 Welcome to Global Agenda. To tackle the challenges of rabbit urbanization and mobility, governments and businesses are having their attentions turned to a key concept known as MAS or Mobility as a Service. Now this involves integrating various ways of transportation to make access to mobility easier for the consumer. And if I may introduce one example. This is a phone app that is used in Helsinki Finland, one of the leaders of MAS. And as you can see, you put in your current destination and where you want to go. And then it will give you multiple transportation options. Now this includes car sharing, bike sharing, ride hailing, public transportation systems such as trains, buses. And depending on where you want to go, it will give you a combination maybe of even some of those different transportation options. And once you've decided which route you want to go with, you can also make the payment online for every part of that travel. Now this is of course one way that MAS is supposed to be convenient for people who will be using this system. But more importantly, is mobility really sustainable and inclusive for all members of society. And that's what I would like to be discussing with our panelists today. Thank you all for joining me. And as MAS of course spreads around the world, we have different things to talk about, whether it is really a game changer for transportation as a whole. And of course we call the whole change in mobility a mobility revolution. Now is this really a revolution that will benefit all or not? First of all I'd like to start with Anish. Thank you very much. Anish, coming from a major car manufacturer in India, how is your company approaching MAS? We feel that MAS is here to stay. It is something that is going to revolutionize transportation in many ways. We would look at it as different modules really. So the first module that we look at is technology that's enabling this. A lot of the other factors were in play already. The second big module is ride sharing. How do you share assets better? How do you enable people to get from place A to be easier and in a more affordable way because you're sharing assets? That ride sharing can be four-wheelers or it can be at the last mile, which often can be more inclusive, whether it's two-wheelers or three-wheelers or going from a train station to an office hub. The third component on that is electric. And this is something that technically doesn't really fit into MAS. You could do MAS without the electric component, but it goes back to what you started with earlier, which is cities are concerned about congestion, about pollution, and that is something that's solved by electric. So which is where that's thrown into the mix as well. Often these solutions are looked at as cleaner solutions have done with electric. And then the fourth one to take care of congestion is autonomous. So those are the four modules really that MAS is about. And we see that becoming reality in what time frame we can debate it. All of us will have different views on what the time frame is. And not only auto manufacturers, various other parts of the ecosystem will have to adjust and be ready for the future. Thank you. Megan, you are coming from the perspective of a not-for-profit social enterprise, not from the car industry directly or transportation industry. But how would you define sustainable mobility? Well, I think that I look at mobility in this context and I think about the way that we design our infrastructure is a message to people about their own social mobility and it sends a pretty strong message actually about what society believes in and what we're going to stand for. So it is very concerning for me the conversation around mobility because I think it has a direct link on the ever-pressing issue that we are all dealing with around equality and people's sense of inequality, whether that's as a digital divide, whether that's as an educational divide and opportunity divide. So this question of mobility, it's not just about how we get around. It's about the message we're sending to people about how important their aspirations are and how are we going to enable those aspirations in the best possible way. And Pradeep, now as a leading global transportation network company, do you see Moz as a major business opportunity? You know, the origin of Uber is in this notion of replacing private vehicle ownership. There's just a fascinating stat in India and the 30 million passenger vehicles in India of which half a million is now transporting more than one person. On an average, every time a vehicle is on the road, there is 1.1% in it. And anybody who's traversed in Indian cities over the last 10 years, the average speed of moving in a city in Bangalore, as an example, has gone from 14 kilometers per hour, which wasn't great, to nine. And frankly, cities are dying. And I would argue mass is a social requirement. Of course, it's a tremendous business opportunity and that there's no doubt Uber was conceded out of this idea of creating mobility as a service. But the need is not really commercial. Frankly, this is something that society has to solve for so we can keep our cities livable. For the people who live there, I have two children, 10 and 7, both are asthmatic, grow up in Delhi. And vehicle pollution is one of the biggest reasons why they suffer from that. And I'm sure we'll all agree that we all have to play a big part in changing that for the next generations to come. So absolutely a big business opportunity but equally a massive social priority. We see that, which is probably why the cities, governments, businesses are all moving in that direction. But is it really that easy? I'd like to talk about the challenges and I think we've already started to touch on some of that. There are definitely challenges to introducing such a sustainable and inclusive system. Delhi, you spoke about, for example, air pollution, traffic congestion, these are some concerns, of course, that this capital shares along with many other capitals around the world. But if you think about having to delete personal cars from this picture, which is basically kind of what Moz is about, right? We are talking about whether we go for public transportation or we keep these personal cars. But what do we mean by replacing these personal cars for a better service, which Moz is supposed to be mobility as a service? So what is that service? What is that experience that will go beyond having a personal means of transportation for, first of all, to predict? So I think you