Mobility Innovators

Jaspal Singh ([00:00:04]):

Welcome to the mobility innovators podcast.

Jaspal Singh ([00:00:10]):

Hello, everyone. I’m so happy to welcome all listener from around the world to Mobility Innovator Podcast. I’m your host, Jaspal Singh. Mobility Innovator Podcast invites my key innovators in the transportation and logistics sector to share their thoughts about the key changes in the sector about the work and what is the forecast for the future.

Jaspal Singh ([00:00:30]):

Today, I’ll be speaking with a very good friend. He work as an Assistant Professor of Public Transport at Delft University of Technology, and he’s also the co-director of Smart Public Transport Lab. He has been involved in public transport project for over 15 years and has expertise in public transport, planning, and design, as well as dealing with customer experience, service liability, and big data.

I’m so happy to welcome Dr Dr. Niels van Oort, Assistant Professor of Public Transport at Delft University of Technology and co-director of Smart Public Transport Lab. Now it’s time to listen and learn.

Hello, Niels. Thank you so much for joining us. It’s wonderful to have you on the show to share your knowledge with the listeners.

Dr. Niels van Oort ([00:01:15]):

Thank you. Jaspal for inviting me. Exciting to be here.

Jaspal Singh ([00:01:19]):

Yeah, it will have fun for next one up. So today I’ll be spending time to learn more about you, your key research projects the findings and your perspective on future of mobility. You are doing a lot of exciting work. So I am really curious to learn more from you and to start with, I would like you to share a little more about yourself with our listeners. Are there any interesting fact about your career that are not on your LinkedIn?

Dr. Niels van Oort ([00:01:45]):

Yeah, that’s a good question. I think there’s a lot of my LinkedIn, to be honest, I like the platform to share and to learn a couple of things not in there. I think I’m a father of three great children two small ones and one big one. She’s actually studying in another university, but it helps me also to learn from the other side of the table, how students perceive lectures, etc. So that’s interesting. And also what’s not explicitly in there. I would say I left the university a couple of times. I’m sort of a booming, I’m leaving after my master, after my PhD, but I always come back and I think that’s because I’m very curious how things, especially mobility and public transporter works.

Dr. Niels van Oort ([00:02:35]):

And, Delft University of Technology is a great environment to do research, to teach, to learn, and to share. So in the end, I proved to be a very poor predictor of my own career because I left and then I came back again, and here we are now actually since a couple of years, I’m a full-time academic. I used to be a part-timer but I’m excited in this job. I’m excited with our lab and, even more things to come.

 

Jaspal Singh ([00:03:07]):

I would say that’s great nor we’ll learn more about your lab and all incoming moments. Now that’s the interesting point to share about learning from your own kids and having auditor at home who is auditing everything, what you’re teaching. So that’s exciting. And I hope, she gave her good feedback about what’s happening and what’s not happening. It’s amazing. Indeed. Also you mentioned about you did your bachelor and master in Traffic and Transportation at Delft University of Technology. And also you did PhD on the topic of Service Reliability in public transport. And I know you’re very passionate about the topic. I’m curious to learn about your finding from your PhD and in today’s world. How can cities improve the reliability of the service because that’s the biggest challenge they’re facing and the customer also want more reliability and predictability. And what role does technology play in achieving this goal?

Dr. Niels van Oort ([00:04:03]):

Good question. Yeah, I’m indeed very passionate about service reliability at some point in my company, I wasn’t allowed to talk about it anymore. Because I was apparently talking about it all day, but to be jokes aside, I think it it’s one of the crucial quality aspects of public transport actually. And I think in general passengers perceive it as a very important aspect, but the level actual level of service reliability is not always as high as it should be. So I think that that needs attention from multiple views. And I think one of our main conclusions and findings from my research was first of all, to look at the passenger perspective, talk about buses and trams and vehicles all day, but in the end, it’s how the passenger perceives service reliability, that’s one thing.

Dr. Niels van Oort ([00:04:54]):

And regarding the improvement of the level of service reliability, what I did MITs was to focus on the planning in the end, it’s the interaction of planning, and operations that determines service reliability to for passengers. And I found that there was much attention to operations, which is good, but I see plenty of opportunities also in the planning stage, if we develop poor schedules, if we develop poor networks, including infrastructure and, and service networks, yeah. Then we cannot achieve service, reliability, whatever we do during operations. And that’s also where I think technology comes into play. A traditional one is focusing on traffic light priorities for public transport. We can do that in nowadays with new technology and connected vehicles, etc., in a much more sophisticated and efficient way mm-hmm that helps, but also the tools and the models we are developing, I think, yeah.

Dr. Niels van Oort ([00:05:56]):

Be very helpful. One of the things I did research about and wrote some papers about is our transport models which are great to predict ridership depending on network input for instance. But what I always say is all public transport operates on time in our models that’s not quite how it is in practice. So it, yeah, we are developing and developed approaches, and algorithms to actually make these models a bit more like real life where we can also assess the impact of and own service reliability. So it’s technology on the street you could say, but I would also stress technology with regard to our tools and models, which can also be improved and that’s also what I like about, and I hope to provide as an academic to provide insights, knowledge, and parameters for instance to improve these models.

Jaspal Singh ([00:06:58]):

That’s great. No, I really like your point about looking the service reliability from the procedure point rather than from the weak point, and also that everything start with planning, but the operation need to execute it so you can have a good planning, but poor operation, it will not work. And similarly, if you have a bad planning and good operation, it will not work. So it has to be balanced. Can you share a little more about the public transport lab at Delft University? You just mentioned that you are now looking after that as a co-director. And I also saw that you are working with a lot of partner from public transport agencies and industry member and all is there any plan to start working with startup and involve startup with the this lab?

