March 25, 2025 • 28 mins
We attend South by Southwest's transportation track to discover what this cutting-edge collection of thought leaders envisions as the future of mobility.
Key Takeaways:
• Electric vehicles are a critical part of the future but may not be enough
• Battery technology advancements through AI aim to improve efficiency for both EVs and flying vehicles
• American EV leadership isn't competitive when compared to China's rapid advancement
• Autonomous buses could address driver shortages but still require human attendants for passenger assistance
• Personal flying vehicles (eVTOLs) will offer 15-minute flight times across cities
• Successful rail networks require long-term planning beyond political cycles
• Transportation solutions need to be flexible, adaptable, and designed for diverse populations
If you like this episode, please consider leaving a rating. If you want to support the show directly, you can do so via our Patreon.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
We attended Austin's South by Southwest Festival,
where we wanted to learn moreabout the future of mobility.
We discuss everything fromtrains to EVs and even flying
cars.
On this episode of TransitTangents.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Hey everybody and welcome to this episode of
Transit Tangents.
My name is Lewis and I'm Chris,and in the last two weeks we
had the opportunity to attendpart of South by Southwest's
transportation track.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
And I want to take a second For those who maybe don't
know what South by Southwest is.
This is a huge conference thathappens every year in Austin,
texas.
It's been going on since the80s, started as a music festival
and then moved on to South bySouthwest Interactive, which we
actually ran into one of thecreators of South by Southwest
Interactive.
That was a very fun experienceand it's just evolved into this
(01:08):
massive gathering of people fromall different professions and
industries to have this big sortof thought conference on top of
all the other things that arehappening Right.
A huge event in the city.
So we're really happy that wegot a chance to go.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
While we were there, though, we were like it would be
great to put together anepisode that kind of encompasses
.
After attending theirtransportation talks, what does
South by Southwest see as thefuture of mobility?
Speaker 2 (01:34):
And the answer is trains, trains and trains and
mass transit all around,unfortunately, we were a little
bit surprised in what we found.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
We shouldn't have been wildly surprised and you
know, the main sponsor of Southby Southwest this year is Rivian
, which is an electric vehiclecompany, and we like electric
vehicles.
Don't get me wrong.
Rivian makes great, greattrucks and whatnot.
They have some cool smallervehicles coming out soon, but I
will say that the sponsor beinga large electric vehicle
manufacturer, showed in theprogramming there were several
(02:07):
sessions that were EV focused.
Some of them were reallyinteresting, some of them were
more surface level, but a lot ofconversation about batteries, a
lot about batteries.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
You had the opportunity to attend a session
that was really about how AI istrying to change the game in
making batteries more efficient.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Yeah, a lot of it was above my pay grade in terms of
the scientific language that wasbeing used, but essentially
using AI to have batteries bemore efficient in terms of one
additional storage capacity, butalso in terms of being able to
push out a lot of power all atonce.
Now the scientific battery onewas really focused on using AI
(02:50):
and batteries to help withelectric flying vehicles.
We're going to talk aboutflying vehicles a little bit
later in this, but with a flyingvehicle, you need a big boost
of power fast, versus justnecessarily having to have your
battery life run longer.
So it was an interestingsession.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Yeah, and I see that topic, maybe not that specific
session, but we're talking aboutbetter batteries If we're
moving towards this electricfuture, which we are moving
toward despite the currentadministration's thoughts on
electric batteries, but as wemove toward.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
What are you talking about?
They got the biggest electricvehicle manufacturer in the
country there.
It's true.
We don't need to talk aboutthat right now.
They got the biggest electricvehicle manufacturer in the
country there.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
It's true we don't need to talk about that right
now, but as the future movesforward, through this all
electrification I mean I seemore powerful batteries being
used for mass transit options,better batteries for buses,
because that's one of therestrictions that you have on
electric buses is that thecharging is difficult for a
vehicle that's going to be on aroute all day long.
You know, making circularroutes.
So exciting, exciting futurethere.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
This was the first session we were actually able to
attend and the speakers weretalking about our current state
of how people get around in theUnited States and that the
system isn't multimodal, it'svery much focused around.
Automobility was the phrase thatthey used, and that's what we
have in much of America today,with very few exceptions
throughout, especially in Austinwhere we were during this event
(04:12):
.
He was like if there arewindows in this room, if you
looked out, you would see a verymuch system created for the
automobile.
This isn't specific to electricvehicles, but in this session
there was some Vision Zeroconversation, which we've talked
about on the show quite a bit,and essentially, as we were
sitting through this, they werehyping up electric vehicles but
then also offering what some ofthe downsides of electric
(04:35):
vehicles were at the same time,almost without even really
realizing it.
So I was scribbling away in mynotebook, being like I'm going
to ask these guys a toughquestion Do you think there's
way too much emphasis is onelectric vehicles in particular
in this whole conversation ofsustainable mobility?
I mean, a lot of your exampleswere electric vehicles aren't
resilient.
Electric vehicles aren't thebest way to decarbonize.
(04:57):
As far as Vision Zero goes.
I mean electric vehicles arejust as dangerous as gas powered
vehicles.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
This is Siri Malin with SPSN.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Every kind of buzzword that becomes something
that governments take to thebarricades, basically Some kind
of sanity.
When it comes to the discussionabout EVs, I drive an EV myself
, so I am all for it.
I am all for it for EV adoption.
It's not about that.
It's more about, like, we needto have broader discussions
(05:26):
about what kind of society wewant to shape and how that
society is going to be built,rather than going for, like oh
my god, electric vehicles.
Right.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Yeah, this is Henrik Harplinger, director of Future
Mob mobility at Volvo.
Speaker 5 (05:42):
And if the challenge that is an auto mobility system
or auto mobility with the carsat the center, you might
(06:06):
question is the only inhibitionsthat to solve sustainable
mobility, is it the car industrythat will supply them?
Will it require that we have aproblem definition that involves
other types of actors as well,right, awesome, thank you.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
There was not much discussion about mass transit in
this.
I don't remember it being partof it and I don't have it in my
notes here at all.
And then I added my ownpersonal anecdote here.
They spent quite a bit of timetalking about Vision Zero.
Electric vehicles are just asbad as combustion engine
vehicles.
As far as Vision Zero goes andthat's kind of where I'd been
(06:40):
listening to all these littlepieces I agreed with a lot of
what they were talking about interms of how to create a system
where it's not just automobilitybut multimobility, and I
phrased this question being likeyou've included all these
examples, but how do EVsactually solve any of it?