asked the question, which I think is the hardest question to solve for. It's easy to say we want to replace private ownership. Frankly, with what? You need to replace it with something that in our minds does three things. One, it's reliable, which means that it is available when you want it within a reasonable period of time. And it has to be all the time for every citizen. Second, it's got to be affordable, which means that it's a social good. It's, to me, no different from food, electricity, housing. Transport is a basic social need. And so you think about this as an affordable service that we are providing. And affordability means obviously different things to different people. And the last thing, it's got to be sustainable, which means that it's got to play its part in reducing pollution and in decongesting cities. All of those three things have to be provided, which means the solution really is not necessarily only one mode of transport. It doesn't need to be only cars or only buses or only trains. But public transit is a huge part of whatever solution you think about. Last mile connectivity is a big part of the solution. And I'd argue electric, as Anish said, has to be a big part of the solution. So if you pull these things together, you probably can create an ecosystem which makes it affordable, reliable, and sustainable. But Uber doesn't rely on, well, in a way, cars. And it may not be a personal device. But the more, even though they may be electrical, the more there are that too could lead to congestion. So I think this is a very pertinent question if you follow the public press and the announcements we've been making, I'd say over the last 12 months, there are a number of things that will give you a clear signal that Uber is not a car company anymore. Car is one of the modes of transport. But we have integrated public transit now onto our systems. You've seen the announcements that we have made in cities like Denver where you can book public transit or at least discover public options similar to the app that you just showed us about Helsinki. That's one example. India is a great example. Our fastest growing service is two-wheelers and three-wheelers, most of which is focused on providing last mile connectivity. And pretty much every electric vehicle that's viable today in India is already on our platform on a test basis. So we are investing to learn and figure out how to make this work. So for us, Uber is not only about being a car service, but it's a transportation service which probably will integrate multiple modes of transport. Well, Anish, coming from a car company, again, if I may say, Ma seems to contradict with personal car ownership for a car manufacturer how this is played. Not just cars, but we are in 20 different industries today and we see almost all of them being threatened by some form of technology evolution. It's a financial services. You could talk about FinTech and Agri. You could talk about AgriTech. There's a whole host of things. And that's in many ways a great place to be. In many ways, it's a really bad place to be. It's great because it allows us to get ahead of things and define the industries. And it's bad because, yes, it's threatening in different forms. So from a car standpoint, our industry is going to change. We look at where this industry will be in terms of objects of mobility and objects of... In some ways, I would say people that want something that is beyond their regular mobility. So objects of desire. Those objects will continue over time. Now, the question is, how do you supply both? And in many ways, how do you get into different forms of the mass system as well? Because the exciting part here is that while all the challenges exist, the demand is there today. It's about figuring out the supply. For a consumer, it's great to be able to pull out a phone and say, I want to go from place A to B. This is how I go there. Now, the question is, who's going to be a winner in that space is not known as yet. Uber certainly has a great lead on it. Google may come in over Uber at some point in time. Or someone else might. Today, I would look at Google very often in New York or various other places to see how to take a subway from place A to B and they will start integrating other forms of transportation in there as well. So there are going to be multiple players in this space that go on. So the industry is going to get completely upended. You look at electric cars. The components required for a car are a fraction of what's required for ICE cars. The entire component industry in cars is going to change. So we're looking at a major transformation that's taking place. So for us, we look at it as an exciting time. We look at it as one that we've got to understand various different parts of it. We are playing in almost every single part of it in some form and trying to figure out where do we invest more. It's a classic case of what I call optionality. So place the certain chips on the table in various different forms and then if you see something taking off further then make greater investments there. So it's a fun game. Do you think other companies that rely on oil-driven vehicles or for example, oil companies do you think they see this revolution in the same way you just mentioned? I would say everyone does. If you look at what auto companies around the world are doing, they're investing in different forms of components of mass in a significant way. There is a fair amount of consolidation that's starting to take place, alliances that are starting to take place in the auto industry. So the industry is shaping up for it. So I would not say that we stand out versus everyone else. I do see various different auto manufacturers conscious about it and ready to take on the challenge. Megan, what Pradeep and Anish have been talking about is a shared view across the transportation industry. I think that would be a very positive sign for quite a few people. But what do you see as the challenges and of course the mindsets of people who use this transportation? Yeah, I think we have an utterly different issue ahead of us and it's an issue that has an extremely short timeline to solve and it's the issue of aspirations. The places in the world where we most need to address the transport issue and mobility are the places in the world where owning a car is still an aspiration and it's seen as the sign of success financially and in many other ways. Largely because it's always been linked to an ability to move around. But now it's way beyond that. In