Dr. Niels van Oort ([00:07:40]):

First, let me explain a bit indeed about the lab. I’m very excited about it. I’m indeed, co-directing the lab together with my colleague Oded Cats and it’s a great adventure to be honest. And we launched this lab only in 2018, so we still young, you could say. But we are nowadays with about 20 researchers and also on an annual basis, we have about 20 master students doing the master thesis in the field of public or shared public transport or shared mobility. So in that sense, we had a steep growth lost last years. And yeah, and it’s great to because of this lab, I think we can, we didn’t have an explicit focus on public transport before we did have public transport attention. It was not combined, and in a joint group.

Dr. Niels van Oort ([00:08:37]):

So also the sense of belonging was limited in that sense. And also our visibility was limited, I would say. So I was happy to create one and both with regard to research, but also with regard to teaching and also our students now better can find us and happy to say that our new generation of students seem to be more interested in more sustainable mobility. I think sustainability in general also thinking about climate discussion and also there’s more interest from their side to go into more public transport specialized courses, for instance, and in the end, that’s also how we could help the industry to provide excellent new talents for them. And that’s also what is important in these partnerships?

Dr. Niels van Oort ([00:09:32]):

You mentioned because what I did before starting this this lab, I made a round in the industry, so to speak drinking coffee, or some other drinks with many people to learn about the challenges of society, because for me, my main drive in my work is contributing and trying to make a societal impact for me. I believe that public transport plays an important role in addition to active modes and other things. But to make a real societal impact, I think we should, as academics, first listen to society to know what the challenges are. So that’s what we did. And actually those were great meetings with multiple agencies, operators, consultancy all levels from CEO to the policy makers, etc. I learned a lot there about what we should actually do as to do, and smart public transport lab.

Dr. Niels van Oort ([00:10:29]):

Actually during these talks, we also were thinking, this is what we should do, and we should get more insights and help for instance, with mobility, a service with emerging modes, with service reliability, and then let’s discuss, how are we going to do this? And then we came up with these partnerships, very closely work with operators, authorities, etc., via students with also more in depth via PhD programs, post program programs, which is great because it’s really what I like in the get between science and practice. From our side from academia, helping society. And so far startups are now I must say startups are also become in the loop as well. It’s a different world, as you know, of course some common go. So it’s harder to get a sustainable relationship with academia.

 

Dr. Niels van Oort ([00:11:31]):

But it’s getting there. And also our students, they like it. It’s nice that it’s nowadays for truly we are going hopefully back forever or to live lectures. And it’s nice to discuss with the students also how they look at the world and for them, these startups and these new modes, that’s their daily life. So you could say, they also are very interested in these companies to work with etc., which also helps us to get a little bit of nowadays trends, etc.

Jaspal Singh ([00:12:05]):

Oh, yeah you raise couple of very interesting point. One, you mentioned about getting feedback from the society, so that human-centric approach in load of public transit agencies or operator, they do planning without understanding what customer need and what customers are looking. And, the second point you mentioned about bringing science and practice together, because that’s what sometimes people feel like academy is doing something which is not relevant for the practical world, but that’s a, great point, and startup, they come and go. That’s how their life is. Some of them flourish, some of them die. That’s, that’s the different world altogether.

Dr. Niels van Oort ([00:12:44]):

As long as we learn, as long as we learn along the way from that then I think it it’s helpful.

Jaspal Singh ([00:12:51]):

Oh yeah. That’s true. Now coming back to your research, you co-author a paper in 2020 to promote the awareness of light rail system, and I’m a big fan of light rail mode. I love your five Es model for building a light rail system would love to know what those five wheels are and I agree with you, like all the modes are relevant and depending on the context, one may be more appropriate than others, but sadly light rail could not able to expand in a big way at UITP. Also, there was research done, and we didn’t find big expansion of light rail system around the globe.

And the reason for that, you also covered in the study the failure of lot of light rail system, including one in Netherland and in fact, I’m in Canada, and I know in Ottawa, they are facing big issue with the light rail system. How do you think that technology can help to run and operate light rail system in the city efficiently and how they can help to promote light rail more and more around the globe?

Dr. Niels van Oort ([00:13:54]):

Yeah, that’s a very good aspect and starting with light trail, indeed light trail is one tool in our toolbox to hopefully contribute to these five Es as we mentioned them, and depending on the context and the goals sometimes the one is Bus or Train sometimes a Metro, something sometimes something else. And that’s also what I would like to stress because I see I wrote a book about light rail. So then people think you’re a fan of light rail. So the only solution you will talk about is light rail. And indeed I see a lot of opportunities for light rail and it’s important, I think from our perspective to get more knowledge about when and how to apply but I don’t like these discussions. So it’s that people already know the solution before.

Dr. Niels van Oort ([00:14:43]):

The problem is there whatever your problem is, problem is I give you Bus or Train or I give you light rail or whatever. And that’s one of his challenges, I think, in the public transport industry where I would say it’s even wider than public transport, including active modes, for instance and these five E’s are relevant. Maybe good to tell a bit about them. It shows actually the value the wider benefits of well-designed and operated public transport, including light rail. That’s not only about the first E effective mobility, bringing people from A to B in a comfortable and fast, reliable manner, but it’s also about efficient cities, efficient use of space. I like the term mass transit in that sense, because I think for mass transport, you need something else, an individual vehicles, if you want to do it in a space efficient way, it’s about the economy, it’s about the environment and loss, but not least it’s also about equity, social, social inclusion.

