Skip to main content

Zipcar founder: ‘Car-dominant city has reached its zenith’

Zipcar co-founder Robin Chase has called on urban authorities to embrace multimodal transport in a bid to improve mobility.“The value of a car-dominant city has reached its zenith,” she says in an interview with ITS International. “The city regulatory and physical infrastructure has been built on a personal car-dominant infrastructure. We have spent the last 100 years making car travel in cities the most convenient and cheapest way to the exclusion of everything else.” That creates problems, she
May 23, 2018 Read time: 2 mins

3874 Zipcar co-founder Robin Chase has called on urban authorities to embrace multimodal transport in a bid to improve mobility.

“The value of a car-dominant city has reached its zenith,” she says in an interview with ITS International. “The city regulatory and physical infrastructure has been built on a personal car-dominant infrastructure. We have spent the last 100 years making car travel in cities the most convenient and cheapest way to the exclusion of everything else.”

That creates problems, she continues. “Today, mayors and cities are signalling by price that they are indifferent as to whether you take your zero emissions and small footprint bike or a 25 year-old car that pollutes heavily or indeed a shared taxi or public transit. Currently the city is signalling that ‘all those things are the same to us’.”

Chase, who also spoke at ITS International’s 8545 MaaS Market Atlanta conference, is keen to avoid demonising the car as a travel mode - but is not convinced that developments such as automated vehicles will ease congestion.

She is one of the influencers behind the recently-published %$Linker: 2 External <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?><dictionary /> 0 0 0 link-external Shared Mobility Principles Shared Mobility Principles website link false https://www.sharedmobilityprinciples.org/ false false%> developed by a group of NGOs and adopted by a range of public bodies and mobility players.

The principles call for fair pricing of different mobility options. “The point of doing road congestion pricing and kerb access pricing is so we can start getting at fair user fees across all modes,” she insists. “Personal cars are not paying a fair share and because of that we have been responding to the wrong price signals which is why we don't have enough walking, biking or shared transport modes.”

  • For full interview and MaaS Market Atlanta report, see ITS International May/June issue, out soon

Related Content

  • May 8, 2019
    MaaS Global and Mitsui to trial Whim in Japan
    MaaS Global is trialling its Mobility as a Service (MaaS) platform Whim in Japan in a tie-up with property developer Mitsui Fudosan. The Finnish company says both parties will collaborate with local transport service providers and conduct a ‘proof of concept’ trial in the Greater Tokyo area, prior to a planned launch later this year. The partnership allows MaaS Global to employ what CEO Sampo Hietanen calls “our Real Estate x MaaS vision: the next evolution phase to combine living and mobility”. Mitsu
  • May 29, 2018
    Car2Go to halt carsharing operations in Toronto
    Car-sharing group Car2Go is suspending operations in Toronto, Canada, because of what it sees as restrictive regulations introduced by the city’s authorities. Toronto City Council is introducing its own free-floating carshare pilot on June 1 which Car2Go says makes its service ‘inoperable’. In a letter to users, Car2Go’s North America CEO Paul DeLong says that companies taking part in Toronto’s new pilot will be charged $1,499.02 per vehicle and that many streets which operate a residents’ parking permit
  • October 23, 2018
    Scoot Networks to deploy electric scooters in Chile
    Scoot Networks will gradually deploy 500 electric scooters in Santiago, Chile, to offer citizens a more sustainable mobility option. The pilot programme will take place in Las Condes' business district as part of an agreement with mayor Joaquin Lavin. Gonzalo Cortez, general manager for Santiago, says the scooters reduce air pollution, make streets safer, keep money in the local economy and makes mobility more affordable. In June, Scoot delivered 500 electric scooters and 1,000 electric bicycles in
  • September 21, 2018
    Passport brings traffic management platform to the UK
    UK drivers ‘rack up’ more than £570m in fines each year, according to an independent study conducted by US mobile payment company Passport. The firm has opened an office in London and is offering a platform which it says aims to boost traffic management in cities. Called Passport Platform, the solution is intended to connect multiple modes of transportation and payments and provide a way for cities to understand, manage and collaborate with an ecosystem of mobility services. Adam Warnes, vice presid