It seems like we're putting waytoo much emphasis just on
(07:02):
electric vehicles versusspreading the resources around
and using things that take upless space and are more
efficient to move lots of peopleall at once, like mass transit
systems.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
So I agree with that.
So, yes, evs are not the silverbullet that's going to solve
sustainability and mobilityissues, but it's still a tool in
the tool chest.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
It's a tool in the tool chest for sure.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Moving on to another topic, under the EV umbrella
there was a session that wasdiscussing EVs and how they
promote American leadershipabroad.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
As well as building stronger communities.
That was the genesis of thisconversation.
It was actually a conversationbetween a Rivian spokesperson
who was interviewing Governor JBPritzker from Illinois as well
as Governor Henry McMaster fromSouth Carolina.
I had a lot of cringe, justlike almost need to walk out of
(07:56):
the room moments during thisconversation, if I'm being
honest, just like there was alot of really out of touch
moments.
It was like, wow, ourpoliticians are just so beyond.
I won't get into the politicsright now.
There were a few things thatwere said that I was just like I
can't believe that this iscoming out of this person's
mouth right now.
But there was a little bit ofdiscussion about, you know, how
(08:21):
can electric vehicles strengthenAmerica's leadership?
And when we look at Americanmanufacturing, can electric
vehicles strengthen America'sleadership?
And when we look at Americanmanufacturing of electric
vehicles?
And then you look at themanufacturing of electric
vehicles in China, I mean I'llsend you the link to this
person's TikTok account who goesthrough and shows all the EVs
that are being made in Chinaright now.
(08:41):
You can't buy them in the UnitedStates because we make it so
that you can't buy them here.
If they did sell them in theUnited States, every single one
of our electric vehiclecompanies would be out of
business tomorrow.
We're talking electric vehiclesthat, starting this year, are
going to come with fullself-driving included in them,
starting at like $10,000, whichis absolutely insane in
(09:01):
comparison.
We can't even get close to it.
Absolutely insane in comparison.
We can't even get close to it.
Obviously, like tesla hasbrought down the cost of evs in
general in the united states,but not anywhere close to the
level as in china.
China is making cheaper cars,nicer cars.
They have them on all levels ofthe spectrum.
We're, especially given thecurrent politics of what we're
doing as far as trade wars withwhoever you know pick a name out
(09:24):
of the hat this day of the weekwe're not going to be able to
build trade relationships withanyone selling our electric
vehicles.
I don't get it.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
I would think this conversation, if we had this
conversation 10, 15 years ago,maybe a different trajectory,
maybe a different outlook, whereAmerica could have been the
leaders in EV technology andexporting this technology around
the world.
But that is not the case.
That is not the stance we'vetaken.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
We haven't put in the investment and we're not going
to anytime soon, it seems.
And to be fair to the governors, they both did say like China
was running while we werewalking on this, the government
wasn't, the United States wasn'tsuper pushing it early on.
Then there was some investment.
Right now, obviously we'relosing some of the investment,
but at the same time it's not agreat scenario.
But they really wanted to spenda lot of time talking about how
(10:11):
it is strengthening communitiesand pointing out a bunch of
like oh, this factory opened inIllinois, this factory opened in
South Carolina.
Both sides of them there wereinterested in EVs, which again
is better than combustionengines as far as sustainability
goes, but still quite a bit ofwork on some of the other areas,
especially when we're talkingabout, just like, solving
(10:32):
transportation in the UnitedStates.
Even beyond the sustainabilitything, you're not going to do it
in personal vehicles,especially in cities, as more of
the country is urbanizing.
Several of these talks had likehey, more people are moving to
cities.
Like the numbers are going uplike crazy.
More and more people in morepeople are moving to cities.
Like the numbers are going uplike crazy, more and more people
in the world are living incities and and then, yet we kept
talking about individualtransport services, and it's
it's going to continue as wemove into the next section here.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Yeah beyond electric vehicles.
The future of transit alsoincludes autonomous vehicles and
buses, which is something thatwe're starting to see a lot of.
If you're very curious aboutautonomous taxis, you can always
check out our episode on Waymo,where we got a chance to ride a
Waymo all over Austin and sortof gave the whole history of it,
gave you the whole experienceof what it's like inside Yep.
(11:14):
Waymo has actually done reallywell in Austin.
They're now integrated into theUber app, yep, and so if you're
in town and you want to call anUber, chances are you might get
away, though.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
Well, I think autonomous vehicles are really
cool and that they do play arole.
I just get nervous that they'regoing to play the role.
So I'm not surprised to seeautonomous vehicles highlighted
in so many sessions, because itis what is happening right now.
You know, I think we all and totheir credit, a lot of the
(11:43):
sessions that did bring them upnote that like, hey, this isn't
the solution.
This is one piece of the puzzle.
Like there always be some sortof taxis, autonomous vehicles,
specifically like smallautonomous vehicles, can also
play the role in further outcommunities to feed people into
your larger network.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
But yeah, I have this vision.
I think it's an Epcot orsomewhere.
They show an animation of thefuture of mobility and it shows
an individual cars and theindividual cars link up with
other cars in front of them andthen they turn into a train and
then the train goes across thecountry.
You know, that could be thefuture, lewis.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
I would have loved to see a session on that.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Um, but instead what you got was a session that
talked about autonomous buses.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
Uh, but're downfalls.
Yeah, it was interesting.
So I did appreciate theconversation and I think it made
a lot of sense.
I didn't think that this iswhat the conversation was going
to be about.
It was the title of the talkwas making public transit safer
and more accessible andequitable.
That was yep, and I was.
I actually think theconversation around safety, or
(12:44):
perceived safety, on publictransit is a very hot topic
right now.
Actually, I'd love to actuallyhave somebody on who can talk
about it a lot.
So if you see this or you knowsomeone, definitely let us know
to kind of talk about how citiesare balancing that act.
But this was in a lot of ways,about autonomous buses and like
(13:08):
a million ways on why they'renot going to work and I don't
know.
It kind of rubbed me the wrongway in a little bit, because in
a lot of cities we are havingissues with bus driver shortages
.
It's hard to get bus driverstrained.
It is a lot of responsibility.
You're driving huge vehiclesand you need someone very well
trained to do so, but at thesame time, bus drivers deal with
(13:30):
so much.
You are not just driving a bus,you're a social worker, a
security guard, I mean thelaundry list is long.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
You're giving people directions.
You're teaching them how toride the bus.
