Have Slides, Will Travel: Fall 2015 Edition

I’m currently in the throes of the fall conference season, which means traveling 44 hours to-and-from Singapore to spend just 36 hours attending the Abraaj Group’s Annual Forum – and finding time to take MIT’s autonomous car for a spin. Or did it take me for a spin? I’m not sure. A quick recap and preview of my travel schedule follows below, grouped by a few themes. (Not included: my 20th high school reunion.)

The future of mobility. I kicked off September at the Los Angeles office of Gensler with a talk on the future of urban mobility, drawing upon a combination of NYU Rudin’s “Reprogramming Mobility” project, my report for the University of Toronto’s Global Solution Networks, and my ongoing research for the New Cities Foundation’s Connected Mobility Initiative. I revisitied the theme later in the month with both the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) and the Automotive Fleet Leasing Association (AFLA), both whose members are still coming to grips with the implications of mobility-as-as-service. (I sat down with the FIA for a brief chat following my talk.)

At the end of September, I flew to Toronto to present to the transportation task force of the York Regional Council, a body comprised of elected officials representing nine municipalities and more than a million people immediately north of Greater Toronto. The region expects to add an additional 500,000 residents over the next few decades, which has councilors and staff scrambling to implement bus rapid transit and a long-term strategy to densify development, increase service, and lure people away from their cars. I was honored to encourage them to keep one eye on the horizon for how the advent of new technologies and services that help or harm their plans.

From there, it was onto London for the second annual Cities on the Move conference hosted by the New Cities Foundation and Google, where I was interviewed by the BBC’s Gareth Mitchell. I moderated a panel on how cities might start to construct mobility-as-a-service platforms, beginning with Michael Glitz-Richter’s work in Bremen twenty years ago to current efforts to build a seamless transportation mesh in Finland. Next month, I’ll be the master of ceremonies at the Disrupting Mobility conference at the MIT Media Lab, followed by hosting the opening session of the 50th anniversary conference of the California Transit Association.

The future of work and the office. My other great passion besides transportation, this was the theme of my brief remarks at the Municipal Art Society Summit in New York this month, along with several sessions I moderated for the Abraaj Group in Singapore – although I’m afraid I can’t say much more than that. Nor can I say much about the master class I led for a Fortune 20 company on “serendipity engineering.” But next month, I’ll be in Paris for the OECD’s New World Forum, where I’m set to join a panel discussing the future of human labor (versus, you know, the robots).

The future of travel and tourism. In September, I had the pleasure of addressing both the Texas Travel Industry Association and the International Luxury Travel Meetings about the importance of urban networks, policy, and infrastructure in travel and tourism going forward. One idea that had special resonance with both audiences: that convention and visitors bureaus should fund new attractions and infrastructure in the mold of New York City’s High Line or Dallas’ Klyde Warren Park (which was built atop a highway). I’ll have the chance to expand upon this idea next month when I’m back in Dubai to help dream up ideas for a certain World’s Fair on the drawing boards…