Dr. Niels van Oort ([00:15:49]):

So that framework helps us to in the case of light also to stress depending on your goals, make sure that you show what the benefits could be. And in that sense, also, if we talk about technology also here, I think technology is not only about the stuff on the streets, so to speak. It’s also about the tooling and the models for instance, societal cost and benefit analysis, a very popular tool in many parts of the world. We found out that many of these Es are not explicitly included. So if you only look at the cost of things, so you don’t look at the wider benefits, it’s hard to get a good discussion about the usability of a specific solution. And even I would say that sometimes technology is a reason why these projects are not succeeding.

Dr. Niels van Oort ([00:16:45]):

We saw in what we did in our book we compared 61 live projects. Sometimes these projects are so technocratic and I’m from Delft university of technology. So I like that part from a personal perspective, but the tricky thing with light trail is that the society the inhabitants, they are not completely familiar with the term. And if it gets too technocratic, then you don’t get the support from your municipality or city. You, you want to, so sometimes even technology should be on in general technology should serve the needs of the people instead of the other way around. So that’s also an important point. Yeah, of course, there’s a lot of technology that could help implementing good later systems. It’s about good infrastructure, well designed a good interaction and respect for other modes, especially in another case, in an nether field project, there was the project didn’t take into account the cyclists in a good way. And if you’re in the Netherlands, if you have a five cycling community, then your project is gone and, and, and I agree there, so you should take that into account with good designs. And also, yeah. Technology could, could help that. I would say,

Jaspal Singh ([00:18:08]):

Yeah, but that’s a great point. Like if you have a problem with cyclist you, you are facing a challenge because in north America and other places, it’s the car, which dominate the street and you always keep fighting with the car owners, but in a way it’s a good problem. And, you rightly mention about the light rail system, the technology sometimes is overplayed role, and sometime can be a difference or hindrance for implementing the light rail system. The funny thing in India, they are trying to sell the light rail system to cities because many cities are looking for Metro and they’re trying to sell the light rail system to the city. So they actually rename the Light Rail is to Metro light. So people don’t care, what solution you are implementing. They just care about what word you are using.

Dr. Niels van Oort ([00:18:58]):

Yeah. But sometimes this framing of systems could be very valuable or so I like the idea actually. Cause I think if you ask 10 normal people, so to speak what Light Rail is probably you’ll get 12 answers.

 

Jaspal Singh ([00:19:14]):

Yeah. That’s why they call it Metro light. So it’s a Metro, but a light version of Metro.

Dr. Niels van Oort ([00:19:18]):

Like it actually.

Jaspal Singh ([00:19:19]):

Yeah, that’s interesting. You wrote a book on light rail system and comparing X system, but I know that you are not only working on light system, you are doing so many interesting projects. And one of the project, which I’m very curious to learn more about is digital inequality in transport services. You mentioned that digitalization can cause more disadvantages than advantages. And I was like bit shocked to read the statement, but I said like, okay, let’s understand from you.

I agree that many transit agencies are looking to implement new technology to see if they can cut the wages, physical infrastructure, staff, discontinue the cash tickets and et cetera. And the purpose of technology is also to have a good seamless system, rather running two panel system in the world. You did a detail study on the consequence of digitalization in transport services on people through the lens of Digital inequality. And I love that point because you mentioned about learning from society. Would you mind sharing your finding and recommendation about this?

Dr. Niels van Oort ([00:20:20]):

Yeah, of course. This is a relatively new topic on our agenda also – Inclusive mobility. So, the fifth E, I was just referring to of Equity. We used to say in general, when I was presenting about the five Es and then we see issues with equity in the US, for instance, or in France, in the Britian, and in the Netherlands, it wasn’t a big problem yet. And I think it’s still not very big, but at least fortunately it gets more attention because we also face inequality and in the end, most people at all, but think that everybody should have similar opportunities in society and mob mobility could play a quite a role there, provide accessibility to schools and hospitals and jobs et cetera. So I’m very happy to see that that we are also moving more into debt domain, because also from a scientific perspective, that’s quite still a lot of research gaps there to deal with both with, regarding how to measure it, how to improve it, et cetera.

Dr. Niels van Oort ([00:21:30]):

So that’s nice. And this project about digital equality is incorporation with the Dutch ministry of transport. So that’s also nice setup I would say. And regarding the findings, the first finding was actually the start of the project was for me striking that in our country, we have about 50 million inhabitants and over two and a half million of them above 60 years, are not able to read or write well or at digitally have limited digital skills. So that’s a huge group and that’s not only the, that’s not only the elderly, that’s not only the people from another country that’s actually amongst whole society. So, actually starting with who are facing issues and to what extent that’s already part of the findings, I would say now we see multiple levels of inaccessibility could be because indeed you, you have no digital skills.

Dr. Niels van Oort ([00:22:33]):

You don’t know how to handle a smartphone. But it could also be that you don’t have sufficient funds to buy a smartphone or to have a subscription to a smartphone that those are also hurdles to take. So, there are multiple levels in this in this domain. What’s also interesting. Now we are also looking at with under the wrong, which is which busy in our lab at, at solutions. So how to, and indeed, as you say, yeah, there are many benefits totally agree of digitalization that helps us, that makes things more efficient less expensive. But it comes with a price. So there’s a new tradeoff actually there. So how important do you think that its digital equality is because probably there will come with a price, reducing the efficiency gains you, you just managed to achieve.

