Shared mobility will save the world

On the sidelines of the Innovation for Good Life conference, organized in Tel Aviv by the Maala international social responsibility forum, Levine says that within two generations the concept of private cars is destined to disappear. "Our grandchildren will not even be able to conceive the idea of ​​owning a car," Levine predicts. And it will be better this way, because already today those who use the car spend most of their time stuck in a traffic jam or look for parking, with or without Waze. The entrepreneur - who left Waze after the acquisition by Google in 2013 - said he was convinced that only shared mobility will solve the total irrationality of current transport systems, in which 90% of motorists travel alone in a vehicle that could hold five people.

"It makes no sense to talk about sustainable transport long will go on this enormous inefficiency", argues Levine, who after Waze launched Moovit, Engie and several another app-centric worlds of transportation: "Just think of a long lane highway one kilometer, occupied by about forty vehicles, which contain less than 50 people. Can you imagine it? 50 people in a kilometer of road, it's too much space. There are only two solutions: either the density of people in vehicles is increased - by moving all of them on public transport or systems such as Waze Carpool and BlaBlaCar - or the size of the vehicles is reduced, for example by using more bikes and scooters ». To obtain this result we need public supportive policies, but not in the sense of incentives for electric cars, which according to Levine will not solve the problem of mobility at the root: «We need different lanes for different vehicles and in all roads, we must favor the common transport and small vehicles, such as bicycles and scooters, on large and empty vehicles such as private cars ".

To avoid total traffic paralysis, which in many systems already creates enormous damage to economic development, the surrounding cities and regions will have to come up with solutions of this type, using the traffic data collected by the app as Waze, which precisely in these days he is collaborating with big metropolises like Toronto or Philadelphia to make transportation more fluid. "Those who will find an effective solution to this problem will at the same time render a service to the economy and the climate, reducing the number of vehicles on the road and therefore the emissions, which at the moment in the transport sector are increasing," says Levine. "Private companies, such as Waze or Moovit, will be able to provide tools for making mobility more efficient, but the real turning point will come from changing people's habits, which usually act only based on instant gratification or economic interest". In this sense, only public intervention can push them towards sustainable mobility, for example by making public transport more competitive, such as in cities where they start making them free, or by charging parking for cars in city centers at the real price of space public they occupy, and therefore much more than is common today, as in Copenhagen.

Il Sole 24 Ore - Elena Comelli