First of all, yes.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
Yeah, dealing with people paying or not paying and
all of these sorts of things.
But a lot of the conversationwas very much focused on like
you're never going to have thebus driver not on the bus, and
they cited some examples of likeearly versions of autonomous
buses, like getting stuck in asituation.
It's like even early EVs orautonomous vehicles in general,
(14:04):
and and even still today theystill get stuck.
They get stuck, but it's thatdoesn't mean like they're never
going to be solved.
But the point that they werereally trying to make and and
they were clear that they wereof like a university that was
kind of working with a busdriver's union, so makes it
makes a lot of sense they'reworried about about the job side
of it.
But then the next points thatthey made were really good
(14:26):
points.
So they focused a lot on how,even if you do have an
autonomous bus, you're stillgoing to want someone on board
who's more of like an attendanton the bus who, instead of
having to drive and do all thethings that we talked about
before, can mostly focus onchatting with customers, helping
someone navigate directions.
(14:46):
If someone on the bus is havingsome sort of issue, like you can
take the time to try to dealwith these things while the bus
is still going along on its ownroute, but then you're also
there if something does go wrong.
And that part made me reallyoptimistic, because I do think
that that's how buses should goin the future.
You're still retaining the jobsfor the drivers, but the
(15:06):
training process can be a lotdifferent.
Instead of training someone toget their commercial driver's
license, you can train them onthe more social side of this.
Yeah, for sure.
We'll jump right back into theepisode in just a second, but
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Speaker 2 (15:46):
One of the directions that South by thinks that
transportation is going was alsounder flying cars, which I was
excited about, because who isn'texcited about the prospect of a
flying car?
It's something that's beenpromised for 80 years now and
it's never happened.
And I will say, as far astechnology goes, I think we are
closer today to finding sometype of small autonomous flying
vehicles.
But I was really excited to seewhat, you know, what was South
(16:09):
by going to present as far asthe flying cars go, and the
answer to that came in the formof lift aircrafts EV, evtol,
which is electric verticaltakeoff and landing vehicle.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
And it was a really interesting talk.
I'll give my thoughts on thebroader element of it after.
And we actually got a chance tochat with the founder for quite
a bit afterwards, who, by theway, was like I recognize you
guys, I've seen several, Iwatched your Austin Project
Connect episodes and learned somuch and all this stuff, so that
was pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Huge shout out to them Thank you.
Thank you for recognizing us.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
Yes, it was pretty funny, but it was a really
interesting presentation.
I mean, they're talking aboutwhat they were calling
vertiports, essentially beingtakeoff and dropoff.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Some people are starting to call them vertiports
.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
Yes, exactly A few of my little qualms with it is I
mean, it is an individual persongetting into it and these
things.
We'll put up an image if you'rewatching, but if you're just
listening, picture a drone, butmuch bigger.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
I want to say it was 18 propellers it was yeah, it
was quite a few, and the wholething weighs about 400 pounds
and it kind of has like littlecrab legs on the bottom yep,
that's how I would describe them.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
The battery technology was definitely the
thing that they're working onthe most on it right now.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Right now, they can only fly for about 15 minutes at
a time which doesn sound like alot, but he did make a good
point in the presentation that15 minutes of flight time is
actually a pretty far distance.
You can get across almost everycity in the US, maybe not
Dallas.
You can get across almost everycity in the US in about 15
minutes if you're just flyingina straight line, right?
Speaker 3 (17:42):
yeah, because you need to imagine, you know, a
drive that might be a 10-miledrive.
If you were able to go in, astraight line might be 5 miles
and you're not going to sit atstoplights or deal with any of
that.
There's a lot of open space.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
They did present really good use cases for where
this would be applicable.
They look at.
If you're trying to fly fromJFK into Manhattan.
It takes a long time on a train, takes even longer on a car.
Getting from point A to point Bcould be easier with a smaller
vehicle, and helicopters alreadyserve that service today.
This would just be somethingthat's a little faster.
(18:16):
They gave the example of SanFrancisco being able to take off
from downtown San Francisco andbe able to hit any of the
communities around the Bay.
There are a lot ofopportunities there, and then,
of course, other applications inTokyo and other places.
And then the cool thing aboutthis company is that they are
based in Austin and so they'relooking at even flights in
Austin from the airport todowntown.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
Yeah, and I mean, while I think that the
application to use them astransit is interesting, I don't
necessarily.
It's just you'd need a ton ofthem to move the amount of
people.
What I thought the coolestapplications of these were and
where I could see it working.
I'm not saying it won't work,as one of their use cases is for
(18:56):
a transit solution, but one ofthe really cool use cases that I
was seeing was rescueapplications getting to somebody
who's in a remote area, whogets hurt, or if there are fires
or anything like that.
You can send one person in thislift aircraft out there, you
can have rescue materialsattached to it and you can get
(19:17):
to people much faster than youwould if you were trying to
drive out there.
If there's issues, if it's notdrivable and you can have
someone essentially a firstfirst responder getting there
well ahead, there's some sort ofremote application that they
could do to fly the patient backand actually leave the rescuer
to then be picked up later whenthe next person reaches out.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
So I think that there are a lot of really cool rescue
applications that that thiscould solve and another
interesting thing about this isthat the model for this is not
necessarily like an aerial taxiwhere you can fit multiple
people.
These are single passengervehicles for now and they're
also not entirely autonomous, sothey have some guided path,
(19:56):
that's sort of geofenced, thatyou would follow, but because of
odd FAA regulations around howvehicles are classified, this is
almost like an aerial scooter,so you would go to a vertiport,
you would pick it up, then youwould.
You would actually be theperson in control, lifting this
in the air, guiding it to adestination, uh, hovering over
(20:17):
your spot where you're going toland.
Press land, everything happensRight, um, so that was also a
really interesting.
Uh, take on these vehiclesTotally.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
Yeah, I think it's a pretty cool concept.
Uh, we might do more with themin the future, so I'm curious to
get more information on it tosee how feasible it can be for
transit and what other sorts ofapplications it can be used for,
I'm sure.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Absolutely.
And the real-life applicationof them, because they were
testing them at the site.
This is not something that'sconceptual.
They had a vehicle at South byand were giving rides in it.
Yes, very, very cool, notsomething that's conceptual.
They had a vehicle at south byand we're giving rides in it.