fact, I know somebody in Switzerland who does not own a car. He does not need to own a car in Switzerland. The public transport system is brilliant. However, everybody I know who knows him does not own a car. Until we start to shift our aspirational mentality to one that is in line with what the planet can support I think we are going to continue to run in circles around this problem. The cities that I see Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Lagos, Jakarta if you spend one day in these cities you understand we are absolutely out of time to solve this issue. The second thing I'd like to bring up is about the technology, the platform itself so you just showed that beautiful app. If you can't read and write, you can't use that app. Here in Delhi, a third of the people who need to use public transport, probably even more cannot read and write. The same in Lagos, Nigeria the same in Dar es Salaam. So this is a networked and connected problem that deals and touches on many different things so we have to come together I really see it as an opportunity for us to come together to be co-designing from the point of the beneficiary, the user such that we are actually taking a systems change approach to a system and network problem. I don't think we are in the day on this issue where one company or one solution or one platform is going to be a one size fits all. So I think that's really strongly how I feel now about designing into these kind of complex problems that are both environmental, human and affect our economies dramatically. May I say, Megan, your point around this becoming a system problem to solve is absolutely the right one. It is too large a problem for any one entity to solve. On the point of aspiration, I am actually quite optimistic. We just did a study with a consulting firm where we went out and asked millennials on their desire around automotive ownership and it's actually quite shocking how quickly they moved on from this idea of needing to own an asset. And of course I think there is a, definitely seems to me that there is an urban rural divide which I think is a big one to recognize. But there is hope in that I don't think young people put as much stock in owning a vehicle. It seems like owning any sort of asset but definitely owning a vehicle and that's something that I think is a space for us to build on. Would you like to comment on? Yeah, let me just share an advertisement by Zoomcar. I must claim that we have an investment in the company so with that disclaimer it was a fascinating advertisement. You had this couple standing in the foothills of a beautiful mountain in the snow and the guy goes down on his knees and sort of offers a ring and says will you be mine for 12 months and you could see a grimace on the girl's face and he says 6 months and she smiles. And the ad says afraid of commitment, get a Zoomcar for 6 months. So you're right, it is starting to move towards less commitment and I don't want to buy things I don't want so Megan, your solutions may be closer than you think. That's encouraging. You think? Well now that we're on this topic of are they going to create further divides among people Moz could have that possibility we are talking about urban areas because usually urbanization and the concept of Moz come together but are we really supposed to only talk about urban areas? What about the rural areas or are these rural areas going to remain rural areas? I think this all needs to be thought about and that's the part of society that perhaps we are cutting off when we introduce concepts like Moz anyone wants to start. Ali, go ahead. I was just going to come at it from the rural point of view because obviously that's where I work and that's what I see on a daily basis and I think that one of the challenges is that it never works to take an urban solution and just suddenly plonk it in a rural area because the needs of rural people are pretty dramatically different and actually they don't want to migrate to the city that's sort of a global misnomer rural people would stay in rural areas if the way of life was enabled if economies were enabled if villages were strong and self-sufficient and able to provide opportunity and if we actually started to reinvest also in rural areas at the rate we're investing in our cities right now. So I see that it is an opportunity for us to really start to allow communities to have a voice in what it is they need what will enable them economically what the kinds of solutions that will work for them. In some ways I can see electric being adopted hugely faster in rural areas than it actually is in urban areas and a great business opportunity because there are no charging kiosks so this is already a thought in my head. We took in a very, very rural place in Rajasthan three electric vehicles and the staff immediately adopted them because rural people really resonate with the environment. They really resonate with efficiency, with cost with not spending on things they don't need to spend on. So the adoption time is extremely fast. Even women? I have women drivers. Just because I'm just wondering how much the transport system well mainly if we start talking about public transportation of course this doesn't mean just men but when we think about car use somehow there is that sort of image of the masculinity of the industry. So again I'm saying with electric vehicles or other modes of transport how are the women, children or other parts of society people in all parts of society are they all going to be accessing these modes of transport in the same way? No, I think clearly women have a huge challenge right now in terms of public transport in the developing world. This is consistent across the developing world. Issues of security, issues of their own social mobility to be able to access that transport because of the perceptions around that. We have an amazing organization here in Delhi called Women on Wheels for those of you who haven't heard of it that trains women drivers who then drive only women and families and that has opened up a huge opportunity I think and additional mobility for people. I think also the issue of disability of inclusion in systems that are enabled with the physically challenged in mind is something essential and something that is another huge business opportunity. So these things are opportunities for us to not only design equality into accessibility but also to send a message about a standard a way of building infrastructure that is actually one that will provide a positive