Mobility Innovators

Jen Shepherd ([00:00:00]):

We are really proud about. There’s a great innovation partnership we have with Dallas (DART). So they started a Micro Transits program in about 2018. And it was pretty small, just a couple of geographic areas. They’ve evolved that to be greater than 30 micro transits zones and it’s the, as part of the design of their service area which is 600 square kilometers. It’s a very large service area. They actually reduced their fixed route 30%, thereby overall reducing the costs of their entire program. And what’s really cool about their program is that the combination of their fixed drought with their light rail and the Micro transits zones allows them to serve many more riders in their community, where Dallas is kind of suburban, sprawling communities. And so we’ve been really excited to partner with them in these micro transits zones where riders can actually now book a ride from, you know, where they are in their community, in their zone and get an Uber to pick them up, drop them off at a train station, and then they can take that train into the city and they can book that seamless ride all through the DartGo Pass app so they can pay $3 or what the fare is.

Jen Shepherd ([00:01:23]):

And they’re ticketed all the way through inside the agency’s app. We’re very excited about that. It has grown significantly and I think it’s really a standard that other agencies are looking at very deeply of how to better serve larger parts of their community in affordable ways.

Mobility Innovation Lab ([00:01:44]):

Welcome to the Mobility Innovators Podcast.

Jaspal Singh ([00:01:50]):

Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of Mobility Innovators Podcast. I’m your host, Jess Paul Sing Mobility Innovator podcast. Invite key innovator in the transportation and logistics sector to share their experience and feature forecast. In this episode, we’ll be discussing the partnership between new mobility and public transportation, how things are moving from being competitor to collaborator.

Today, guest is an amazing leader. She’s a global head of Uber Transit. She’s responsible for overseeing the deployment and expansion of Uber Transit feature, which allow user to plan and pay for public transportation trip within the Uber app. This includes working with transit agencies and other partner to integrate the service into the app, as well as ensuring that the user experience is seamless and intuitive.

Under her leadership, Uber has expanded its transit offering to more cities and has continued to invest in the development of Uber Transit. She has more than 15 years of experience in strategy and technology.

Prior to joining Uber, she worked at Deloitte, Walt Disney, and Starbucks. I’m so happy to welcome Jen Shepherd, Global Head of Transit at Uber. Now it’s time to listen.

Hello, Jen. I’m so excited to have you on the show. The reason is both public transit and nobility are close to my heart.

Jen Shepherd ([00:03:06]):

Yes. Awesome. I am really excited to be here. Thank you for inviting me.

 

Jaspal Singh ([00:03:10]):

Great. so why don’t we start a little bit more with your background. So, can you tell us about your professional background, because you work in different industry in media, in consumer products. So I’m curious to know why did you got attracted to mobility and transit business?

Jen Shepherd ([00:03:28]):

Yeah, for sure. A little bit about my background. So I actually studied engineering in undergrad. I just really was attracted to solving hard problems and like many peers got lured into the consulting industry right out of the college, where I got to sample a bunch of industries and a bunch of problems. Really had a great experience. But coming back to consulting, I knew I wanted to work for a company and industry that I was passionate about what they were doing. And so went to business school to round out for a business education. And afterwards I thought about all the different companies I could work for and was thrilled to go work for Disney because of the magic that they really deliver for families across the world. And I’m from Florida originally and so went over to finance and saw the business from an all financial perspective, which was different from more of the operations engineering type and really liked it.

Jen Shepherd ([00:04:33]):

But it was a little bit, I would say slower moving bigger industry Yeah. Than what I was looking for. And I was moving for personal reasons for my husband’s job. And so my next move, I went and wanted to join more of a startup. And so I joined a Loose Leaf Tea Starbucks startup Tiana. And I was essentially the right hand to the CFO at the time. They were just doing an IPO and I was, you know, in charge of a lot of the future planning. I did a lot of M&A type work for them. We helped acquire a competitor that was a lot of fun. And then we ultimately sold the company to Starbucks, which is how I moved over to working for Starbucks, which is a really cool, innovative large company.

Jen Shepherd ([00:05:18]):

I really like seeing them from the inside. However you know, running finance for a small startup was very different than working inside the big Starbucks machine. But I did get to pivot over to product and manage a P&L for the first time, which I loved. I loved managing a P&L and being responsible for that ownership. So then after Starbucks, I pivoted and did some strategy work for a large home builder and for a baby toy company. Then it was 2017 or so, and Uber reached out to me for a General Manager role and I fascinated, loved the team, loved the tech space. The idea of bringing my background together of finance operations some product type work, and basically, helping to start a new industry.

Jen Shepherd ([00:06:14]):

So it was Uber Eats at the time, and I joined in early 2018 as a GM for the Southeast us. And it was super fun, really fast paced and it was my first taste of mobility. And I was also pregnant with my second kid when I moved over to Uber. And Uber Eats transformed my life. It was the first time I was able to get delivered something that wasn’t pizza and Chinese food. And I, I mean, I still think I probably order Uber Eats about three or four times a week. Before for dinner. And so a lot of things were changing at that time. We were going through reorgs. I had the opportunity to pivot from Uber Eats over to the micro mobility space. So not delivering food, but you know, people on different modes of bikes and scooters.

 

 

Jen Shepherd ([00:07:02]):

And so I was a GM for the Southeast US for bikes and scooters. That was initially at the time of the race with Bird and Lime. And then we said, you know, we got to start making money. And so it was a fascinating operational problem. It was really, really cool and really, really fun. And then Covid happened and then I did some operations work for the Uber Freight competitor Convoy, which was super cool. Another mobility space, applying tech to a legacy industry. And then about a year and a half ago, I got the call to come lead transit and I couldn’t say no, just the ability to influence communities and how people move and influence folks lives. And I think back I think I told you the story at APTA, but I think back to my own childhood, my mom never had a driver’s license. And I used to ride the bus in Pinellas County, Florida to go to the mall and other places, and just a special time that was, and the ability for us to get around the town. And that was a year and a half ago and haven’t looked back. I love it. I love the mission of really helping to reimagine the way people move in partnership with Public Transit.