Yes, so very, very cool.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
Uh, finally, though, there was one session on trains,
so, uh, we're very excited tohave a session on trains,
considering that, you know, thatfeels like if you're trying to
have a sustainable solution tomoving lots of people in dense
areas, rural areas, any areastrains are kind of the main one.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
We keep trying to reinvent trains and keep coming
back to trains.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
Yes, yeah, we should just stop trying to reinvent
them and just embrace them.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
This session was led by Bjorn Bender, who is CEO of
Rail Europe.
That's sort of the mobileticketing platform for all the
trains in Europe.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
Yeah, and the platform's kind of cool in the
sense that all of the differentcountries in Europe, for the
most part, have their own trainnetworks with their own website
that you go to and you book yourtrain tickets on them and
whatnot, and Rail Europe makesit so that you can do all of
them, for the most part, all inone place all of them, for the
most part, all in one place,which uh makes it a lot easier
(21:51):
to book trains and easier tounderstand the difference in
pricing and how to get placesand all that sort of stuff.
But, um, his session was, uh,america, now is your time
essentially for trains, and Ithought it was america, come to
europe because our trains aregreat, that's what I?
Speaker 2 (22:06):
that's how I got from the session yeah, I, I, uh.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
I think that there during the session there was
some optimism for uh for trainsin America, but as during the
kind of question and answer andthen I actually had a chance to
catch up with uh Bjorn after thesession and ask him a few
questions, uh, and, and he waskind of able to elaborate a
little bit more, we'll cut to aclip to that in a little bit
here, but, um, yeah, I mean itwas an interesting take on
(22:32):
basically why do people choosetrains over driving or flying,
and that in order to have anarea want to build out trains,
you need to essentially showthem these things.
So we're talking about conceptslike speed being one of them.
Can you make it faster to getthere?
Comfort is a big one, like youknow, if you're, if it's going
(22:54):
to take you five hours to driveand it will take you about five
hours to take the train, but youcan work the whole time when
you're on the train or you canplay games with your kids the
whole time on the train, likethe comfort element is huge.
And then price like it, like ifyou can make the train
affordable and at the rightprice point, those are all
things that you kind of need todemonstrate to folks so that
(23:16):
they understand that this can bea much better option to choose.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Yeah, and we asked some questions at the end, as
you said.
One of the main questions waswe have this perception in the
US that trains have to beprofitable, and so we asked
Bjorn to give us his opinion onhow we sort of break that
mindset.
Yep.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
So let's cut to the clip of that and we'll pick back
up on the other side.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
I guess you're right.
I mean, the circumstances aredifferent because we are coming
out of a world where state ownedcarriers were definitely
dominating the rail market inEurope and it's still the case
and state-owned means financedout of taxes, financed out of
public money.
And, yes, profitability ismaybe the second importance when
(24:03):
we look like that on thebusiness.
But, of course, first of all,you see that you can definitely
operate rail systems profitably.
There are plenty of examplesout there.
Second is, even more and moreprivate operators are pushing
into the market.
So there is huge potential andthere's also a possibility to
make money.
But it's a bit of the chickenegg question what needs to come
(24:26):
first?
And I'm completely convinced,when we look into the US, that
there needs to be a huge pushout of the politics, out of
where the US investing money interms of transportation,
mobility, infrastructure, andthis needs to come first.
There's no possibility to getthe infrastructure built by
private investments.
I don't see it at this stageand, yes, you need to increase
(24:49):
it to get, let's say, the mostout of the possibilities.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
Right right, it's going to require a big
investment upfront here, but youhave to have the long-term
vision that this can beprofitable down the road,
absolutely yeah.
One other thing in myconversation with Bjorn after
the event that he brought up andI had asked about was in so
many places in Europe that havesuccessful rail networks.
I believe Switzerland was theexample that they gave during
(25:14):
the talk or might have beenduring the questions.
Switzerland knows, 50 yearsfrom now, what they're going to
be doing to their train network.
They already have it plannedout what needs maintenance, when
, what is getting extended, when, and because of that, their
train system is immaculately ontime.
(25:34):
Everything runs smoothly,efficiently.
So some thoughts he had on theus was like if we ever do want
to seriously consider having areal train network in the united
states, or even regional trainnetworks, we got to stop with
this whole like every four years, every new Congress.
Like we start planning thingsand then they fall apart.
And then we start planningthings and then they fall apart.
(25:56):
Like you need to create thatlong-term vision, get the buy-in
for it and do it.
And we're just generally notdoing that right now.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
We are planning based on a political cycle and not
like a population cycle.
Speaker 4 (26:07):
Right.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Yeah, big takeaways of South by for me, beyond just
this train conversation.
You know, we're talking aboutsustainability, we're talking
about the future of mobility inthe country and I feel like a
lot of the sessions were justfairly short-sighted, or maybe
not even short-sighted, butthey're just siloed, they're not
considering the largerapplications outside of it.
We had a great, very briefconversation with Gabriela Brila
(26:31):
I think is her last name, who'swith MIT, and she presented
this idea of urban utopias andmobility utopias and how we can
achieve those, and I got achance to ask her a quick
question about that.
Speaker 4 (26:44):
Yeah, so we always design for the utopia right, we
have to be hopeful and want thebest in order to design.
But what I think is missingwhen we do cities a lot of times
is that we is a utopia that isdone by few people for a few
people.
Right, it's not really thinkingabout the broader scope and the
(27:05):
principles that I would saythat are like, at least in my
work I've been finding veryuseful when design is about
flexibility, adaptability anddiversity right, like these
things.
If you manage to incorporatethat in design I mean, design is
never gonna be perfect, but ifit leaves room for adaptation,
it can, like, go into aninteresting direction, right.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
That's the messaging that I was hoping to hear more
of at South by and I was very tohear more of at South by and I
was very surprised when thingsjust seemed very siloed and,
again, kind of short sighted inmy opinion.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
I guess the only thing I'll say is creating a
session for an audience likethis is tricky.
In that regard, like all of thepeople who were, there are kind
of their, their experts intheir specific fields.
To me it was more so not thesessions, but just like the
choice in what to focus on.
It was interesting.
(27:56):
Overall, it was a coolexperience to be able to go and
do it, not necessarily the exactfocuses that I would have had
on this if I was organizing thetransportation track.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Yeah, absolutely.
But overall we are reallyincredibly grateful for South
Byte giving us the opportunityto cover the transportation
track and also incrediblygrateful to the presenters and
speakers who we were able tochat with afterward.
We had some really greatconnections there and overall,
like you said, it was a greatexperience and very interesting
topics.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
Absolutely.
If you have not liked thisvideo already, please do so.
It helps us out quite a bit.
