentioned, at mobility data and push the frontiers. But, I think, even without that, there's a lot of stuff that's available right now today. And, I would say, across all these dimensions, someone else has already done the best version of what you want to do. And so, there's an opportunity to copy other people and learn by finding what's already out there.
Stephen Goldsmith:
That's helpful. Let me switch in the few minutes we have left. So, I recently wrote an article about Austin that had a parking app. And, they moved to facilitate visitors or residents paying with multiple apps, right? In dash apps, Google, eventually Apple and like. So, that would be multiple customer choices that would use APIs to communicate with the city. So, put yourself in the position of a city official or a transit agency official trying to harvest the data from multiple choices, multiple options, in order to manage transit, or manage the curb, or manage the scooters. How does that platform look in your opinion?
Andrew Salzberg:
Yeah. I mean, it may not necessarily be that just because there are more consumer channels that it makes your life as an agency more complicated. So, just to go back, I mentioned earlier that in the Denver case, the transit agency has a contract with their vendor to do mobile ticketing, that's Masabi in this case. And then, multiple parties can consume Masabi's SDK in this case, but basically similar to an API, to be able to buy a ticket. So, it can happen in Transit, it can happen in Uber and it can happen in Lyft. I think, ultimately that vendor that you have can be the point of contact for others in the space, as one example. And then, maybe whatever data you're already getting through your contract can actually be aggregated in the same way. And I don't know the specifics in that example. But, I would say it suffices to say that, just because the world gets more complicated and there may be more channels for people to consume the service, it could still be the case that the person you have the relationship with can help manage that data and provide it to you.
So, that's one part. I would say, the other piece is that some of the stuff that we're talking about right now is primarily consumer facing, real-time information that lets you book and pay for a ride. It's actually a lot different in some ways than some of the conversations we've had around data, which is primarily about what data the operators give the regulator. That's the conversations about the mobility data standard from LA. There's been lots in the weeds about, "How do we get data from operators directly to cities?" I think, that's an important question, but in some ways it's a bit different from the question of, "How do we get data from the operators to the consumers?" Which is more what our report is talking about, "How do we actually have more consumer access to data, even as we're sure that cities have the data they need to make decisions?"
Stephen Goldsmith:
So, as we close, list a couple of the most important benefits, if we more broadly move to the model that you're advocating.
Andrew Salzberg:
Yeah. Definitely. So, I think, the first and foremost for me is ultimately transparency and competition. So, I think there's a real benefit in email, that it's actually relatively easy for you as a consumer to switch email services if you want. You can download your messages, you can move somewhere else, and you can keep communicating with the same people. I think that helps to keep the vendors in that space honest. And, I think we'd get the same benefits if we make it easier to make it interoperable and to find your service wherever you like to keep all those players in the mobility space competitive with each other, and ultimately delivering consumer benefit. But, that's just one. I think, what I think about a lot of sustainability and how do we make sure that as we build new mobility systems, we're not just having duplication of service and competition, but increasingly having people use those services alongside each other.
And, that's where I think this email idea, and the easy transfers, and the seamless discovery of trips, all that helps us to actually make a more sustainable system, where you can transfer from one boat to the other, and do things in the way that's most efficient. And I would say, last but not least, I have a belief in the long run, that if we can actually make payment and discovery simpler, we can start to do things like actually make more equitable service. So, one of the things you find right now is that if you want to qualify for say, low income benefits for cheaper bike share systems, you might have to actually go and prove with a hard copy that you qualify for EBT or some other benefit to be able to get that. And, you might have to do that for each operator that you want to get your benefit from.
And, I would love in a future where there's a more open approach to mobility-as-a-service. I think there's an opportunity to layer into that, things like tokens that prove your eligibility for a certain benefit across operators. So, you don't have to go and revisit that question everywhere you go. So, I think, the things like equity, sustainability, competition, that are core concerns in transportation, all of those can be helped by moving to a more open version of mobility-as-a-service.
Stephen Goldsmith:
So, this is Stephen Goldsmith interviewing Andrew Salzberg, head of policy for Transit. And, an advocate of an open system will benefit both customer and the agencies as well. So, thank you very much for your time. And the thanks again Andrew.
Andrew Salzberg:
Thanks Stephen. Thanks for having me.
Stephen Goldsmith:
Good-bye.