impression about commitment of resources in a public sense even if it's a private mechanism that gets it there. The situations. Inclusiveness is a very important aspect and it's not just rural it's even in urban areas in fact more so in urban areas. Look at the fraction of consumers that travel in cars today it's a very tiny fraction. So mass really has to solve this for consumers at the mass stage. That's something that requires integration with public transportation. That requires last mile solutions. It's the rickshaws or rickshaws as we have now taking people from a station to an office hub. It's the bicycle sharing that allows people to take a bicycle as you walk out of the house and then take that and travel to a bus station or potentially a train station. So these are the solutions that really need to be worked on in a more integrative manner. That is starting to happen. We've got a number of pilots in many cases in this but it's not happening at scale as yet and that has to start catching up. The possibility that this can happen has existed only for the last four or five years after technology has been deployed at the scale that it's been deployed but I can see so many green shoots. I'll give you three examples. One we have launched a bike service in India which is called UberMoto. We don't have precise information but by what we see roughly one out of four riders are women. Before we launched the service I had a number of people assert that women in India would be very uncomfortable sitting behind a bike taxi driver because it's a close physical space. As it turns out women are adopting the service. First it's because it's convenient, it's reliable and in their perception it's safer because it's open and it's perceived as safer than other modes of transport. One example. Let's take a non-Uber example. There's a company that's coming up in the US for us who have children school transport is a very big issue because we are very concerned about safety. Are we able to track them? Are they in safe modes of transport? Are the drivers good etc? The service in the US is built on Uber as a platform so it uses the tech but they do a number of things on top of that of the nature that you talked about Megan which provides service that provides greater sense of comfort and reliability that's another example and lastly let's take the job creation aspect which is if you take out all of our courier partners people deliver food and this is not just Uber but across all food delivery platforms the number of women who are participating they work 4 hours, 6 hours, 8 hours in a flexible way that's built around their life so they have certain sets of duties to be done as it relates to potentially the kids or the families and this by the way is not an India thing we see this everywhere around the emerging world and they have time where they want to figure out ways to be economically productive they're just able to take a two wheeler which is relatively accessible and use that to create economic opportunity so there are many ways that the platform can be used the tech needs to be available and accessible to everybody and I'm actually quite hopeful that private entrepreneurship will create many of these things solving very specific problems which is actually where I'd like to start talking a bit about collaborations or the balance between working with governments whether it be regional whether it be national obviously when we talk about infrastructure it can't just be about private companies well I mean it could perhaps but where it starts from the government side it could start from the private sector but can we we can't take out either part of the balance can't we would anyone like to start from there I just don't see big modes of transportation and revolutions and mobility taking that part of the equation out I think I don't know now the microphone's gone I think we work in a very comprehensive model that is always working with government on advocacy and policy change at the same time we're working on building a particular initiative and I mean I have really found that landscape to have changed a great deal in the last sort of three to five years I see government much more willing to engage in different types of partnerships partnerships that are with private sector that are with social entrepreneurs that are with civil society so I think we have to all be advocates and really push for that it never works to go somewhere without government right because at a certain point you need them you need them to regulate you need them to scope you need them to create policy that enables you to go further and faster and so you can't sort of wait till the eleventh hour to bring them on board and get them smart about what you're doing this just never works so we have to be respectful with each of the pillars if you think about the three pillars of society government private sector and community I think that is the lesson for the twenty second century in terms of partnership is not to disempower any of those not to not respect them and to really leverage their strengths government has a lot to lend us in terms of data and reach and ways of communicating and ways of getting people to comply because we're talking about social behavior change here that is aligned with the business model but we are really talking about as we move towards mass as a viable option either rural or urban as human behavioral change well human beings only change their behavior for two reasons because there's an incentive or because there's a sanctioner penalty so government can act as a brilliant mechanism in that cocktail and I think we have to think about them positively and here in India government is being extremely clear I think in the way they're moving they want to privatize much more the management of some of these kinds of services and infrastructure items and they are significantly I think going to move in that direction increasingly now so we had best be prepared guys I feel there are three important things for the government to focus on three important things one is standards especially given a large space where you have a large number of private players there is a need to set standards electric charging for example there are various different technologies if you've got different players putting in different infrastructure it's not going to work or it's going to be once slower and a lot more expensive from a collective standpoint the second part is addressing what I would call the perils of a winner take all model