You can also leave a comment,and if you want to support the
show directly, you can do so viaour Patreon.
With all that being said, thankyou all so much for watching.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Enjoy the rest of your Transit, tangent Tuesday.
We attended Austin's South by Southwest Festival,
where we wanted to learn moreabout the future of mobility.
We discuss everything fromtrains to EVs and even flying
cars.
On this episode of TransitTangents.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Hey everybody and welcome to this episode of
Transit Tangents.
My name is Lewis and I'm Chris,and in the last two weeks we
had the opportunity to attendpart of South by Southwest's
transportation track.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
And I want to take a second For those who maybe don't
know what South by Southwest is.
This is a huge conference thathappens every year in Austin,
texas.
It's been going on since the80s, started as a music festival
and then moved on to South bySouthwest Interactive, which we
actually ran into one of thecreators of South by Southwest
Interactive.
That was a very fun experienceand it's just evolved into this
(01:08):
massive gathering of people fromall different professions and
industries to have this big sortof thought conference on top of
all the other things that arehappening Right.
A huge event in the city.
So we're really happy that wegot a chance to go.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
While we were there, though, we were like it would be
great to put together anepisode that kind of encompasses
.
After attending theirtransportation talks, what does
South by Southwest see as thefuture of mobility?
Speaker 2 (01:34):
And the answer is trains, trains and trains and
mass transit all around,unfortunately, we were a little
bit surprised in what we found.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
We shouldn't have been wildly surprised and you
know, the main sponsor of Southby Southwest this year is Rivian
, which is an electric vehiclecompany, and we like electric
vehicles.
Don't get me wrong.
Rivian makes great, greattrucks and whatnot.
They have some cool smallervehicles coming out soon, but I
will say that the sponsor beinga large electric vehicle
manufacturer, showed in theprogramming there were several
(02:07):
sessions that were EV focused.
Some of them were reallyinteresting, some of them were
more surface level, but a lot ofconversation about batteries, a
lot about batteries.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
You had the opportunity to attend a session
that was really about how AI istrying to change the game in
making batteries more efficient.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Yeah, a lot of it was above my pay grade in terms of
the scientific language that wasbeing used, but essentially
using AI to have batteries bemore efficient in terms of one
additional storage capacity, butalso in terms of being able to
push out a lot of power all atonce.
Now the scientific battery onewas really focused on using AI
(02:50):
and batteries to help withelectric flying vehicles.
We're going to talk aboutflying vehicles a little bit
later in this, but with a flyingvehicle, you need a big boost
of power fast, versus justnecessarily having to have your
battery life run longer.
So it was an interestingsession.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Yeah, and I see that topic, maybe not that specific
session, but we're talking aboutbetter batteries If we're
moving towards this electricfuture, which we are moving
toward despite the currentadministration's thoughts on
electric batteries, but as wemove toward.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
What are you talking about?
They got the biggest electricvehicle manufacturer in the
country there.
It's true.
We don't need to talk aboutthat right now.
They got the biggest electricvehicle manufacturer in the
country there.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
It's true we don't need to talk about that right
now, but as the future movesforward, through this all
electrification I mean I seemore powerful batteries being
used for mass transit options,better batteries for buses,
because that's one of therestrictions that you have on
electric buses is that thecharging is difficult for a
vehicle that's going to be on aroute all day long.
You know, making circularroutes.
So exciting, exciting futurethere.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
This was the first session we were actually able to
attend and the speakers weretalking about our current state
of how people get around in theUnited States and that the
system isn't multimodal, it'svery much focused around.
Automobility was the phrase thatthey used, and that's what we
have in much of America today,with very few exceptions
throughout, especially in Austinwhere we were during this event
(04:12):
.
He was like if there arewindows in this room, if you
looked out, you would see a verymuch system created for the
automobile.
This isn't specific to electricvehicles, but in this session
there was some Vision Zeroconversation, which we've talked
about on the show quite a bit,and essentially, as we were
sitting through this, they werehyping up electric vehicles but
then also offering what some ofthe downsides of electric
(04:35):
vehicles were at the same time,almost without even really
realizing it.
So I was scribbling away in mynotebook, being like I'm going
to ask these guys a toughquestion Do you think there's
way too much emphasis is onelectric vehicles in particular
in this whole conversation ofsustainable mobility?
I mean, a lot of your exampleswere electric vehicles aren't
resilient.
Electric vehicles aren't thebest way to decarbonize.
(04:57):
As far as Vision Zero goes.
I mean electric vehicles arejust as dangerous as gas powered
vehicles.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
This is Siri Malin with SPSN.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Every kind of buzzword that becomes something
that governments take to thebarricades, basically Some kind
of sanity.
When it comes to the discussionabout EVs, I drive an EV myself
, so I am all for it.
I am all for it for EV adoption.
It's not about that.
It's more about, like, we needto have broader discussions
(05:26):
about what kind of society wewant to shape and how that
society is going to be built,rather than going for, like oh
my god, electric vehicles.
Right.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Yeah, this is Henrik Harplinger, director of Future
Mob mobility at Volvo.
Speaker 5 (05:42):
And if the challenge that is an auto mobility system
or auto mobility with the carsat the center, you might
(06:06):
question is the only inhibitionsthat to solve sustainable
mobility, is it the car industrythat will supply them?
Will it require that we have aproblem definition that involves
other types of actors as well,right, awesome, thank you.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
There was not much discussion about mass transit in
this.
I don't remember it being partof it and I don't have it in my
notes here at all.
And then I added my ownpersonal anecdote here.
They spent quite a bit of timetalking about Vision Zero.
Electric vehicles are just asbad as combustion engine
vehicles.
As far as Vision Zero goes andthat's kind of where I'd been
(06:40):
listening to all these littlepieces I agreed with a lot of
what they were talking about interms of how to create a system
where it's not just automobilitybut multimobility, and I
phrased this question being likeyou've included all these
examples, but how do EVsactually solve any of it?
It seems like we're putting waytoo much emphasis just on
(07:02):
electric vehicles versusspreading the resources around
and using things that take upless space and are more
efficient to move lots of peopleall at once, like mass transit
systems.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
So I agree with that.
So, yes, evs are not the silverbullet that's going to solve
sustainability and mobilityissues, but it's still a tool in
the tool chest.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
It's a tool in the tool chest for sure.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Moving on to another topic, under the EV umbrella
there was a session that wasdiscussing EVs and how they
promote American leadershipabroad.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
As well as building stronger communities.
