The Anatomy of Urban experiments

Urban environments have long been the epicentre of human cohesion, culture, politics, business and industry. Of late this has meant the rise of innumerable services looking at that most basic of human needs - Mobility. We’ve seen mobility services move from the traditional (taxis, buses, trains) to the new age (Ubers, e-scooters, bikes, autonomous taxis) due to rapid spread and adoption of digital technology.

But mobility services are often at odds with the way cities operate and planned, the way people actually move around them, the needs of underserved communities, deep environmental issues and administrative services. New services opt for a one size fits all methodology when it comes to cities - but this is far from reality as each urban environment is different.

This is often due to their lack of understanding of needs of people operating in urban development - who are thinking about the larger impact of new services - not just in creating a profitable enterprise.

We believe that this should not be the case. Profitability and success can be achieved by working hand in hand with a city, its inhabitants and care takers. As designers, technologists and service makers we need to think about the eco-system in which mobility services operate and the opportunities new technology such as Autonomous driving might provide to people.

That is exactly where ‘Urban experiments’ come in.

With real life examples, we will talk about how we can craft an Urban experiment, which will bring out latent needs through a combination of research, prototyping with proxy technology and the age old technique of asking the right questions with multidisciplinary teams. We will unpack the methods and techniques that can be used to simulate mobility services in cities, even with technologies of the near future, which could be an efficient and fast means to investigate its validity and showcase viability. We will also talk about approaches in connecting with cities and administrators, so as to drive engagement and foster discussion. Without being at odds.

We hope this will usher in a new way of thinking about prototyping and service design, looking for true and lasting success for new mobility in cities and towns.