Dr. Niels van Oort ([00:23:38]):

So it’s also what, for me also in this five E model is important. So their society, what do you want to achieve and how much do you want to pay for it and then pay in a wider sense, I would say because probably it will come with a price and you don’t need to completely turn back all the benefits of digitalization Hopefully not. Cause again, I think digitalization has a lot of benefits, but maybe a bit of it like people around to ask to have you completely remove them from your biggest stations, et cetera, you might run into issues. So that’s a balancing act and that’s where we actually are now to find out and to learn about it.

Jaspal Singh ([00:24:23]):

Quite surprising for me to understand 2.5 million people, because that’s representing around 8 to 9% of the population, which is not a small group, like you mentioned indeed, and you can’t exclude them from these services and you can’t neglect them because probably they are the one who need these services or these facilities the more than others.

Dr. Niels van Oort ([00:24:45]):

That that’s even more ironic, you would say that they might need these systems even more than others.

Jaspal Singh ([00:24:51]):

It’s interesting. You’re working on this topic and giving some solution would love to see how it will evolve and I think it can be a learning for a lot of transit agencies around the world because everybody think that everybody can buy a smartphone and everybody can have data packages and all, but that’s probably not our right assumptions. Probably you need to talk to your customer. And then again, I come back to that point about human-centric approach. It’s actually with technology, we are losing that mindset how to serve everybody.

Dr. Niels van Oort ([00:25:23]):

And another point to stress here in this kind of research ads. If you talk to your direct colleagues to your own bubble of people who are completely aware of everything in general have a good income, steady income, et cetera. That’s not full society, I would say. So important to get out of your bubble and to which is not easy. But we had a discussion lately about travel cost reimbursement from your job, which is in general for us a topic you at least could discuss with your management, but there are plenty of jobs where this is out of the discussion. So if you ask about it, you lose your job and they find somebody else. So it’s also, it’s tricky to only think from your own perspective, in that sense,

Jaspal Singh ([00:26:15]):

Actually very interesting point to raise, because I was now thinking a lot of transit agencies and a lot of agencies industry are doing survey online, but it means that you are taking people who has all the facility and getting a very biased. We use it rather than doing survey full society.

 

Dr. Niels van Oort ([00:26:31]):

Yeah. For this research, we are now actually performing live interviews, which was also tricky during COVID by the way.

Jaspal Singh ([00:26:38]):

Oh yeah.

Dr. Niels van Oort ([00:26:40]):

And we are also yeah, exploring new research opportunities more, we tend to be in the quantitative domain, you could say, but for this topic, you should also use more qualitative approaches. That’s interesting to discover about the value there.

Jaspal Singh ([00:26:57]):

That’s great point. My next question is bit longer and it’s important too, because it’s about feature. And one thing I want to check, like, are you a big fan of Elon Musk or not? He’s quite popular among the new generation and recently on the Tesla earning call, he mentioned some interesting point. And also, I would say some scary point. I read it some point for you.

He said that effectively in long term, every car will be fully self-driving car. He feel that self-driving is good for society as a set utilization, a person drive his and her car for 1.5 hour a day on average which is around 10 to 12 hours a week. So people will have more free time. Like you don’t need to drive. So drive vehicle will drive itself. So you can do something on your own.

Jaspal Singh ([00:27:50]):

The second point, he mentioned that a lot of cars are in parking lot and we are spending money, not just driving the car, but storing them all over the place and I agree. I hate cars because 95% of the lifetime, they aren’t parking, but he’s saying we can get rid of a lot of parking lots, not by removing the car, but by putting all the car on the road all the time. So you don’t need to remove car from away from the road, so they will keep running on the road and it’ll increase the traffic for sure.

You have analyzed autonomous mobility very closely as a first and last mile connectivity. What do you think about this scenario in which everyone has a self-driving car and it can be on road all the time. Maybe we can repurpose all the parking spaces or maybe we can repurpose the use of cars. Do you think it’s a good scenario or it’s a scary scenario? What do you think about this?

Dr. Niels van Oort ([00:28:52]):

Yeah. Good questions. Jaspal starting with your first question about whether I’m a fan I’m, I’m not a big fan per se. We’ll come back to that later. However, what I like is to have these people, you need, society needs people who are making next steps and who dream extreme extremely in general, but it’s good to have people who think further than, and then next year or next 10 years or whatever. And yeah, it could be inspiring indeed for new generations to challenge yourself, to challenge society and to come up with new solutions to issues instead of continuing with the existing solutions. So, in that sense that’s an interesting person for sure. And, when you talked about autonomous vehicles here, it’s a sort of a dream, eh, you can you get more free time, eh, as a public transport user, I would say I use public transport already, because then I can read a book or can do some work.

 

Dr. Niels van Oort ([00:29:55]):

So it’s not per se autonomous mobility needed for that. And also to get rid of parking space in general replace it by more green or more space for children to play. And I think nobody disagrees there. The question though is how to get there and with regard to autonomous vehicles, I’m not sure. but it’s in social media discussions, it’s always black and white. That’s either you’re in in favor or not. And I think I’m afraid that as a scientist, we always say it’s in the middle and it depends. So, I see opportunities and there always that there are already opportunities for self-driving technology. I think first of all, we had self-driving metros already for ages, you could say.