That was the genesis of thisconversation.
It was actually a conversationbetween a Rivian spokesperson
who was interviewing Governor JBPritzker from Illinois as well
as Governor Henry McMaster fromSouth Carolina.
I had a lot of cringe, justlike almost need to walk out of
(07:56):
the room moments during thisconversation, if I'm being
honest, just like there was alot of really out of touch
moments.
It was like, wow, ourpoliticians are just so beyond.
I won't get into the politicsright now.
There were a few things thatwere said that I was just like I
can't believe that this iscoming out of this person's
mouth right now.
But there was a little bit ofdiscussion about, you know, how
(08:21):
can electric vehicles strengthenAmerica's leadership?
And when we look at Americanmanufacturing, can electric
vehicles strengthen America'sleadership?
And when we look at Americanmanufacturing of electric
vehicles?
And then you look at themanufacturing of electric
vehicles in China, I mean I'llsend you the link to this
person's TikTok account who goesthrough and shows all the EVs
that are being made in Chinaright now.
(08:41):
You can't buy them in the UnitedStates because we make it so
that you can't buy them here.
If they did sell them in theUnited States, every single one
of our electric vehiclecompanies would be out of
business tomorrow.
We're talking electric vehiclesthat, starting this year, are
going to come with fullself-driving included in them,
starting at like $10,000, whichis absolutely insane in
(09:01):
comparison.
We can't even get close to it.
Absolutely insane in comparison.
We can't even get close to it.
Obviously, like tesla hasbrought down the cost of evs in
general in the united states,but not anywhere close to the
level as in china.
China is making cheaper cars,nicer cars.
They have them on all levels ofthe spectrum.
We're, especially given thecurrent politics of what we're
doing as far as trade wars withwhoever you know pick a name out
(09:24):
of the hat this day of the weekwe're not going to be able to
build trade relationships withanyone selling our electric
vehicles.
I don't get it.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
I would think this conversation, if we had this
conversation 10, 15 years ago,maybe a different trajectory,
maybe a different outlook, whereAmerica could have been the
leaders in EV technology andexporting this technology around
the world.
But that is not the case.
That is not the stance we'vetaken.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
We haven't put in the investment and we're not going
to anytime soon, it seems.
And to be fair to the governors, they both did say like China
was running while we werewalking on this, the government
wasn't, the United States wasn'tsuper pushing it early on.
Then there was some investment.
Right now, obviously we'relosing some of the investment,
but at the same time it's not agreat scenario.
But they really wanted to spenda lot of time talking about how
(10:11):
it is strengthening communitiesand pointing out a bunch of
like oh, this factory opened inIllinois, this factory opened in
South Carolina.
Both sides of them there wereinterested in EVs, which again
is better than combustionengines as far as sustainability
goes, but still quite a bit ofwork on some of the other areas,
especially when we're talkingabout, just like, solving
(10:32):
transportation in the UnitedStates.
Even beyond the sustainabilitything, you're not going to do it
in personal vehicles,especially in cities, as more of
the country is urbanizing.
Several of these talks had likehey, more people are moving to
cities.
Like the numbers are going uplike crazy.
More and more people in morepeople are moving to cities.
Like the numbers are going uplike crazy, more and more people
in the world are living incities and and then, yet we kept
talking about individualtransport services, and it's
it's going to continue as wemove into the next section here.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Yeah beyond electric vehicles.
The future of transit alsoincludes autonomous vehicles and
buses, which is something thatwe're starting to see a lot of.
If you're very curious aboutautonomous taxis, you can always
check out our episode on Waymo,where we got a chance to ride a
Waymo all over Austin and sortof gave the whole history of it,
gave you the whole experienceof what it's like inside Yep.
(11:14):
Waymo has actually done reallywell in Austin.
They're now integrated into theUber app, yep, and so if you're
in town and you want to call anUber, chances are you might get
away, though.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
Well, I think autonomous vehicles are really
cool and that they do play arole.
I just get nervous that they'regoing to play the role.
So I'm not surprised to seeautonomous vehicles highlighted
in so many sessions, because itis what is happening right now.
You know, I think we all and totheir credit, a lot of the
(11:43):
sessions that did bring them upnote that like, hey, this isn't
the solution.
This is one piece of the puzzle.
Like there always be some sortof taxis, autonomous vehicles,
specifically like smallautonomous vehicles, can also
play the role in further outcommunities to feed people into
your larger network.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
But yeah, I have this vision.
I think it's an Epcot orsomewhere.
They show an animation of thefuture of mobility and it shows
an individual cars and theindividual cars link up with
other cars in front of them andthen they turn into a train and
then the train goes across thecountry.
You know, that could be thefuture, lewis.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
I would have loved to see a session on that.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Um, but instead what you got was a session that
talked about autonomous buses.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
Uh, but're downfalls.
Yeah, it was interesting.
So I did appreciate theconversation and I think it made
a lot of sense.
I didn't think that this iswhat the conversation was going
to be about.
It was the title of the talkwas making public transit safer
and more accessible andequitable.
That was yep, and I was.
I actually think theconversation around safety, or
(12:44):
perceived safety, on publictransit is a very hot topic
right now.
Actually, I'd love to actuallyhave somebody on who can talk
about it a lot.
So if you see this or you knowsomeone, definitely let us know
to kind of talk about how citiesare balancing that act.
But this was in a lot of ways,about autonomous buses and like
(13:08):
a million ways on why they'renot going to work and I don't
know.
It kind of rubbed me the wrongway in a little bit, because in
a lot of cities we are havingissues with bus driver shortages
.
It's hard to get bus driverstrained.
It is a lot of responsibility.
You're driving huge vehiclesand you need someone very well
trained to do so, but at thesame time, bus drivers deal with
(13:30):
so much.
You are not just driving a bus,you're a social worker, a
security guard, I mean thelaundry list is long.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
You're giving people directions.
You're teaching them how toride the bus.
First of all, yes.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
Yeah, dealing with people paying or not paying and
all of these sorts of things.
But a lot of the conversationwas very much focused on like
you're never going to have thebus driver not on the bus, and
they cited some examples of likeearly versions of autonomous
buses, like getting stuck in asituation.
It's like even early EVs orautonomous vehicles in general,
(14:04):
and and even still today theystill get stuck.
They get stuck, but it's thatdoesn't mean like they're never
going to be solved.
But the point that they werereally trying to make and and
they were clear that they wereof like a university that was
kind of working with a busdriver's union, so makes it
makes a lot of sense they'reworried about about the job side
of it.