Jaspal Singh ([00:08:17]):

Amazing. I mean, in fact, I lost the count. How many industries have worked so far? It’s so amazing and super, and I think what I love is the point you mentioned how to bring experience and knowledge from different industry, your experience with operation with M&A, with finance and, and managing the P&L. Yeah. Because then you saw how the P&L can impact the company, and now freight and logistic and Uber eat and micro mobility, and now finally transit, I feel now probably your soul has find its destination. This is the place to be in.

Jen Shepherd ([00:08:50]):

I hope so. Yes, I’m ready for some stability for sure. But that’s right. I mean, seeing all the different elements of a business and how they come together and then how leaders make decisions and some of the constraints on them it’s really impactful as folks navigate careers.

Jaspal Singh ([00:09:05]):

Great. Now the second question I will like to ask you is now you work in food delivery space, like you mentioned, and I hope you must be getting some free coupons or free delivery options. And then you work with micro mobility, and you mentioned about logistic and now ride-hailing business. What commonality you see in all these things, because ultimately, it’s about moving things or people. So how do you think all these things work together or in future we will see more integration with everything?

Jen Shepherd ([00:09:39]):

Yeah it’s a good question. I mean, so ultimately it’s moving people or moving things people care about, right? People find the form factors can be different. So, you know, we could be talking a sedan, we could be talking, you know, a large truck. We could be talking a shuttle or a biker scooter. The challenges can be different, right?

So like food delivery, is the restaurant going to be ready when the driver arrives? And micro mobility, keeping the scooters and bikes charged is not an easy challenge. You know, for a ride-hailing can you find the person that you’re trying to get. But we at Uber believe there’s a lot of synergies. A lot of the problems are similar in terms of driving reliability using algorithms to figure out the tech behind the scenes. And you know, the beauty of it is that earners can actually flex how they make money across the different modes. and we think that’s one of the big benefits of making available different earning ways to our earners. So they can do food delivery, they can do ride-hailing, they can do, you know, when we, when we had micro mobility directly, they could do the charging of the actual batteries. And so we do think there’s a lot of operational benefits to bringing these together and some of the tech behind the scenes together.

Jaspal Singh ([00:11:05]):

I fully agree. I really like your line about either moving people or moving the things people care about. And, that’s important. I think for Cities also, it’s important not just to make sure peoples are moving, but logistic and goods also more quickly. And, and Uber eat is now, it’s part of life. You can’t ignore it. I mean, you need to deliver stuff. You want to have your food. So I’m a big user of that.

In fact, I told you also, I work in Uber when in 2015 when it was Uber 1.0, it was all about hustling. We were trying to bring Uber to New Market. But you started in Uber 2.0, which is a completely different company. And, and I think with the new CEO, they also brought the new mission. And I just want to read the mission statement because it’s very impactful, which say that we reimagine the way the world moves for better.

Jaspal Singh ([00:11:57]):

So it’s not about people, it’s not about goods. It’s all about how to move things around and better way. And Uber is doing that in a lot of ways. So I was the one who was advocating about partnership and collaboration with Transit. And that time I was a black sheep. Nobody was listening to it. But now I see things are happening. There is Uber Transit team, you are leading it. And a lot of interesting work you guys are doing. So can you share how does Uber Transit fit into Uber’s overall vision for the future of transportation? How is Uber Transit becoming important within Uber?

Jen Shepherd ([00:12:33]):

Yeah, absolutely. I think it’s a great question, and I might actually start answering your question with a bit of a history lesson as well. So, I think Uber’s changed a lot over the years. Starting in 2016 – 2017, there were some local ops teams. That realized the benefit of transit partnerships. They realize that the folks that use Uber the most are the ones that don’t have the personal cars and also use public transportation and that there’s a lot of synergies to be had in partnering with public transportation and improving, you know, our, our ways towards sustainability goals and other goals as well. And so they started standing up first, last Mile paratransit type programs. MBTA was one of our first partners. And, you know, there was some success. They were pretty informal partners that local ops teams, you know, managed.

Jen Shepherd ([00:13:32]):

And we didn’t promote them significantly. Now then we said, okay, well, there’s something here. You know, we do believe in the value of these partnerships. Let’s centralize the team and centralize our efforts and really invest in it. And I do wonder if we swung the pendulum a little bit too far in the other direction. So we put this really awesome smart team on transit and said, go help revolutionize this industry. And they came back to us, well, this is before I was on transit and, and basically said, we’re going to invest big, we are going to invest in software. We’re going to become the SAP of the transit industry. We’re going to also invest in improving the writer experience. And we’re going to create, you know, this mega MaaS app where writers are going to be able to access all transportation options directly through Uber. And by the way, we’ll also, you know, support transit agencies through our rides, which we do really well. And we had this, you know, bold plan which was really well intentioned.

 

Jaspal Singh ([00:14:36]):

Hmm.

Jen Shepherd ([00:14:37]):

I think then it was also at the time of covid, we even acquired to help this plan that we developed, we acquired Route Match in 2020 to, to really have a head start in the software space to these agencies. COVID happened, it totally transformed our business. Our priorities changed significantly. And we said, you know what? Like, maybe let’s focus on our core and do what we do best. And at the same time, let’s solve the problems that the agencies have today. So right now, you know, they have they’re trying to improve their paratransit service. They’re trying to improve ridership on public transit. Let’s actually help them solve these problems today instead of going big on these solutions that, you know, may take a decade to really develop in collaboration with these agencies.

Jen Shepherd ([00:15:32]):

So as part of that I came on you know, a year and a half ago and helped to synthesize that plan and the vision within Uber. Yeah. we, we ended up, you know, divesting software space and doubling down on our rides business. And so what this means is that we are partnering with software players. So today we have a partnership with Trapeze, with Spare many others in the works. We want to make our rides available for agencies, however, whenever they want them. And there’s so many different use cases that they can use them with. So Micro transits, paratransit, First and last mile, late nights outage, we’re dedicated to being there and what we do best for these agencies. And so we’re very committed to the transit space. But it took us a while to figure it out.

