Skip to main content

Passport to invest $5m in updating mobility platform

Passport is to spend $5m in upgrading its mobility platform to help cities manage parking, dockless scooter and bike services and rideshare services. The company says the solution will allow cities to connect technologies introduced in the future such as autonomous vehicles. Called Passport Platform, the solution was developed to help clients manage their curbside assets and create an environment which can handle and encourage new modes of transportation. Bob Youakim, Passport CEO, says the device h
September 24, 2018 Read time: 2 mins
Passport is to spend $5m in upgrading its mobility platform to help cities manage parking, dockless scooter and bike services and rideshare services. The company says the solution will allow cities to connect technologies introduced in the future such as autonomous vehicles.  


Called Passport Platform, the solution was developed to help clients manage their curbside assets and create an environment which can handle and encourage new modes of transportation.

Bob Youakim, Passport CEO, says the device helps municipalities connect their mobility data, extract insights about the utilisation of public space, and provide an interface to make and communicate operational changes in real-time.

Stephen Goldsmith, director of the data smart city solutions project at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, believes city officials will be continuously challenged to manage issues presented by services such as Uber and Bird.

“Cities need their own dynamic platform in order to respond to these new services which will help officials assemble information, seamlessly integrate new technology quickly and manage everything in real-time on their own terms,” Goldsmith adds.

According to Passport, 'micro-mobility services' such as dockless scooters and bikes cause unforeseen issues as they compete for pavement and curbside space.
 
The solution’s framework makes it easier for cities and mobility providers to collaborate and come up with mutually beneficial, usage-based pricing, Youakim concludes.

Related Content

  • How can US transportation be ‘re-envisioned’?
    October 17, 2019
    In her address to this year’s ITS America Annual Meeting, congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, chair of the House Subcommittee on Highways and Transit, called for a ‘re-envisioning’ of transportation. Her speech is below – and ITS International asks a number of US experts what they would like to see ‘re-envisioned’…

    I would like to welcome  ITS America to the nation’s capital.

  • Smarter transport remains key to smart cities
    January 9, 2018
    Colin Sowman looks at some of the challenges and solutions that will provide enhanced transport efficiency in tomorrow’s smarter cities. However you define a ‘smart city’, one of the key ingredients will be an efficient transport system. As most governments and city authorities face financial constraints, incremental improvements in the existing systems is the most likely way forward. In London, new trains and signalling are improving the capacity of the Underground but that then reveals previously
  • Videalert: Bath experience highlights joined-up thinking
    August 7, 2019
    Councils can achieve greater value with multi-purpose traffic enforcement and management platforms, says Tim Daniels of Videalert. But UK authorities could also help deliver solutions by committing to ‘joined up thinking’... Joined-up thinking’ used to be a commonly related governmental phrase and implied a commitment to looking at elements of a problem to deliver a holistic solution. However, the way that successive governments have addressed major issues has demonstrated their inability to achieve join
  • Driven demos AVs operating ‘safely’ in London
    October 7, 2019
    The Driven Consortium has completed a week-long demonstration which it says shows that autonomous vehicles (AVs) can operate safely in London - with a safety driver. Driven - a £13.6 million initiative supported by the UK government - carried out the demo around Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford in the east of the city. Driven has focused on completing fully-autonomous routes within the UK capital and the city of Oxford using Oxbotica’s autonomous software. Consortium members Moninet and Axa XL p