But then the next points thatthey made were really good
(14:26):
points.
So they focused a lot on how,even if you do have an
autonomous bus, you're stillgoing to want someone on board
who's more of like an attendanton the bus who, instead of
having to drive and do all thethings that we talked about
before, can mostly focus onchatting with customers, helping
someone navigate directions.
(14:46):
If someone on the bus is havingsome sort of issue, like you can
take the time to try to dealwith these things while the bus
is still going along on its ownroute, but then you're also
there if something does go wrong.
And that part made me reallyoptimistic, because I do think
that that's how buses should goin the future.
You're still retaining the jobsfor the drivers, but the
(15:06):
training process can be a lotdifferent.
Instead of training someone toget their commercial driver's
license, you can train them onthe more social side of this.
Yeah, for sure.
We'll jump right back into theepisode in just a second, but
first, if you haven't liked thisvideo or left a comment, please
do so.
It helps us out quite a bit andwe also have some exciting news
.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Yeah, if you want to support the show.
We have swag, we havemerchandise.
Go check out our store whereyou can get hats, t-shirts,
hoodies, a bunch of other thingscoming.
New designs for that all goingto be coming up in the next few
weeks.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
Lastly, if you want to support the show directly and
get access to early episodes,you can.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
One of the directions that South by thinks that
transportation is going was alsounder flying cars, which I was
excited about, because who isn'texcited about the prospect of a
flying car?
It's something that's beenpromised for 80 years now and
it's never happened.
And I will say, as far astechnology goes, I think we are
closer today to finding sometype of small autonomous flying
vehicles.
But I was really excited to seewhat, you know, what was South
(16:09):
by going to present as far asthe flying cars go, and the
answer to that came in the formof lift aircrafts EV, evtol,
which is electric verticaltakeoff and landing vehicle.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
And it was a really interesting talk.
I'll give my thoughts on thebroader element of it after.
And we actually got a chance tochat with the founder for quite
a bit afterwards, who, by theway, was like I recognize you
guys, I've seen several, Iwatched your Austin Project
Connect episodes and learned somuch and all this stuff, so that
was pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Huge shout out to them Thank you.
Thank you for recognizing us.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
Yes, it was pretty funny, but it was a really
interesting presentation.
I mean, they're talking aboutwhat they were calling
vertiports, essentially beingtakeoff and dropoff.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Some people are starting to call them vertiports
.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
Yes, exactly A few of my little qualms with it is I
mean, it is an individual persongetting into it and these
things.
We'll put up an image if you'rewatching, but if you're just
listening, picture a drone, butmuch bigger.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
I want to say it was 18 propellers it was yeah, it
was quite a few, and the wholething weighs about 400 pounds
and it kind of has like littlecrab legs on the bottom yep,
that's how I would describe them.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
The battery technology was definitely the
thing that they're working onthe most on it right now.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Right now, they can only fly for about 15 minutes at
a time which doesn sound like alot, but he did make a good
point in the presentation that15 minutes of flight time is
actually a pretty far distance.
You can get across almost everycity in the US, maybe not
Dallas.
You can get across almost everycity in the US in about 15
minutes if you're just flyingina straight line, right?
Speaker 3 (17:42):
yeah, because you need to imagine, you know, a
drive that might be a 10-miledrive.
If you were able to go in, astraight line might be 5 miles
and you're not going to sit atstoplights or deal with any of
that.
There's a lot of open space.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
They did present really good use cases for where
this would be applicable.
They look at.
If you're trying to fly fromJFK into Manhattan.
It takes a long time on a train, takes even longer on a car.
Getting from point A to point Bcould be easier with a smaller
vehicle, and helicopters alreadyserve that service today.
This would just be somethingthat's a little faster.
(18:16):
They gave the example of SanFrancisco being able to take off
from downtown San Francisco andbe able to hit any of the
communities around the Bay.
There are a lot ofopportunities there, and then,
of course, other applications inTokyo and other places.
And then the cool thing aboutthis company is that they are
based in Austin and so they'relooking at even flights in
Austin from the airport todowntown.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
Yeah, and I mean, while I think that the
application to use them astransit is interesting, I don't
necessarily.
It's just you'd need a ton ofthem to move the amount of
people.
What I thought the coolestapplications of these were and
where I could see it working.
I'm not saying it won't work,as one of their use cases is for
(18:56):
a transit solution, but one ofthe really cool use cases that I
was seeing was rescueapplications getting to somebody
who's in a remote area, whogets hurt, or if there are fires
or anything like that.
You can send one person in thislift aircraft out there, you
can have rescue materialsattached to it and you can get
(19:17):
to people much faster than youwould if you were trying to
drive out there.
If there's issues, if it's notdrivable and you can have
someone essentially a firstfirst responder getting there
well ahead, there's some sort ofremote application that they
could do to fly the patient backand actually leave the rescuer
to then be picked up later whenthe next person reaches out.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
So I think that there are a lot of really cool rescue
applications that that thiscould solve and another
interesting thing about this isthat the model for this is not
necessarily like an aerial taxiwhere you can fit multiple
people.
These are single passengervehicles for now and they're
also not entirely autonomous, sothey have some guided path,
(19:56):
that's sort of geofenced, thatyou would follow, but because of
odd FAA regulations around howvehicles are classified, this is
almost like an aerial scooter,so you would go to a vertiport,
you would pick it up, then youwould.
You would actually be theperson in control, lifting this
in the air, guiding it to adestination, uh, hovering over
(20:17):
your spot where you're going toland.
Press land, everything happensRight, um, so that was also a
really interesting.
Uh, take on these vehiclesTotally.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
Yeah, I think it's a pretty cool concept.
Uh, we might do more with themin the future, so I'm curious to
get more information on it tosee how feasible it can be for
transit and what other sorts ofapplications it can be used for,
I'm sure.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Absolutely.
And the real-life applicationof them, because they were
testing them at the site.
This is not something that'sconceptual.
They had a vehicle at South byand were giving rides in it.
Yes, very, very cool, notsomething that's conceptual.
They had a vehicle at south byand we're giving rides in it.
Yes, so very, very cool.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
Uh, finally, though, there was one session on trains,
so, uh, we're very excited tohave a session on trains,
considering that, you know, thatfeels like if you're trying to
have a sustainable solution tomoving lots of people in dense
areas, rural areas, any areastrains are kind of the main one.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
We keep trying to reinvent trains and keep coming
back to trains.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
Yes, yeah, we should just stop trying to reinvent
them and just embrace them.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
This session was led by Bjorn Bender, who is CEO of
Rail Europe.