Jen Shepherd ([00:16:25]):

Honestly, like we want to serve the agencies the way they want us to be there. And we’ve got this great value proposition with reliability, affordability with our rides. And, you know, we think we can make a transformational impact there first, and then what’s next? Would love to co-create that with them. Like I see a space where we can, you know, jointly come together and make rides more affordable and serve more of the city more in the shared rights format together. But right now, I think we’re in the stage of just building trust and helping them solve their problems today.

Jaspal Singh ([00:17:01]):

Well, that’s quite interesting. And thanks for sharing that history, because I think that’s very important to have a centralized strategy rather than working in different region or different offices. In different way of collaboration. And I think what I like and, and today’s result from Uber is astonishing. It’s amazing to see how Uber has performed in this quarter. And, and then the reason for that is that coming back to your core, rather than competing with everything and becoming a staff for public translator, it’s a tough nut to crack. Rather than competing with the so many different small players, let’s just focus on your core, and which Uber is doing right. Is correct, is providing the ride at the right time, at the right place whenever people need it. So, bringing that synergy is important and that’s what, when you open a Uber Transit page now.

Jaspal Singh ([00:17:50]):

The first thing you read is let’s make transportation, public transportation most inclusive way to ride. So, would love to know some key example with the city and agency, like you mentioned about how Uber is helping Cities with Paratransit, how Uber is helping Cities with late night trips, and somewhere they cannot fulfill the capacity. Can you give some real example and some of the big success case, like you started with MBTA, but I know now you’re working with so many transit agencies around the world. Can you give some specific example how it’s working out?

Jen Shepherd ([00:18:21]):

Yeah, definitely. So we have partnerships with over 60 transit agencies globally. And we’re growing fast. I will give you four quick examples with unique use cases.

Jaspal Singh ([00:18:34]):

Yeah.

Jen Shepherd ([00:18:35]):

So one example that we are really proud about, there’s a great innovation partnership we have with Dallas (DART). So they started a Micro Transits program in about 2018. And it was pretty small, just a couple of geographic areas. They’ve evolved that to be greater than 30 micro transits zone and it’s the, as part of the design of their service area which is 600 square kilometers, it was a very large service area. They actually reduced their fixed route 30%, thereby overall reducing the costs of their entire program. And what’s really cool about their program is that the combination of their fixed drought with their light rail and the Micro transits zones allows them to serve many more riders in their communities, where Dallas is kind of suburban, sprawling communities. And so we’ve been really excited to partner with them in these transits zones where rider can actually now book a ride from where they are in their community, in their zone and get an Uber to pick them up, drop them off at a train station, and then they can take that train into the city and they can book that seamless ride all through the DartGo Pass app so they can pay $3 or what the fare is.

Jen Shepherd ([00:20:02]):

And they’re ticketed all the way through inside the agency’s app. We’re very excited about that. It has grown significantly, and I think it’s really a standard that other agencies are looking at very deeply of how to better serve larger parts of their community in affordable ways. Second example DC Washington, DC Willmott. We have a really awesome paratransit partnership with them. Their Ability Rides program. It’s their program actually started in 2017 with a couple taxi players. We were introduced a couple years later, and today we actually do 10% of their program volume, about 800 ability rides a day over a very large area, 1500 square miles. We are able to do these rides with incredible reliability on demand serving, you know, many of their riders who don’t need wheelchair accessible vehicles.

Jen Shepherd ([00:21:05]):

They get the dedicated vehicles as part of their program and we’re able to do it at prices that are better than other, you know non-dedicated providers or dedicated providers in their program. And so what they have built, which is super cool to comply with the Rider’s choice exception, is they have rider’s opt-in to non-dedicated providers, and then they built their own visual basic application to randomly assign the rides that qualify to go to Uber the night before. And they push them to us the night before and were able to service them the next day. And many agencies in the paratransit program space have an issue with Noh-Show, like 10-15% no shows. And so the, the product that we have for WMATA is actually called Flexible Rides, where the rider has the ability to push a button and get a ride on their phone.

Jen Shepherd  ([00:22:00]):

And it improves reliability significantly. If you think about going to the doctor’s appointment, you don’t know exactly when you’re going to or want to come home. And so instead of having that preset time and a no-show it’s a flexible ride where the rider just chooses when they want to come and the Uber picks them up. And so it’s an awesome program. And it’s one that we are definitely expanding with other agencies in the US and Canada and then third example fixed drought alternatives. So some cities are small and some towns just don’t have budgets for fixed drought programs, have the density, the population for it. And so we’re seeing more and more trend of these smaller cities and towns saying they want innovative solutions that meet their budgets. And Innis was one of our oldest partnerships.

Jen Shepherd ([00:22:49]):

We stood up in 2017 where Innisfil is right outside the city of Toronto. Subsidizes rides for its entire population. A lot of them are getting to the train station to help them get into the city, but it could be anywhere around the town. And they are thrilled with it. It’s a great way to provide 24X7 on-demand transportation options in instead of fixed routes. And the town believes, they’re saving millions of dollars a year. And so we’re seeing more and more demand of that, and we’re thrilled to partner with cities in that capacity.

And then lastly BrightLine Trains. So we are also really excited about partnering with Rail. We stood up a program recently with BrightLine on helping folks get to and from the train stations without using their car and promoting actually using these trains and reducing personal car ownership. And BrightLine’s, very innovative partner. We’ve actually integrated into their app. So now like BrightLine plus customers premium customers are able to get free Uber rides to and from the train station within five miles through their own app. And, we’re really excited about following them on their grand expansions as they continue to expand in Florida and other parts of the country.

Jaspal Singh ([00:24:10]):

Also I think it’s, they’re expanding in Florida, so that’s something close to your heart.

Jen Shepherd ([00:24:14]):

Yeah. that’s for sure.

Jaspal Singh ([00:24:18]):

These are amazing use cases, like you mentioned working as partner for Micro Transits paratransit fixed route service. I know the case of Innisfl. And I get a chance to connect with some of the city member who are managing the Uber contract. And they actually shared the story, how did they started because they had an option to operate three buses, which were costing them a lot of money at the same time, covering nothing. And they decided to, to work with Uber and provide ride sharing. Not only it created rights for people, but also create employment because the drivers are from the local ecosystem. So they felt like it’s money’s going from one partner to another partner. It’s like one community member to another community member. So they felt happy about it because it, that’s a way you build the local ecosystem.