we referred to it earlier in terms of affordability I would put economic sustainability there a winner take model sometimes has a peril of companies subsidizing to a large extent today in the hope of reaping profits in the future so the government has to play a role in ensuring that affordability is maintained at a sustainable level and not change once you have a monopoly in place and the third is data privacy this model has again the peril of data being potentially misused so what are the standards and safeguards around data privacy so those are the three key areas where I see the government having to play a significant role interesting you mentioned affordability and keeping a sort of standard for that because coming from a private business you would think that as competition it would be difficult for you to think of that as one of course I mean generally speaking for the sustainability of mobility itself it's necessary but from a business standpoint it's interesting that that opinion comes from you Anish it's something that is essential for the future of mass if you set up a mass system today anywhere and suddenly the prices have gone up to X in two years time that's not sustainable so that's going to result in some problem down the road so while we very much advocate less governance wherever possible and letting the private sector play I think there is a need for certain safeguards to be put in place to ensure that we have a sustainable model for the future data privacy you mentioned yeah I maybe just a couple of things to add Anish to your list of three things I do think government has a really important role in making and I'll say this knowing that we are in such early stages of this transformation of a multi-trillion dollar industry that is used by every single human being on earth transport is a service like that and which means that you have to be very careful to create enough of a regulatory sandbox to allow the technologies and the innovators to play out the biggest risk frankly I see is that you stifle innovation and it is often well intentioned but without understanding the second and third order effects of those decisions I think the role that the government plays in making sure regulations are constructive and protects the interest at first of the consumer it has to be for the end user as long as it protects the interest of the consumer and is for good of society I think those governing principles have to be in place but you need space to be able to innovate and that I think is an important thing to keep in mind just in the environment we are in I think in I want to expand a little bit your point around data London is a great example if you look at the London transit authority it actually allows its data to be publicly used there are 8000 developers that use that data for various sources of public good public transit planning urban planning where do you build roads where do you expand roads where do you build bridges it's appalling obviously to see the state of data used in many many countries and how infrastructure gets built because this infrastructure is really expensive and so you want to make sure that you have used data in the best possible way and here again it's not data flowing one way right this has got to be data flowing not just between the government and the private parties but how do you do it in a way that's accessible to anybody who wants to innovate with enough rules around data privacy and the third role that the government has to play at least in markets where there are large scale government subsidies in place you really have to question what's the best way to allocate public resources for maximum good and I'd argue that we haven't visited that question in a long time in a country like India and there must be better ways if you look at France is a great example outside of Nice we have a partnership with the state municipality where we co-opt and provide quote unquote public transit services and that fills in gaps that exist in the existing public infrastructure because if the government were to provide it it is just way more expensive and it probably is not the best user of taxpayer money so I think the government has a few other roles to play in addition to all of the all of the ones that Anisha and Megan mentioned you mentioned the for example London the 8000 developers through access to private data are we sure that's safe as in I know there are many safety issues when we talk about innovation innovation of course should not be stopped by certain forms of information but then again for the end user we need to feel safe about being able to use these systems are we sure we're safe when it's openly in the hands of many different people and you know I think this is a question it's not just in the transport space obviously the amount of data that's available in the public domain in the world of social that we live in particularly that being aggregated to Anisha's point in the hands of very few people it is absolutely an issue of the highest importance and I think you will see now increasingly language from many of the companies that hold the data that actually is calling for the governments to play a more active role which you know I'd argue a few years back you'd never hear that and I think it's increasingly the recognition that there needs to be better safeguards in place so that people can trust that while there is good coming out of all of these services there's also bad that could happen if this is not controlled so we are very much in the camp of again finding constructive ways to keep data protected in all possible ways I think this is a topic that will see a tremendous amount of movement in just the very near future so then do you feel which is something I want to expand to of course the other panelists as well but do you feel that the MAS platform should basically be led by which side the government or by the private sector of course the people at the end but who should be really the driving force behind all this I'm happy to take a cut it's not clear to us that the governments are the best operators of systems like this and that's a stance that's not just in transport but it's been taken across multiple industries and if you think about what the government in India as an example is saying increasingly is we don't want to be the operators of things and so I would argue that the private sector has an important role to play again within a certain set of frameworks guardrails precautions that are laid out in a regulatory framework