That's sort of the mobileticketing platform for all the
trains in Europe.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
Yeah, and the platform's kind of cool in the
sense that all of the differentcountries in Europe, for the
most part, have their own trainnetworks with their own website
that you go to and you book yourtrain tickets on them and
whatnot, and Rail Europe makesit so that you can do all of
them, for the most part, all inone place all of them, for the
most part, all in one place,which uh makes it a lot easier
(21:51):
to book trains and easier tounderstand the difference in
pricing and how to get placesand all that sort of stuff.
But, um, his session was, uh,america, now is your time
essentially for trains, and Ithought it was america, come to
europe because our trains aregreat, that's what I?
Speaker 2 (22:06):
that's how I got from the session yeah, I, I, uh.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
I think that there during the session there was
some optimism for uh for trainsin America, but as during the
kind of question and answer andthen I actually had a chance to
catch up with uh Bjorn after thesession and ask him a few
questions, uh, and, and he waskind of able to elaborate a
little bit more, we'll cut to aclip to that in a little bit
here, but, um, yeah, I mean itwas an interesting take on
(22:32):
basically why do people choosetrains over driving or flying,
and that in order to have anarea want to build out trains,
you need to essentially showthem these things.
So we're talking about conceptslike speed being one of them.
Can you make it faster to getthere?
Comfort is a big one, like youknow, if you're, if it's going
(22:54):
to take you five hours to driveand it will take you about five
hours to take the train, but youcan work the whole time when
you're on the train or you canplay games with your kids the
whole time on the train, likethe comfort element is huge.
And then price like it, like ifyou can make the train
affordable and at the rightprice point, those are all
things that you kind of need todemonstrate to folks so that
(23:16):
they understand that this can bea much better option to choose.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Yeah, and we asked some questions at the end, as
you said.
One of the main questions waswe have this perception in the
US that trains have to beprofitable, and so we asked
Bjorn to give us his opinion onhow we sort of break that
mindset.
Yep.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
So let's cut to the clip of that and we'll pick back
up on the other side.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
I guess you're right.
I mean, the circumstances aredifferent because we are coming
out of a world where state ownedcarriers were definitely
dominating the rail market inEurope and it's still the case
and state-owned means financedout of taxes, financed out of
public money.
And, yes, profitability ismaybe the second importance when
(24:03):
we look like that on thebusiness.
But, of course, first of all,you see that you can definitely
operate rail systems profitably.
There are plenty of examplesout there.
Second is, even more and moreprivate operators are pushing
into the market.
So there is huge potential andthere's also a possibility to
make money.
But it's a bit of the chickenegg question what needs to come
(24:26):
first?
And I'm completely convinced,when we look into the US, that
there needs to be a huge pushout of the politics, out of
where the US investing money interms of transportation,
mobility, infrastructure, andthis needs to come first.
There's no possibility to getthe infrastructure built by
private investments.
I don't see it at this stageand, yes, you need to increase
(24:49):
it to get, let's say, the mostout of the possibilities.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
Right right, it's going to require a big
investment upfront here, but youhave to have the long-term
vision that this can beprofitable down the road,
absolutely yeah.
One other thing in myconversation with Bjorn after
the event that he brought up andI had asked about was in so
many places in Europe that havesuccessful rail networks.
I believe Switzerland was theexample that they gave during
(25:14):
the talk or might have beenduring the questions.
Switzerland knows, 50 yearsfrom now, what they're going to
be doing to their train network.
They already have it plannedout what needs maintenance, when
, what is getting extended, when, and because of that, their
train system is immaculately ontime.
(25:34):
Everything runs smoothly,efficiently.
So some thoughts he had on theus was like if we ever do want
to seriously consider having areal train network in the united
states, or even regional trainnetworks, we got to stop with
this whole like every four years, every new Congress.
Like we start planning thingsand then they fall apart.
And then we start planningthings and then they fall apart.
(25:56):
Like you need to create thatlong-term vision, get the buy-in
for it and do it.
And we're just generally notdoing that right now.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
We are planning based on a political cycle and not
like a population cycle.
Speaker 4 (26:07):
Right.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Yeah, big takeaways of South by for me, beyond just
this train conversation.
You know, we're talking aboutsustainability, we're talking
about the future of mobility inthe country and I feel like a
lot of the sessions were justfairly short-sighted, or maybe
not even short-sighted, butthey're just siloed, they're not
considering the largerapplications outside of it.
We had a great, very briefconversation with Gabriela Brila
(26:31):
I think is her last name, who'swith MIT, and she presented
this idea of urban utopias andmobility utopias and how we can
achieve those, and I got achance to ask her a quick
question about that.
Speaker 4 (26:44):
Yeah, so we always design for the utopia right, we
have to be hopeful and want thebest in order to design.
But what I think is missingwhen we do cities a lot of times
is that we is a utopia that isdone by few people for a few
people.
Right, it's not really thinkingabout the broader scope and the
(27:05):
principles that I would saythat are like, at least in my
work I've been finding veryuseful when design is about
flexibility, adaptability anddiversity right, like these
things.
If you manage to incorporatethat in design I mean, design is
never gonna be perfect, but ifit leaves room for adaptation,
it can, like, go into aninteresting direction, right.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
That's the messaging that I was hoping to hear more
of at South by and I was very tohear more of at South by and I
was very surprised when thingsjust seemed very siloed and,
again, kind of short sighted inmy opinion.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
I guess the only thing I'll say is creating a
session for an audience likethis is tricky.
In that regard, like all of thepeople who were, there are kind
of their, their experts intheir specific fields.
To me it was more so not thesessions, but just like the
choice in what to focus on.
It was interesting.
(27:56):
Overall, it was a coolexperience to be able to go and
do it, not necessarily the exactfocuses that I would have had
on this if I was organizing thetransportation track.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Yeah, absolutely.
But overall we are reallyincredibly grateful for South
Byte giving us the opportunityto cover the transportation
track and also incrediblygrateful to the presenters and
speakers who we were able tochat with afterward.
We had some really greatconnections there and overall,
like you said, it was a greatexperience and very interesting
topics.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
Absolutely.
If you have not liked thisvideo already, please do so.
It helps us out quite a bit.
You can also leave a comment,and if you want to support the
show directly, you can do so viaour Patreon.
With all that being said, thankyou all so much for watching.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Enjoy the rest of your Transit, tangent Tuesday.
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