Jaspal Singh ([00:25:04]):

And people know the driver, its small locality, so they know the driver and, and the train case, like you mentioned, I think that’s very important. If you really want to bring people to transit, you need to make it much easier for this first mile and last mile case. Like you mentioned with BrightLine, you don’t need to pay for extra taxi ride. It’s covered in your train calls. So you don’t need to think about twice, you know, if you’re getting part of your package, it’s like buffet. So, you know, if you will always eat the desert, it’s part of the buffet, otherwise you will skip it.

Jen Shepherd ([00:25:36]):

I mean, absolutely. I mean, I think that’s the key with improving transit usage, right? Is how do we make it easier for folks to ride? Like how do we help them get there? How do we make it more affordable, continuing to drive down costs? I mean, I think there’s so much we can do, and Uber’s ability to help these agencies and these companies is, is just really great.

Jaspal Singh ([00:25:56]):

I agree with you. And in fact that’s the thing. When I started with Uber, there was a lot of perception about the tried hailing services are a big competition to public transit. And a lot of agencies have a very negative viewpoint. Even when you are in the room and you say you’re from Uber, a lot of people just turn around and look at you because they feel like you’re trying to take away their business. But I think the perception is changing now. It’s like you mentioned from competition or competitor becoming like a collaborator. And you mentioned so many economic case that how, and you are a finance person, like you mentioned for you, managing P&L is always important. So what are the economic cases for integrating ride hail services and new mode in public transit?

And other important point is how Uber Transit helped the city to improve the network and share data with them. Like, do you guys provide data to the transit agency so that they can improve their routes, like you mentioned in DART now they’re, they have reduced 30% of their fixed route at the same time their service ability has increased. So how, how that magic is happening?

Jen Shepherd ([00:27:00]):

Yes Cool. all right. I’ll take your first question first, and then I’ll talk a little bit more about data. The economics of partnership. And so I would say partnership provides a lot of benefits. One of which I’ll take paratransit first. So I’m most excited about improving the lives of Paratransit Riders. So what we see when we launch a Paratransit on demand program is that Paratransit Rider actually increase their mobility significantly, 2 to 4 times the amount then when they have to schedule it in advance.

Jaspal Singh ([00:27:38]):

Right.

Jen Shepherd ([00:27:39]):

And we find that, you know, they feel more normal. They’re able to go to a social event without having to plan it two days in advance and, and wait for these hours, long windows. And so that’s what we’re super excited about. But then if you want to talk about economics, these on-demand trips that we’re able to provide to Paratransit Rider, we can do these trips for easily half the cost of dedicated programs. Now, we can’t take a hundred percent of paratransit riders. There needs to be a really good qualification of who can actually ride an Uber, which today is curb to curb. Mostly sedans. Yeah. but we do bring partners on into our programs to help serve other parts of the paratransit population. And so what we’re able to do is give Paratransit riders these on-demand options, improve their lives and serve them more within the same budget of the agency.

Jen Shepherd ([00:28:38]):

And so I think it’s a win-win. Agencies are more and more standing up these on-demand pilot programs. Some of them are, are longer standing. And it’s, it’s one that we are so thrilled about the impact we can make on the micro transit side of the world. It is a little bit more challenging because, you know doing fixed drought redesigns is not an easy topic. And data is so key into figuring out how to optimize, you know, any fixed drought, micro transits type program. But there’s a lot of stakeholders in that. And so what we try and do is initially we help support with like outage vouchers. So, you know, train goes down agencies want to keep service running and we can be there to, to help for the, who need it.

Jen Shepherd ([00:29:31]):

We also help doing, you know, late night, there’s a lot of times where fix drop just doesn’t make sense late night, or folks don’t want to work on fix drop late at night, and we can easily serve the lower demand or transit deserts. Right? And so for that, the economics are pretty easy. So, but then if you start really diving deep you find that there are some fixed drought lines that are just not that efficient. And they can, they can cost a hundred dollars per trip or more and so that’s when we start our deeper partnerships with agencies and we don’t push them on any timeline. It’s on their timeline. That makes sense. But if they do venture into innovation in that way, they can realize a significant savings and reapply that to serving more customers in their Yeah.

Jen Shepherd ([00:30:21]):

In their career on data. So absolutely important to us. We regularly share data with cities and agencies. There was one example that just came across my desk with the SFS, as they were trying to understand if a road closure in Golden Gates Park would lead to congestion in the adjacent neighborhoods. So we provided them the data to help answer that question. The answer was NO. And then the voters with that, armed with that data, voted to keep it closed to car traffic permanently. And so that is one example. We also routinely share data with agencies across their programs. It’s necessary. They have to report on their programs for the FTA with, for funding. And then they also really need the data to help optimize their programs. Right. Like, how are they ever going to continue to innovate on these different programs and serve more people and look at efficiency if they don’t have the data. So, you know, we’re very passionate about giving the data that they need in, in aggregated ways to make those decisions.

Jaspal Singh ([00:31:27]):

No, that’s amazing. Like you mentioned, 50% cost reduction, that’s huge because it means you can serve two passengers now with the same cost or same budget. And I also think one other point which I want to emphasize is there is not much supply available. Like, there is a shortage of drivers. So in para transit, you don’t have so many vehicles to serve the customer requirement and demand. So with Uber partnership, you can do much easier. And like you said, on-demand, you don’t need to think about two days advance or week in advance whenever you need it, just press the button, and the vehicle. So increase the mobility at the less cost. So I think it’s win-win for everybody. And, and the data is very important. I think it will play a big role to optimize the service and improve the customer experience.

Jen Shepherd ([00:32:12]):

Absolutely. We are, we are so thrilled. Honestly, I mean, we feel like the goals of public transit, and our goals are really, really aligned. And, we want folks to not need that second car or not even need the first at some point. And help on sustainability, reducing congestion, making cities more livable. And so we are thrilled that we have such a strong value proposition for transit agencies and cities.