Anish for example when it comes to smart cities and many of them are coming into play these days regional governments are working on their own cities and making them into smart ones but there again if that's the case and I know Mahindra has been working in that realm as well how do you see the balance I see this as a collaborative partnership and I see this as multiple private players because if you just look at MAS today it's a collection of various different things that exist in some form someone's going from their home to a train station someone's going from their home to an office directly so that's being provided in some form now MAS is just making it simpler easier technology makes it easier for you to say how do I go from place A to be faster a shared service makes it more affordable electric makes it cleaner so there are different aspects that are just making it easier overall therefore I don't see someone coming in and taking over that entire space infrastructure is important private company cannot run public transport it's going to be difficult for the government to run the technology layers that come on top because that's where a lot of private companies come in and I agree with that innovation will really drive that manufacturing electric cars again will be done by the private sector now who in the private sector does that is up for debate but all of those things will have different components it's a very large ecosystem with multiple players the question is how do they all play together and make it easy for the consumer and more importantly make it sustainable for the consumer in future you mentioned data privacy though so how do you see that then who's going to be responsible for that that's where I agree with Rudip again so what is the policy around it that the government has to set and then how do you enforce that so London is a great example data is shared but not at the public level not at the individual level it's aggregate data and even with an aggregate data there are certain aspects of it that may not be shared so how do you set those policies and enforce them becomes important because that way it can be used for good in fact just to add one example to that we have something called Uber movement which is a data platform where data in various aggregated anonymized non-individually identifiable ways are shared with government agencies and with the specific purpose of getting more efficient at urban planning I'd argue that any entity that's sitting on that high value data should be used for as much public good as you can and that's a good example I think of how data can be used not just for transport but many other use cases Megan Yeah just maybe a word on government I think it's clear government needs to rethink its role into this new tech enabled AI enabled world it's a moment where governments across the world need to start rethinking what is our role and it might have been as a provider before as an operator clearly that's not the right space for government to be operating in they don't have those resources and they can't move at the speed that everything is demanding the entire tech revolution has increased and accelerated the need for innovation in a fluid and an ongoing way so it's clear governments can't move at that rate so then it becomes a question of how do we define that role are they prepared to truly make that kind of innovative step so that they begin to act as a framework, as a policy framework as a protection framework is the government's responsibility to ensure the protection of its citizens and their rights well that gets a little dicey when government is using AI and using our data for their own needs and wants and so this is where it becomes one of three pillars that community fights back and says actually you don't have the right to use my data like that I'm happy for this company to use it in the way it enables some service for me but I'm not happy to have my behavior predicted and suddenly the government determining what I can and cannot have as an access which is where we could go if AI starts to predict our movements in that way then we will not have access to the kinds of transportation mobility we want because they will tell us well you don't need that and so we're not going to make that available to you so I think it is a very very difficult space and I think the only way that it's resolved is if each of the partners in these equations stand strong with the end user really the end user and their protection and their welfare as the point of reference and it has to come back to that over and over I do have to say that personally if I were to know that some public entity was going to know my every movement and that every day I go to the grocery store at this hour every day I go to my office at this hour or I go from point A to B quite regularly and who am I interacting with etc etc I mean these things mobility means so much not just about me personally moving around but really my lifestyle and I must say that I don't know if I really want my lifestyle to be out there so open that everyone can predict what I would be doing next and I'd argue minority forget transport services you know we are all avid users of various services that Google provides if you have location turned on your phone it doesn't matter whether you're taking transport option A, B or C it is available right and I think there is a ton of work to be done because that information can be used for good for you and for society it also can be used in ways that are not good and so I think the reflection for us collectively is we have to this and this can't be only the government's job we all have to come together and you made the point around the ecosystem coming together everybody bears responsibility to make sure that this is used in a way that's productive I also well we are beginning to wrap up this session but of course Moz is a service because that's what the word means and so we've been saying yes it has to be sustainable it must be inclusive but Megan you mentioned aspiration but can we really how should I say this ask people to choose a more green option or how can we make people want to take that different option that would be more sustainable that would be more inclusive you have to say that we talked about disabilities for example sometimes it is easier for someone with a physical disability to take a certain mode of personal transport because it would be accustomed for them but how can we expect in a more public realm that Moz is for those sorts