Dr. Niels van Oort ([00:30:51]):

And also in the Netherlands, we had a shuttle service first – last mile to a Metro station for over 20 years already, which is I think it’s a near Rotterdam which is a good example of how it could work. However, I don’t see our future being fully automated. I think there are still, especially in dense areas with cyclists, with pedestrians. I don’t see it happen and I also don’t see the need for it to happen. That’s also important. How, why are we going into that direction? And there are benefits obviously, but I think I expect that these will mainly be visible on highways. I think that would be a good place for automation and also in dedicated shuttles to and from public transport, car parks airports all that kind of things because I must say that we do a lot of research by the way in automation, which is great to learn about. And again, there’s a lot of potential applications there for the inner cities or a campus here. It’s if you see all the bicycles in the pre-COVID phase, these autonomous vehicles will never get through here. That’s that will be impossible, I think, from a safety perspective. And I must say that I found the developments going quite slow. I remember some people maybe Musk, I’m not sure, but I think their prediction was that in 2020, all our cities would be full of autonomous vehicles.

Jaspal Singh ([00:32:31]):

Yeah. Many people made that prediction long back.

Dr. Niels van Oort ([00:32:33]):

But last time when I looked, I didn’t see, I didn’t see one. So it’s getting slow and also due to the safety restrictions, et cetera, the vehicles itself are also relatively slow. You could say. And then in our case, you get a bit of a competition between the shuttle and the bicycle. We did a lot of research with regard to passenger acceptance and passenger preferences and there is a market share to be expected for autonomous shuttles, for sure and also the business cases of course. But we also see, it’s also a bit of, depending on the weather, I must admit it’s as we speak, it’s raining. So that’s a bit of a tricky thing for, for the bicycle, but in general, the expectations are that the model share of bicycles will still be highest compared to shuttles. But we also found for instance, that for first class travelers business travelers in general, for them shuttle might be more convenient and affordable. So there’s a market there. But I think in general, my take is that it’s over the expectations are overrated.

Jaspal Singh ([00:33:47]):

Yeah, you are right. Like we already have fully autonomous vehicle in form of a public transit. They don’t need parking space and you don’t need to drive. You can read your book, you can meet people, you can drink your coffee with people. And so sometimes it’s important to look in the past to find answer for future. We are so focused on future that sometimes we forget what we did in past to solve these problems and all I move on to next point from this scary world to optimistic scenario about Mobility as a Service (MaaS), now is kind of a buzzword and everybody see as a next hero of public transportation. I know you are working on an interesting mass project that focus on the behavioral aspect of individual consumer. A lot of companies, a lot of people are working on the technology side, and again, they lose focus about what society think about these new technologies. What are your thought on MaaS and how can city encourage people to use it?

Dr. Niels van Oort ([00:34:50]):

Yeah, that’s a good point. And yeah, I need, my take in generalists. Also what I teach my students, new technology is great, but always ask you the question what’s in it for society, what’s in it for the passengers. And I think MaaS can provide benefits. I think it would be very convenient actually with the continuous growing landscape of available modes. But our added also, so it’s helpful to have one platform to pay, to get information at the book, them et cetera. So I think that’s an obvious benefit. But every now and then I feel a bit like a mid-Buster, so to speak with all these new technologies that’s in my view is overestimating the benefits a bit for MaaS. When I started this smart public transport lab, some people were actually saying to me, why are you going to do research in public transport?

Dr. Niels van Oort ([00:35:47]):

Because MaaS means the end of public transport that that was told to me a couple of years ago. And I think what now all researchers, and practical experiences show is actually public transport is the core of MaaS, I would say, so it’s not replacing it. It’s actually enriching it. You could say, so what’s, what’s in a name and how things can change. And I think that’s also what MaaS could provide indeed, because all the benefits of public transport what we were discussing here only are there, if it’s a well-designed and well operated system, to be honest, that’s not the case for many public transport systems all over the world. There are many hurdles it’s, it’s hard to find your way if you’re not well trained for public funds, but it’s sometimes hard to find your way transferring, getting information, how to pay. And I think MaaS is especially helpful in that sense to lower these thresholds, to make it a more attractive alternative for people and maybe stimulate them to make a move from their individual car towards public transport, including bicycles shared cars, et cetera. I think that’s what MaaS could provide us.

Jaspal Singh ([00:37:08]):

That’s interesting point. You mentioned about, like, people were thinking MaaS will replace public transit but actually MaaS is more dependent on public transit that any other mode and society need to rethink how the benefit can be generated from us rather than just looking from the technology side. And I think that’s a core, I am getting this core message from you is anything you do, whether it’s operational infrastructure, whether it’s technology, whether building new modes and transit, the important thing is who’s the customer and how they will get benefit out of it, rather than thinking about the fancy keywords and buzzword.

I love that now I want to talk about cycles, and then you are from the country and city, which is like known for the cyclist and the, the number of cycles in the cities. And it’s a popular mode, and you conducted a lot of a search about first and last mile connectivity and how the impact of cycling infrastructure can improve the public transportation accessibility and all. So, I would like to hear your thought about this new mode of transportation, such as ECUs, e-bike, bike sharing, scooter sharing, and so on. I mean, now I forgot, like it’s very difficult to keep track of what’s a new buzzword is coming. What are the way in which these modes are redefining some of the traditional options?

 

Dr. Niels van Oort ([00:38:30]):

We live in exciting times, isn’t it from a mobility perspective because the landscape has changed quite quickly. Actually, I remember going to Paris at some point, and then the city was flooded with shared bicycles and the year after we couldn’t find two similar bikes again with my wife and the city was flooded with these e-scooters. So it developments are so quick, sometimes hard for us as researchers to, catch up because our research takes time and before, you know, it’s already over but but it’s great. And also the younger generation likes these modes. Also it’s very interesting in helping us investigating. So in general, you would say had the more options the better for the individual customer. However, in this case, there’s also requesting what’s in it for society, and then there there’s a tradeoff and a balance to be made.