Jaspal Singh ([00:32:39]):

Yeah it’s a big mission. Like you said, as an engineer, you want to solve big problem. So that that’s a huge problem to solve the climate change and the sustainability and livable city. Now you have strong experience in technology and customer experience. Like you mentioned you work in different sector industry, and now you’re working with different transit agencies around the world. You mentioned to me when we met last week, that you are on a global tour in coming days. So you’ll be visiting many city, what kind of gap you are seeing in transit space. How do you see technology playing a role in the future of public transit? Like why technology so important for public transit?

Jen Shepherd ([00:33:15]):

Sure. yeah, it’s really interesting time in transit. And I would say it’s interesting for different reasons across different regions, different reasons for different regions. So, you know, in the US easy example here, the US public transit very much built for cars and very much built for pre-pandemic. So commute patterns are changing and it’s challenging. Like I think agencies are thinking about things that seriously, that they haven’t thought about before. Zero fares is like one of the hottest topics right now to boost Rider. And they need ridership for their funding. The whole system is built around that. And so I think they will likely innovate in new ways faster in the next few years than they have in the past. Which is really exciting, especially as our partnership prospects in the us.

Jen Shepherd ([00:34:13]):

And, you know, we’re seeing a big push towards electrification which we are extremely excited to support for us, Canada and Europe, we’ve come out with a, a 2030 goal of being a hundred percent electric at that time. So in Europe, we are seeing definitely the contin the continued theme of sustainability. Yeah. and the goals towards reducing car ownership. And they’ve taken it and they continue to take it in a leading way towards technology and mass apps. They wanna make it easy for riders not to have that car. Yeah. and through integrated technology solutions. And so that’s, that’s really cool to watch and to see how we could potentially support in some way. And then, yeah, the Middle East is probably one of the coolest where you know, examples, right?

Jen Shepherd ([00:35:06]):

And like Dubai or Yeah. Where they’re laying down like huge brand new transit infrastructure to attract business and tourism. And it’s just amazing to see it happen so fast from scratch. And so yeah, we would love to partner with them and I think there’s a, some cool ideas that we have in that space as well. And so, how does technology help? I mean, it’s a variety of ways. On the rider’s side it’s really about do you surface the best, most affordable options to help the riders, you know, meet their mobility goals? Yeah. Right. And so, so they don’t need that second car or that first car. And how do you give them confidence that the, that their mobility options will actually be there when they need it most? Because that’s what we find. The reliability’s not there, then they always default to needing that personal car.

Jen Shepherd ([00:35:57]):

And that’s something that we are really, really focused on, reliability and affordability. So once you can get affordability down and reliability up, you get the confidence from these riders. And we start actually seeing folks move away from personal car ownership. So that’s, we’re very passionate about. And then on the agency side I, I think it’s about two things. One, it’s about serving folks who’ve never really been served before, because maybe it wasn’t economically feasible to do so, certain zip codes, time of day the paratransit on demand service. And so that’s we talked about before, but that’s where I think like Uber can help today in a major, major way that we’re excited about. The second way, I view technology in the agency world is having an implemented smart integrated software.

Jen Shepherd ([00:36:50]):

Kind of like what Uber penciled out, you know, years ago, which would then combine dedicated, non-dedicated micro transits, paratransit, fixed route that optimizes essentially the best trip with the be, I mean, so the rider with the best trip best ETA (Estimated Time to Arrive) lowest cost options and then also the communication with the riders isn’t amazing yet and so giving that communication through technology, whether it’s an agency app or some other ways, if there’s any issues, what type of vehicle we picking them up where they need to be different mapping software. I think there’s a lot to be done with that communication experience. But right now, there’s so many different software platforms that agencies use and having them talk to each other and actually become more efficient across the different modes and different programs that are different funding. So there’s lots of challenges with that. But that would be a really cool leapfrog. I think that technology could help with the industry. So very challenging. Lots of stakeholders, lots of different customers. But I think like over years, many years, we’ll get there.

Jaspal Singh ([00:38:03]):

No, I think we are already getting there because if you see and you rightly mentioned, the pandemic has changed a lot of things. The commuting pattern has changed. We were in Minneapolis last week and we saw downtowns were empty. People are not coming to office. So you can’t just wait, think the way it was working and I like your point about the different reasons for different regions. So that’s very important to understand the local geographic, like in, in US, we are talking about free fare or No fare kind of a mode. In Europe, we saw that Germany launched a nationwide path for 49 EURO, which is also make it more affordable, but at the same time promoting transit. So there is this moment going on how to move people out of car and put them into transit. But the most important thing, what you mentioned with the technology is reliability and communication.

Jaspal Singh ([00:38:54]):

So if you don’t provide communication to people, people will never come back. If I don’t know when the next bus is coming or, or when I can get the next vehicle, people will never come back. So, thanks for sharing that. And like you said, we are moving, there we are. Many years we will reach there. So I would like to know, what are the new products or development Uber is planning, because you said there is a 360 degree shift now. You started with the big grand vision staff for public transit, MaaS app, SaaS application, and then Covid hit the plan change.

I’m assuming now Uber is not looking to create a MaaS app, or you are still considering, but what are the new thing you’re looking to build in future the next five to 10 years?

Jen Shepherd ([00:39:37]):

Yeah, it’s a good question. So, I mean, at Uber generally for our commercial business, we’re very interested in innovating new ways to get folks from A to B. So yeah, some folks look at this and say, you have so many different options. You know, you’re becoming a MaaS app. We are really focused on helping to engage both the riders and the driver, the different platforms on our platform with you know, with the value proposition that makes sense. So, and we’re ultimately engaged in doing that and helping our cities and our societies and creating these more livable cities. But what we realized is that we don’t have to own all of those different modes. We can use partnerships. So micro-Mobility is a great example where we owned it for a while and now we partner with a lot of the leading players. It has a real purpose serving short trips in really fun ways, affordable and with transit, we have integrated journey planning across more than about 50 cities globally to help folks understand how to use buses and trains and other transit modes. However, I would actually say transit is probably ahead of us on ticketing tech.

Jaspal Singh ([00:41:03]):

Yeah.