of people to take that option instead of their personal vehicle or whatever that mode of transport which is accustomed to them to use I'd say we have to find a way to make it simpler for folks and more affordable people will make economic choices that are best for them but if you've got a brand new metro in Delhi and that's much faster to take you from your home to office and it takes you 2 hours by car and it takes you 40 minutes by metro and it's clean and nice you'll take it with people really take that a lot of people are a lot of friends I have in Delhi have switched to metro because it's much easier from that standpoint now what you also have to solve for is what happens at the last mile on both ends till you solve that that's why the solutions have to be there and that's what we've got to work for as an ecosystem to put the solutions in place I didn't mean to interrupt Anish please just to build on your thought you hit the nail on its head you have to have the end consumer convenience in mind because remember you're spending hours of your daily life on the road trying to get to point A to point B you're not doing this for fun it's not a fun experience it's a functional need which means it has to be incredibly efficient and it has to be affordable the visual that we have often in mind is one that says you press a button and you get a ride but that ride has to take you all the way to the end point and that may be that you have a two wheeler picking you from your house somebody comes because you pressed a button that person shows up takes you to the metro station you have cashless ways of getting in and the physical environment is good you get into the metro and you're not getting jostled out and you have some degree of comfort and I think that's important and you get off the same thing has to happen at the back end you don't need to be standing on a crowded street trying to hail an auto rickshaw and haggling with that's an incredibly inconvenient experience and I think we have ways to be able to stitch all this but different people have to play different roles in stitching that together if you put the end user in your mind and provide this day in day out ride and ride out travel after travel adoption I don't see as an issue to me electric is part of the same solution if you make electric easily accessible just visualize a world where all oil stations become EV charging points that could happen if that were to happen I'm sure there will be much greater adoption much faster and because it's fundamentally cheaper and I say that people you give people to equal choices they will make the healthier choice we see that with food already and so I think that I'm very optimistic that that can happen but then that too is incentive isn't it for governments to want to give incentive to for example companies like oil companies to switch over to those charging systems incentives will play a key role it's a cost of ownership so if you look at electric anywhere in the world governments have given incentives for companies and individuals to start switching to electric but just to expand on what we are talking about and what you've mentioned not just at the metro level we've started a service again as a smaller pilot that takes people in a right sharing car from a certain point in Mumbai to a certain other point so it could be home hubs to office hubs and that's in an electric car right now that's set up as a shared service each seat is set up as a business class seat in an airplane with your own monitor with wifi with a bunch of things around you and you have the privacy in your own seat and you have an electric car now yes consumers would pay a little more for that but there's a very high demand for that today but again if you offer convenience and if you offer a better outcome then people will take it but I want to also add one more thing in all our conversation while we're talking about congestion and pollution we've been only talking about passenger transport the other big equation here is goods transport you've got a very large number of trucks in our city is going from point A to point B and coming back empty right so how do you start addressing that problem of goods mobility and that will be a big factor in this whole equation of reducing congestion and reducing pollution I'm a pessimist I think until we have a carbon tax until it starts to hit the bottom line until cities are no longer able to borrow money at concessional rates for building of infrastructure without moving decisively towards a more sustainable mobility system I think we're just not going to get the speed or the uptake that we need so I'm a bit pessimistic in this moment well that's the other part well as I mentioned earlier I talked about rural areas but the incentive for governments for example to push or business to expand in those areas there's got to be something in place for them to look in that direction or else they won't and that will leave a very big population behind maybe not in number but in terms of social device or we will be at the end of we will be cutting them off from a lot of possibilities so again we talk in sentences the only thing I would say is that I really deeply believe that the market innovates it's to come back to what you said I think that's the beauty of the market and market based solutions is that they take all the barriers they look at them and they find the way through to be successful right this is how we are as human beings so I think it's about setting the bar higher putting out there where we want to be in 2020 or 2030 or 2050 and saying okay now we innovate to that the problem has been we continue to set the bar too low and then we don't get very far as if we're kind of afraid to say let's actually make tough rules I think tough rules are okay because I think the market will absolutely adapt and absolutely innovate to those rules we sell ourselves short often and that especially happens in rural areas it's kind of still cowboy land in the rural parts of the global south and they can adapt to rules both the human beings who live there and the companies that serve those areas and need to serve them so then in a way then we are talking about leadership from the business sector absolutely and government and the policy sector yeah I am an optimist I think a lot is happening right we have a company called Lithium that has taken 800 electric cars in Bangalore and are transporting people from their homes to offices every day now could that 800 be 8000 yes absolutely we need