Dr. Niels van Oort ([00:39:26]):

Because I think in general, these modes could provide us multiple benefits. But I think with regard to the space efficient cities, so space usage, I think on the one hand they could help standing e-scooters is much more space efficient than a car or even a regular bike. However, I think it’s already proven now that some regulations need to be in place preventing your city to be flooded with these vehicles making also your cities, less accessible for people with difficulties to work for instance, because if the streets are full of these things lying around so there are some obvious challenges I would say but also strikes me in this context I think in general, they could help public transport in first – last mile for instance.

Dr. Niels van Oort ([00:40:25]):

But they could also compete with public transport, so are they complementing or competing public transport? That’s what we say often and that’s an interesting research topic and also interesting to discuss with operators. And I’m very happy to see that in the Netherlands there’s a trend now going on that the public transport operators don’t see the bicycle as a competitor anymore which I think is in general, a good approach. Of course, there are trips that could be replaced by a bicycle, which, but I think in general, societal view from societal society, that’s much better. And then as a public transport operator, you could focus on the trips that need to be made by public transport. So in the end, it’s a balance of multiple modes, I would say and it’s a bit similar for these other emerging modes. Although what we learn from our research is this, especially these e-scooters, so both standing and sitting e-scooters it’s general, the young generation using them, it’s fun in a way. They don’t have in our cities, they don’t have a high share. And I must say that standing e-scooters are not allowed yet.

Jaspal Singh ([00:41:42]):

Oh, okay.

Dr. Niels van Oort ([00:41:42]):

So maybe that’s also helpful that we first could learn a bit from what a country worldwide what’s happening. But the share is limited, but the visibility is high because you riding e-scooters, the sitting scooters all over multiple brands. Then again, how many apps do you need to install to get access? So I think we are not in a mature phase at all. And I hope we can find the best way to find the optimal mix of all these modes, including public transport and regular biking probably with some limitations, with regard to parking and that kind of things. Then I think we manage that well; we can really get the best out of all these modes.

 

Jaspal Singh ([00:42:30]):

Yeah.

Dr. Niels van Oort ([00:42:31]):

But it takes some time and in the end we learned a lot because we’re also advocating these modes sometimes from a sustainability perspective. And yeah, if we have boats full of bikes here from China, for instance, in the campus, we had a Chinese bikes, which were great actually. But now they’re all gone. So all these bikes were produced, they were transported. It would be interesting to also have a life cycle analysis that is that sustainability, is that sustainable or not? I think asking the question is already answering it, so we should, we should get to the next level, I would say.

Jaspal Singh ([00:43:17]):

Yeah, you rightly mentioned like these modes are coming so fast and going so fast. So you don’t sometimes even wonder what should you do research about, because by the time you start the research, they are gone and something new start. And I think cities are becoming like a now live lab. So, so many things are coming up and people are just experimenting and seeing what will stay and what will vanish into three years’ time.

Dr. Niels van Oort ([00:43:44]):

That’s also what I like, because we do a lot of theoretical research of course, but one of my dreams is also put everything there on the station and just see what people will do. How will they react? What would, what are they willing to pay for what trips do, will they use? What mode it’s indeed one big lab, one living lab.

Jaspal Singh ([00:44:04]):

Yeah.

Dr. Niels van Oort ([00:44:05]):

Great. For us as researchers, I think.

Jaspal Singh ([00:44:07]):

It’s great for everybody to understand what people will like and do it other point I want to check with you and I know because I met you when in Delhi, you talked a lot about big data and all, so you are very much obsessed with transit data and always look for new way to experiment with it. Like, I really like your point about putting all the mode at the station as people decide and choose. And you can do a lot of research about that, that you conducted research in Netherland on smart card data and vehicle GPS data to learn about the customer behavior. Why do you believe cites fail to properly use data? Because there is tons of data available, but cities generally can’t able to use it. And do you believe academy or technology firm can play a role here?

Dr. Niels van Oort ([00:44:53]):

To start with the last question. Yes. I think I’m convinced actually I think also that happened to some extent in in our country and beyond in our lab, I just mentioned that we are now exploring also qualitative researcher methods, but data in general is our oxygen. We use data for most of our researchers about data and smart data, AV data platform planner data. The world is full of data and I think there’s actually a role for us to explore the opportunities also great with students, because you don’t know, it’s not a project like you, that you’re studying and know where you will end. It’s an exploring adventure you could say, and that’s always a bit risky for, for cities or for companies, but for scientists.

Dr. Niels van Oort ([00:45:49]):

That’s actually what we do and we learn, and hopefully we get some positive results, but sometimes we get negative results, which are also valuable to learn from they are less sexy to share or whatever. But and in that sense, I think academia is a good place to do these explorations. And that’s also what we did not last 10 years maybe. I was then in those days I was also working as a consultant. So I was quite well involved in what happened, what was happening in the industry and via my role as, as academic, I could indeed learn from other countries also from the us, and Asia. But also indeed learned by learning, by doing. And I think one of the main things we found was that people were not aware of the value of all the data.

Dr. Niels van Oort ([00:46:42]):

So the question they were not aware of the improved business cases or the improved customer service, the improved decision making and what we showed them, we showed them actually did value. And then they were because it always comes with a price and then people say, I have to pay or to put time or effort, and what really yield. And, that’s what we showed them. We inspired them. I think these are things you could do with all the data. And then I think industry at least in a net, many operators are now working their selves with all these methods. Not only because of us, by the way, but at least I think we contributed a bit. And that’s a great role and we are, we should always be front runners from academia. Once it gets mainstream, then it’s perfect that other companies or whatever continue there. So we’re now also investigating new sources, like planner data. So how are people planning? Their journeys could be used the data to predict ridership, for instance that kind of things.