Jen Shepherd ([00:41:05]):

And so we have, we try to integrate things into our platform that makes sense, that have a real value proposition that we have that Uber can actually deliver magic to. And the open payments platform that a lot of agencies are adopting like New York and London is quite magical with being able to just tap your credit card or your card through your Apple Wallet or Google Wallet and just calculates the exact right price for you after a period of time. And so, right now I’m just, I’m watching that space. Well, we’re not, going in as deep because there’s a lot of really cool tech that’s happening there that I’m not sure, you know, how Uber will play in the future. And so what we are really excited about though, are those TNC partnerships with the agencies that I mentioned before.

Jen Shepherd ([00:42:01]):

And solving the agency’s problems that they have today, like I’d argue some of their ticketing problems, you know, can be really well solved with a lot of the open payment tech. And we are also on a mission to continue to drive our costs down. And so we’re experimenting with different types of high capacity vehicles across the globe, which is really exciting. Different variations of that tech and of the operations to improve reliability and keep costs down very much shared ride formats. And so I do see a world in the future where we can combine some of that tech and operations with agencies when they want it.

Jaspal Singh ([00:42:40]):

Yeah, these are, these are great point. And I, you mentioned about open loop ticketing, that’s actually, if you see Visa, MasterCard, Discover, Amex, like these companies are now have a dedicated transit team. So we can see, like Google Pay has a trans transit team now, so it showed that there is a lot of interest to work with transit and make it easier for people to pay. And I use everywhere now, this open loop payment card. I use my credit card to pay for transit in London, in Brussel, in New York, in Washington. So it’s very easy to pay. The other important thing you, you mentioned is mission to drive down the cost. And I think the biggest way to do that is implement the autonomous mobility or autonomous vehicle in your background. Also, you have bus with the autonomous kind of a van.

Jaspal Singh ([00:43:27]):

Uber used to have its own autonomous technical team, but now you’re working more with external partner, like you said, focus on your core leave rest of the technology for other partner to do, and then Uber delivered the right. How do you see autonomous mobility evolving? And my biggest question will be because in public transit space, when I talk to people about autonomous mobility, they have a mixed feeling. Some people are worried, some people are excited because some people feel it can make the rights more cheaper and more accessible like in the nighttime or in the suburb area. But some people are worried because they feel probably in future there is no need for public transit because everybody can use autonomous mobility. A lot of agencies are facing driver shortage also. So it’s a mixed feeling, like happy and sad at the same time. How do you see it’ll be for public transit or overall mobility? Autonomous mobility will play a role and also for Uber Transit team, how are you looking at it?

Jen Shepherd ([00:44:27]):

Yeah. It’s a great question. It’s one that lots of folks at Uber are thinking deeply about often. So I think we’re excited about autonomous. We don’t think it’s going to change mobility overnight, but it will change mobility and become increasingly important over time. So as you mentioned, Uber is now partnering. We’re not building our own, we’re partnering with different AVs. We want to be the top marketplace for AVs to bring their supply. And why we think that’s really important is because the AVs today can’t do all trips, right? And so it’s a world in which different mobility needs are going to be met with hybrid trips, you might take an AVs for a short two mile straight trip and then have that connect to a transit station or to a different type of vehicle.

Jen Shepherd ([00:45:25]):

And so we also can provide different AV innovation opportunities across mobility, delivery, and freight across one marketplace. So we’re very excited about that. We’ve launched a couple pilots already LA and Vegas serve robotics Motional. I mean, we are really doubling down on trying to partner with these AVs and help them succeed. And we do see a future that, that helps reduce costs and reduce rider costs. Now, on your question on how public transit agencies should be thinking about this I don’t have the crystal ball. I would say, the way I think about it is, at the end of the day, the goal of public transit is to improve affordable mobility. They want to improve lives by helping folks increase mobility, helping them live their lives, get to jobs, get to grocery stores, get to healthcare, and they can do that better with affordable options.

Jen Shepherd ([00:46:28]):

They also, if you think about reducing congestion and pollution, a personal car ownership. And so I think there’s a lot of potential for autonomous to really help their goal. Now the new tech will pose many new questions to the transit agency that I’m sure I haven’t even thought all about, but like, I just think about fixed drought buses. We’re in investing in huge fleets of electric buses right now. Is that really the right form factor in the future of autonomous? Like should we have different form factors to be able to suit more needs when the entire cost equation changes?  think how we do, I, like you mentioned the driver shortage, which is a great one. But like, how do we think about what roles of transit jobs are going to change in the future and how to work with labor unions when labor unions are applicable on those changes and getting them skilled up in maybe more tech type spaces.

Jen Shepherd ([00:47:35]):

I think there’s so much change on the horizon here. It can be very overwhelming for public transit to think about. I will say this though. My commitment is that as we bring on new innovations and new supply at Uber, it could be smarter, shared rides, cheaper shared rides, electric vehicles, autonomous. I really want to make available that those innovations and that supply to our transit agency partners who, who won it. And so I plan to work very closely with them and so to the extent that we launch autonomous in three or four or five years, I don’t know when, but mass across one of the cities, I want to work with the transit agency in that city to take advantage of that innovation and those lower costs to help serve the larger population. And so I think that’s the beauty of the transit team inside Uber, is that we’re really trying to leverage our core and autonomous will be a part of our core. And so I think that we can deepen our public transit relationships with autonomous.

 

Jaspal Singh ([00:48:47]):

I really love your honesty, I would say, because you’re not like some people who say, don’t worry, nothing will change. But I think what you mentioned is very important, and that’s what I tell agencies is you need to think about, you need to prepare for the worst-case scenario because if you feel nothing will change, that’s not a right strategy. You need to think about, like you mentioned, do I need these many investments in this kind of vehicle, or probably I need different type of vehicles, or do I need to start experimenting and piloting now and at least looking for these technology? Can I save my cause, and working with the union? Because if you’re signing a contract for long term, there should be some flexibility to make changes. Like in, in in Europe, some of the city, when they introduce automated train system, they still need to put driver there.

Jaspal Singh ([00:49:37]):

I mean, I don’t want to name, but in some city in Europe, you still have a driver sitting in the engine compartment doing nothing because it’s an automated train working itself. But because of labor contract, you can’t remove it. So, the question you ask is very valid. And I love your commitment, which is promoting transit and supporting them no matter what happens. So bringing innovation, and making them aware. And I think that’s, that’s the reason I started this whole conversation, is because I want to tell them to think critically what’s going to happen, and world will change in next 5 to 10 year the way we are changing. Great.