to move faster but the point is you have a start up doing that right electric rickshaws are taking over in a year or two you're going to have a higher proportion of electric rickshaws and non-electric rickshaws sold so you're starting to see cost of ownership become affordable for fleets first for three wheelers first and then even for four wheelers for fleets and then it will move to consumers so I see a tremendous momentum and it can be faster but at least it's headed in the right direction pretty I wouldn't be doing what I do if I wasn't an optimist it is tough to do transportation in the physical world it's not a pure digital service and I would say it's just consumer adoption of these things have been so amazing around every city we operate in 650 odd cities every city people have just laughed on because there is something inherently good affordable important about sharing that I think people are just latching on to the faster we can push that the more we can get the full ecosystem to go collaborate I'm optimistic that we'll make a difference I'm with Megan that there may be tough rules required and maybe we've just not been hard enough congestion tax by the way is a great example it's showing up in quite a few locations so I'm sure there will be many cities that will try and we'll learn from that but I am an optimist that we will make a difference today more than I was growing up so hopefully we can all collaborate to get there faster just one last word from each of you before I open up the floor for questions starting with Anish well I'll be asking the same thing of three of you but as we've been discussing I can see how Moz is still a relatively new concept there are certain rules in place for transportation but on the other hand so much more as possible certain rules and regulations are actually still not there and therefore I think we've been talking about tougher rules but for you what do you see as the biggest motivation for driving Moz forward I see the biggest motivation to be enhanced expectations from consumers in this world of technology I see them changing their view what is available is not enough I'm not going to settle with what I have I want something more and that combined with innovation where someone is going to come in and offer something more is really what's exciting for me it's the concept that with a platform like Moz that is actually workable for everybody you completely unlock people's ability to attain their own aspirations to move from here to there because that's where the job is that they want to do or that's where the family member is they want to support or that's where a child needs to go to school I think it's the ultimate tool for unlocking social mobility and economic mobility for those who are currently disproportionately disadvantaged by not having access to good transportation with your permission I'll build on what you said Megan and share a story this is just from last week we had a chance to spend time with the principal scientific advisor to the government of India and he gave us a fabulous story he said in his mind entrance examinations into the most coveted engineering institutes in India is a substantial underrepresentation of women and as they work through kind of why that happens one of the interesting things he said is women just don't show up to coaching classes the way men do and they don't invest as much and there are other reasons but one of the interesting things he said is most of the classes are in the evening and in most cities families just don't want to let young women out because they just don't trust that the transit transportation solutions available today are good enough and he was just making this a point around social mobility he made the other observation as he looked out of his office and he said this is the prime commercial location in India and he looks out of that and look at the working population he says less than one out of five people here is a woman and that participation is still very low in large parts of the world and there is a developing divide there I think I'm optimistic because frankly we won't have a choice and transport has a very very important role to drive inclusivity in our society so again I think we will see a lot more than we have seen in the last call it half a decade the next decade should be quite exciting well thank you to the panelists because yes we touched upon so many different issues related to sustainable mobility being security data education crossing social divides because it may provide more means of transport for people who didn't have access yet again regulations where are we going to go with that and it is exciting to know that because it is such a new framework that there is so much more that can be done but because there is so much more that can be done we really on the consumer side as well need to make the right decisions thank you and I'd like to open up the floor for Q&As oh well could we sorry the hand went up first thank you my name is Philippe Bonnier from La Jaffee Switzerland I have a question to Mr. Shah I understand that Mahindra is strongly involved in this project of smart cities could you tell us something about it on how it could solve the mobility problem on whether you would include all those what has been implemented in Singapore like the auction for the car plate or if you enter some specific area of the city you have to pay a special price to avoid congestion so we have been building townships for the last 25 years now and we've got a number of lessons from that in terms of how to build one what are the interactions between professional life and personal life and how to use it etc there's a lot more that needs to be done around policy and that frankly is a partnership with the government on are they willing to put in certain zones and technology today hasn't reached that level as yet there are various cities that are experimenting with it to have a zone for automated cars only and my sense is that's still about 5 it's going to be easier to put in the taxes that you talked about or the penalties for congestion tax but to have a truly smart city with automated transportation is still a little while away do we have time for one more question or okay I'm very sorry you might want to approach the panelists individually but we do have to wrap up this session thank you all for coming and we hope you get to meet and talk with them individually thank you so much thank you thank you Megan and thank you Anish thank you all thank you thank you