Building a mobility operating system requires leadership of cities, says LADoT

A mobility operating system cannot be privately built, it must be open and governed by cities, according to the Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADoT). Speaking at the Consumer Electronics Show 2019 in Las Vegas, LADoT general manager Seleta Reynolds described how the authority had published specifications to manage scooters following what she described as an “explosion of private companies”. She explained that the first bucket of application programming interfaces (API) provides consistent
January 10, 2019 Read time: 2 mins
A mobility operating system cannot be privately built, it must be open and governed by cities, according to the Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADoT).


Speaking at the Consumer Electronics Show 2019 in Las Vegas, LADoT general manager Seleta Reynolds described how the authority had published specifications to manage scooters following what she described as an “explosion of private companies”.

She explained that the first bucket of application programming interfaces (API) provides consistent ways for companies to talk to cities and share information with them. The second bucket of that code puts the LADoT into the product workflow of those communities.

“We are not tapping them on the shoulders and asking them for more data sets; instead we are delivering services that we already deliver today. Eventually, it would be great if we had a creative set of pricing tools, but we can start at the kerb,” Reynolds added.

At the same CES session, ‘Creating Seamlessly Integrated, Connected Mobility Operating Systems’, Scott Corwin, future of mobility practice leader at 1979 Deloitte, warned that a completely open system where people contribute on their own would attract small players over big ones - which leaves the question of how to get to scale.

“The dialogue is really about investment funding as the kind of money it’s going to take is going to be pretty significant - as well as the technical capabilities to do what needs to be done,” Corwin added.

Leon Kalvaria, chairman, institutional clients group at Citi, stated: “We are at the dawn of the age of autonomous. There will be some very significant private investors in autonomous as they can see what kind of business model they want whether a fleet model, goods delivery model, and that may provide the opening for that kind of dialogue.”

Urban Traffic Control

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Mega trends will challenge transport technology
    June 5, 2015
    Jon Masters investigates some of the longer term trends that will shape transportation over the next 20 years. Business analysts and investors have already placed their bets on a future of technological smart mobility services. In December last year, the Wall Street Journal reported that Uber, the on-demand taxi and lift share smartphone app and start-up business, had been valued at $41.2 billion which, as the Journal reported, is an incredible vote of confidence for a company only five years old.
    Read More
  • Cost benefit analysis ‘can’t be carried out with a cookbook’
    June 25, 2018
    There is far more to working out the worth of a project than simply filling in a few headings on a spreadsheet. David Crawford surveys some recent thinking from the US and Canada. Cost benefit analysis (CBA) “can’t be carried out with a cookbook”, warns US analyst Professor Robert J Brent. “ You can’t just get out a spreadsheet and fill in the data for all the headings. Each transport CBA should have something that is distinctive, in terms of location (for example, for a rural area), types of user
    Read More
  • Mott Macdonald appoints Glenn Lyons as chair of future mobility
    January 10, 2018
    Mott Macdonald (MM) has appointed professor Glenn Lyons as chair of its future mobility initiative to help develop its transport expertise in understanding and responding to a changing and uncertain mobility landscape, shaped by technological possibilities and societal needs. MM will also sponsor his position at the University of the West of England Bristol. Lyons has been professor of transport and society at the University since 2002 and was founding director of its Centre for Transport and Society. His
    Read More
  • 'Conservatism hampering ITS technical evolution'
    November 13, 2012
    Nick Lanigan, managing director of Clearview Traffic, considers the current outlook in the ITS sector from an SME's perspective. Interview with Jason Barnes. When times are hard, businesses can invest or cut. Either way, they need guidance from customers – governments – on where best to concentrate their efforts. Prolonged economic slowdown is currently an issue. A short recession, however sharp, would have left many industry players able to ride the bow-wave of governments’ multi-year spending on strategic
    Read More

Highlighted Content