So now you are leading the Uber Global Transit team, and I think you have more than 20 people in your team or more and you are talking to different public transit agencies around the world. So can you share how Uber Transit is expanding globally? Because I know you are doing a lot of work in North America, but at the same time, your role is to expand Uber Transit globally. And what type of, what type of similarity and differences you see between transit agencies in North America and outside? So like you mentioned, there are difference between US and, and Europe and Middle East, but for Uber Transit particularly, what kind of thing you are observing with different transit agencies?

Jen Shepherd ([00:50:56]):

Yeah, absolutely. So yes, we’re very dedicated to Transit. Our team has changed a lot as our goals. And I would say our planning and resources have changed. We’ve got about 20 full-time dedicated employees. We’ve got probably, we’re a very matrixed organization, so we probably have about another 30 who support in a variety of capacities could be product or engineer, customer support. We currently have relationships with transit agencies in the US, Canada, and Australia. We are very much trying to expand and we expect to launch our first contract in Europe and the Middle East this year.

Jaspal Singh ([00:51:43]):

Oh, great.

Jen Shepherd ([00:51:44]):

We just less than a year ago, hired our first partnerships lead in in Europe. And my plan is to expand that team as we’re getting more traction. But, right now we are primarily focused on North America and expanding into Europe and the Middle East. We do have our eye on some other innovations that are happening globally. But we’re also trying to not bite off too much, like learning a little bit from the past and really just trying to focus on what we do really well. And when we stand up these programs, some of them are very complex have a pretty high quality bar in making sure our reliability and service is strong. So what does this mean? So in, in North America, I think I described some of the programs that we did heavy kind of paratransit and some micro transits type work.

Jen Shepherd ([00:52:38]):

In Europe, we’re seeing a lot of interest for first and last mile to help promote public transit. We are seeing different flavors of that. I mentioned before they’re really investing in some MaaS apps and so to the extent that it is a MaaS app that promotes public transit, where Uber can help folks really get to and from the stations or serve folks in ways that transit can’t we, we love to integrate into these types of MaaS apps, especially when the transit agencies are helping to make the rides affordable. For the riders, so that that’ll boost their ridership, which is our mutual goals. We tend to shy away from MaaS app integrations if it’s just an aggregation of all the different modes in that city. But when it’s a true partnership with the agency that’s, that’s when we love to do that.

Jen Shepherd ([00:53:37]):

So we’re starting to see more demand for that in Europe. And then I mentioned before in the Middle East we, I mean, it’s such a cool opportunity to help create ridership from ground zero essentially. And so we’re definitely talking to them about creative ways that we can help promote transit ridership including, you know, initially just helping folks get to these stations and back home. And so that’s where our focus is now. We are closely watching some of the innovations in LATAM or in India. I think they’re really leading the way in a lot of ways around costs and having low cost rides. So we don’t have formal transit partnerships on my team with them today. But it’s something that we’re watching quite closely.

Jaspal Singh ([00:54:29]):

Great. I mean, those two are big market after, in fact, India, now the most populous country in the world. 20% of population live in one country, and then China, it’s a huge market. That’s great. I mean like you mentioned, the first and last mile piece will remain the core and in Europe there are a lot of opportunity in that space because the public transit is very good, but how to improve the access and, and in fact, I tell people that why micro mobility is more successful in Europe, than in North America, because it’s actually integrated with public transit. So micro mobility, the e-scooters and the transit agencies integrated with their whole overall system, rather than you have your e-scooters on the side, you have your transit on the side, and you have your car, it’ll never work. You have to bring everything together.

Jaspal Singh ([00:55:14]):

Thank you for sharing that and this is my last question, and it’s basically about we saw the Uber result and currently Uber revenue is split between Mobility, Delivery, and Freight. Freight is emerging as a big area. But how do you see Uber Transit will shape up in next five to 10 year? Because like you mentioned, you are expanding your team, you want to bring new product and all I would say, what is your vision to see Uber Transit in next 5 to 10 years? It’ll be another big revenue contributor. How does it pan out?

Jen Shepherd ([00:55:47]):

Yeah. it’s a cool question. So right now transit is a strategic growth bet inside our mobility vertical. I think that’s the right spot at this time and probably for the next five years we are very much aligned towards leveraging the mobility core product to helping these transit agencies and new, you know, cool use cases. My goal though is that we continue to drive innovation with these agencies on our low cost offerings, which is also a shared goal with mobility. But I would love it if in a couple years I went to the head of our mobility business and told him that we had a massive partnership with a city where we’re able to offer dollars shared rides. We have different vehicle form factors that are optimized based on, where the writers are going.

Jen Shepherd ([00:56:42]):

Great reliability we’re available in the agency’s app and in our app. And so, we’re able to really develop and improve upon that everyday use case, making it easier for folks to get around the city. And so I would love it if we could do that. And some folks might say, well, are you just cannibalizing Uber rides? We don’t think so. People aren’t using, some people are, most people aren’t using Uber multiple times a day every single day, right? And so we want to deepen our agency partnerships to really innovate together to make that everyday use case, those dollar rides using tech in different vehicle to formats to make it happen. And so that’s kind of the path that like I would love to get to. I think we’re starting in a great place, you know, with TNC partnerships and building trust with the agencies on the problems that they have today. But I think we’ll probably stay in the mobility business would be my guess.

Jaspal Singh ([00:57:36]):

That’s great. No, I think you have a great reason, and I agree with you. That will be a major project in a big city when you work with multiple type of different type of vehicles and provide different type of rides and different hours and different community. It’ll be amazing to see. And like I said, the new mobility and public transit is core to my heart, so I see more and more they should work together.

Thank you so much, Jen. I really enjoyed our conversation and really loved your honest feedback on different topics and some of the point you raised and some of the example you shared. I mean, those are great example about Micro Transits paratransit first and last mile connectivity. It’s great to see how Uber is shaping up.

Now to end this podcast. We have this rapid fire question round. It’s more about to know personally what you think and what’s your personal side. So if you’re ready, I’ll start with that.