Jaspal Singh ([00:47:47]):

Yeah, that’s a great point. And, actually that’s kind of linked with my next question, because I don’t see you purely academician, because you are like the line you mentioned about learning by practice is more important than learning by just doing research. So doing, going back in the society and going with the city and talking to people, that’s a way to learn. And that’s your life journey too.

You now work as a full-time academic, but you previously left university, like you mentioned in earlier two times and work with public transport operator and consultant. So I would say you have seen now every aspect of the business. So you work with the authority, you work with the operator, you work with the consulting side, and now you’re working with the academia and, and running the smart mobility lab. In what way do you think academia role is more relevant or becoming more important in this changing world when there are so many things are happening every day. And I really agree with you when you said that, that these students are the next generation leaders and executive and innovators in the mobility sector. So what role you think academia will play or playing in the society?

Dr. Niels van Oort ([00:49:04]):

Yeah, that’s a good point and we discussed a lot more and more for truly also here in Delft about societal impact. Now the awareness that we are here for a good reason, not doing research only that of course the fundamental of what we are doing, but there’s more to gain. And now, first of all, it’s education of young people, young talents to join the industry and whatever position and to make a difference there. I think that’s maybe the biggest contribution we do, but also trainings I’m also involved in trainings for professionals et cetera. So in that sense, I would stress that yeah, with go to research we just discussed about exploring new things. The things we are not sure about whether they will make it or not where companies probably won’t put their money and effort on, I think then science is relevant to step in evaluations of what happens.

Dr. Niels van Oort ([00:50:07]):

It’s not very popular to evaluate field projects like we did with the light rail book, we don’t have a tradition actually to evaluate thing. It could be a bit confronting or whatever and I think we want to learn from project. We need to evaluate them. I think it’s also an important role as an academic. And what I would like to do is yeah, to improve the level of decision, making evidence-based decision making. I would like to contribute to that, and I know nowadays our world is more dominated by social media-based decision making. You could say there’s a lot of opinions going around on YouTube et cetera, still. I hope that also some decision makers trust on science and continue there. I believe that that’s an important an important role, and last but not least also in contact with you, for instance when we met in India the other day is connecting worldwide knowledge. To each chatter because most countries tend to look at the daily operations their own country or region, even while there are so many things going on all over the world. Good things. Things that fail, but from all we can learn, and as an academic, I think we are in a good position to be aware of things happening all over the globe and also to connect it and distract the learning full lessons there.

Jaspal Singh ([00:51:40]):

Well, that’s a great point to mention is so much innovation happening all around us and you never know from where the next innovation will come from, will it be Asia? Will it be Africa? Will it be European region or Latin America or North America? you never know from where the new innovation will come. so that’s a great point.

Now to move to our next section. So we talk a lot about mobility and all, but now I want to talk a little more about you. So we have this rapid fire question round, and the idea is that we’ll ask you five questions and you need to give your answer very quickly. So simply say what’s comes to your mind. So if you’re ready, then my first question is about

if you were not in the mobility sector, which is hard to believe, or, or in what other profession you would have selected.

Dr. Niels van Oort ([00:52:30]):

That’s, that’s very hard to believe Jaspal, because I think if you ask my friends, when I was a small kid, they will all say that I would end up in public transport and here I am. So it’s not a surprise for nobody in that I’m in public transport or mobility. However, I also told you that, that I’m not very good in predicting my career, so who knows. But to be honest, yeah, I was interested in public transport systems, connections, timetable passenger behavior for all my life. I did have some other ideas as a kid. I’m not sure how serious I could go for those careers. As a one was a becoming a Maze magician.

Dr. Niels van Oort ([00:53:18]):

Me and the other one was a radio DJ. The podcast is probably the closest I get to

 

Jaspal Singh ([00:53:25]):

That one.

Dr. Niels van Oort ([00:53:27]):

But on a more serious note, the only thing I can imagine is maybe in the field of logistics freight, which is also fair, but that’s still quite close to my comfort zone, you would say.

Jaspal Singh ([00:53:38]):

Yeah. So you are made for transit and then transit is for you. So that’s, that’s great.

You travel all around like many countries around the world and you I’m pretty sure you must be first thing you must be observing. There is how the city work, how people move and all, so, which is your favorite city in the world.

Dr. Niels van Oort ([00:54:01]):

Yeah. Yeah. I’m in indeed in a lucky position, that we, as an academic, you are able to travel all over the world actually, and to learn from all these cities and to also enjoy these cities. And you can ask my family about me being in a new city that I’m checking out the public passport networks, the first thing when I arrive and try to, to learn them into new lines, I want to explore. But in general, I think, there are so many beautiful cities and inconvenient cities, but I was thinking about this, and I think not so far away from here is Paris convenient by high-speed train. We have quite some contexts with the French railways. So I had some good reasons to go there every now and then before COVID, and for me, it’s a great city and similar actually with Madrid in Spain.

Dr. Niels van Oort ([00:54:53]):

The weather is a bit better, I would say than here the food is much better than there. I would also say so also like that one. And last on my list, I think is I had the opportunity to ] have some time with Professor Graham Curry in Melbourne and Monash university a couple of years ago. And it was a great time. He has a great group of public transport. I think he’s the leading academic in the world, very great guy, and inspiring. And I must say that also Melbourne is quite a convenient place to live. And I don’t see myself living in another country. I must say, I’m very, for me, I moved from the south of the country to the west. So that’s only one and a half hour. That was already a big leap for me.

Jaspal Singh ([00:55:37]):

<Laugh>

Dr. Niels van Oort ([00:55:38]):

So I don’t see myself in another country living, but going there enjoying the city, yeah. That’s great.

Jaspal Singh ([00:55:43]):

See, oh, you have a long list. And I think it’s increasing every year.

Dr. Niels van Oort ([00:55:49]):

There’s still some on my bucket list like that.

Jaspal Singh ([00:55:51]):

Yeah, you mentioned about like any city, you go and check out the public transit system. So now you have, I would say you are one of the experienced traveler of public transit system around the world. So that’s my next question, which is this city has the best transit network in the world for you.

Dr. Niels van Oort ([00:56:08]):

Yeah, that’s a good point. And I listened to your first podcast with Mohamed from UITP and he had a good point about best practices versus good practices. Actually, I remembered that one, which is actually he didn’t like to talk about best practices because I totally agree. There are good practices all over the world. Let’s combine them into one system that’s sort of ideal. But going a bit more tangible. I think what I like, for instance, in France, I like the aesthetics and the link to urban planning of public transport with in general, with light trail or also with Bikr. So they don’t, they have these wider view as we promote by the five years model.

I think in Germany, the systems are very robust and, and functional, I would say. So that would be already a good combination of all two. But from outside Europe, I think Asia is by far my favorite I opportunity to go to Hong Kong 10 years ago. I also went to Singapore a couple of years ago. These systems are, I think the best, as far as I have seen in the world. You know, I really like, they’re very convenient from a passenger experience.

Jaspal Singh ([00:57:17]):

Yeah. They are the, one of the best systems, I would say around the world and, and good city. And I think these best systems make the city as good. Also that’s what our politician need to understand a good city.

Dr. Niels van Oort ([00:57:28]):

In the end, how it works. Yeah. It’s it. Public transport is another goal in itself. It should contribute to your societal goals to your city, to your regions.

Jaspal Singh ([00:57:35]):

Isn’t it? Yeah. Now the question I want to know, learn from you is like you are closely watching startups face and all, what’s your favorite startup in the mobility sector?

Dr. Niels van Oort ([00:57:46]):

Yeah. There are multiple interesting ones, and then try to get track of them. But there’s one I would like to stress here. It’s I think they’re only operating in the melons. I must say it’s Bondi.City . If you like to pay them a visit. They are operating shared bicycle systems in the Netherlands in a couple of cities and we cooperated with them. They have tons of data, but they also have a business to run. So, they also don’t have the time and the and the opportunities. So we had students helping them out there, and it was a great corporation. And it’s two young guys students still, or no, I think around 25 or and they started this company with the two of them. They operate these shared bicycle systems in multiple cities in the Netherlands. And I really admire that entrepreneurship. Yeah. That’s so inspiring and these are two great guys. They work 20X7 I think.

Jaspal Singh ([00:58:46]):                                       

Yeah.

Dr. Niels van Oort ([00:58:47]):

But it’s really inspiring to, to meet them and to discuss with them about the future of mobility. So I would mention them here as my favorite.

Jaspal Singh ([00:58:55]):

That’s great. I know I’ll put their link in the show notes so that other people can also see about that. So we are at kind of coming to them and that is the last question I always ask my guest and it’s important is like, if you could change one thing about your life, what would it be?

Dr. Niels van Oort ([00:59:15]):

Yeah, I must admit, this is a good question to think about your life. I’m quite satisfied with how things are going. I think I’m in a fortunate position and maybe that’s also what I would like to change, not per se for myself, but I think in general, I think distribution of wealth and health is quite uneven in the world. And that’s sad to see. Also we’re a bit more looking at, we talked about traveling, we talked about life lectures, and if I could change anything, let’s get rid of COVID and get back to our lives, learn from the pandemic. Let’s see bit, let’s learn the lessons and the opportunities. But I think most people are facing for me, it’s annoying, but for many people’s worldwide, it’s more than annoying and it’s life. And let’s hope we can leave this stage forever. I would say.

Jaspal Singh ([01:00:15]):

Now that’s both are great points about uneven health and uneven wealth. That’s a big point and a lot of people feel that pandemic is annoying, but they need to think about like, it’s changing many people lives. So we should feel lucky that we are sitting safe and healthy.

Dr. Niels van Oort ([01:00:35]):

If you are complaining about which I do a lot, I must say about working from home that apparently implies that you have a home and you have a job. I think it’s a nice sentence.

Jaspal Singh ([01:00:46]):

That’s a great point.

Dr. Niels van Oort ([01:00:47]):

That’s somewhere on social media, I must say

Jaspal Singh ([01:00:49]):

That’s a great point. Thank you so much Niels. I really enjoyed this conversation really learned from you. And like I said, you are not a academician, you are practitioner, and I love that because all your points are about human-centric approach, evidence, science based work, rather than doing assumptions and presumptions. And in the end, what you mentioned working from home mean that you’re blessed with home and with work, which is a great thing. So I really enjoyed this conversation. I learned a lot from your experience, so thank you so much.

Dr. Niels van Oort ([01:01:23]):

Thank you.

Jaspal Singh ([01:01:24]):

Thank you for listening this podcast. We will be inviting some other inspiring guests in coming week. You can subscribe us online to get the notification for the next episode. If you like this podcast, please don’t forget to give us a five star rating as it’ll help us to spread our message. If you have any feedback and suggestion for this podcast, please do write to us at info at mobility-innovators.com.