Jen Shepherd ([00:58:28]):

All right. Let’s do it.

Jaspal Singh ([00:58:29]):

You know, generally I tell people my first question is difficult for them. Actually, it’s difficult for me because you have done so much in, in Short Spann. But if you had a choice what other profession you would’ve selected.

Jen Shepherd ([00:58:42]):

Yeah, it’s really interesting. I mean, I think my questions and curiosities now are very different than they were back when I was in college. I probably would’ve gone into science. Furthering humanity maybe even astrobiology, like figuring out the origins of life. And I, I think it is so cool the work that that’s being done. But, I think that’s probably what I would’ve done.

Jaspal Singh ([00:59:10]):

Yeah, it’s fascinating and, and the way Space Tech is emerging, it’s becoming more and more important to understand how the origin of life happen and why it happened, and why earth, why not any planet. So it’s cool.

Jen Shepherd ([00:59:23]):

Yes. There’s so many questions that we have no clue about and just, yeah, it’s astounding.

Jaspal Singh ([00:59:31]):

Very true. Very true. Now, which is your favorite city in the world and why?

Jen Shepherd ([00:59:36]):

Yeah, that’s a cool question. It’s a hard question. I think it’s probably Madrid. I mean, it could be because I had some awesome experiences there, but like the culture, the food, I mean, I love the Manchego cheese and it’s just the nightlife, the city, the beautiful architecture, I mean the siestas it’s just really, really fun place that, you know, I think about sometimes.

Jaspal Singh ([01:00:09]):

Great. In fact, the UITP Public Transit Summit is in Barcelona next month, and I’ll be going to experience it as well. So I’ll remember these points and, and share the feedback with you

Jen Shepherd ([01:00:19]):

Cool. Yeah. That’s awesome.

Jaspal Singh ([01:00:21]):

Now my third question is, what one thing do you wish you should have learned early?

Jen Shepherd ([01:00:26]):

For me it’s the confidence in focusing and harnessing your strengths and not dwelling on your weaknesses. So I think early on I poured a lot of energy into focusing on feedback to improve the things I wasn’t good enough at. And I just ignored the things that I was really good at because I was already good at it. And you know, what I’ve realized is that like your strengths are really your superpower. And we should really be harnessing those strengths and being okay that we’re not good at everything, which is really hard to do professionally, personally. Like, it’s very hard to accept the fact that it’s okay if you’re not great at everything. And so that’s something I’ve come to terms with as I’ve gotten a little older.

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

That’s an amazing point. I really love that point. In fact, I’m thinking like, Superman should not be a Spider-Man, so let’s Spider-Man to be a Spider-Man, and Superman should be a Superman. So harnessing your strength as important other than keep improving on all your weakness. Thank you so much.

Now, my next question is what is the painful lesson you have went through in your professional career? And I’m pretty sure like you have such a long career with different companies, you must have a lot of these experience, but now you feel good about it. Now you feel like, okay, that’s happened. It was very good for my career or my life.

Jen Shepherd ([01:01:54]):

Yeah. Early on in my career, I was ideal and I just focused on results. I’m also very competitive as well. And so I just thought, Hey, if I put my head down and I was in consulting, if I get great results and great reviews from the client, I am going to achieve and win. You know, whatever you win early on in your career. I got feedback that, hey, I hadn’t built internal advocates. There was a big promotion that was happening, and I totally got passed up on it because I didn’t spend the time on the relationships. And in my mind it just like, why would I, right? I’m just focused on my client and the goals for my client and so I’ve realized how important building internal advocates really is. And I try and keep it top of mind as well, while I’m also trying to sprint towards, you know, good outcomes on projects that we work on. But building those relationships is so important. And so that’s, that’s a lesson that I’ve learned.

Jaspal Singh ([01:03:02]):

That’s a great lesson. I mean, I feel like every professional, or even every founder or every person who is working or doing something, they should learn from this, that you need to build your personal, like people can vouch for it and people can support you in your back. So that’s very important and that can only happen when you have some personal relationship with them, rather than just focusing on work and never talking to them, never stopping by and say, Hey, what’s going on? How you can help each other. Great. Thank you so much. That’s a, that’s an amazing lesson.

Now, this is my last question. If you can change one thing in life, what would it be?

Jen Shepherd ([01:03:40]):

That’s a good one. I, so I’ve got a couple kids and we talk a lot about fantasy and imagination. I think I would develop a time travel machine and take my family into the future to observe, you know, what do these cities look like? How are people living? How’s their quality of life gotten so much better? You know, how do people get around the cities? Like I think that would be the coolest thing.

Jaspal Singh ([01:04:13]):

The time travel. I mean if you find out, let me know also, I would love to do and join in that journey. It’s always fascinating not to know the future, but just go and have a glimpse of how does it look like.

Jen Shepherd ([01:04:27]):

Yes. Maybe I’ll tell my leadership at Uber. We should put that on our 2040 vision to create the time travel machine,

Jaspal Singh ([01:04:33]):

The time travel book a Uber, and take you 20 years ahead and, and bring you back also. So Uber will take you and bring you back. So don’t worry, you will get a ride back. Thank you so much, Jen. I really enjoyed our conversation. Like I said, it’s really fascinating to see how Uber Transit is shaping up, how you are helping public transit, and helping people to move around in a sustainable, affordable, and reliable manner, which is amazing and reducing the dependence of car. I think that was the whole promise of Uber that people should not own car and people should move around freely whenever, wherever they want.

Jen Shepherd ([01:05:08]):

Exactly. I appreciate it. I’ve loved, you know, this chat as well. I’m happy to chat anytime. I think this is a fascinating topic. I mean, obviously close to my team, and what we’re trying to do. But we’re very passionate about helping agencies and helping folks in our communities move around. So, thank you so much for chatting with us.

Jaspal Singh ([01:05:33]):

Thank you so much. Thank you for listening to this podcast. We’ll be inviting some other inspiring guests in coming week. You can subscribe to this podcast 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 or suggestion for this podcast, please do write to us at info@mobility-innovators.com. I look forward to see you next time. Thank you.

Podcast Link: