0820_AUG Comstock's Magazine 0820 August | Page 45

trANSPORTATION
The Pandemic
Could Provide
Opportunities
to Change How
We Travel
Neal Best is the founder of Best Company Consulting,
which specializes in company growth
strategy, economic development and commercial
real estate. He is the lead consultant for the
City of Sacramento on the California Mobility
Center and is the acting director of business
development and strategic partnerships.
by Neal Best
The COVID-19 crisis has turned the
transportation industry upside down.
Whether it is the drastic hit on revenue
for operators because of the precipitous
drop in public transport and commercial
airline usage, the economic reverberations
of declining demand for new
private-vehicle purchases, or the impact
on the supply chain for mobility manufacturers,
the pandemic will reshape the
industry fundamentally.
The shelter-in-place mandates led
to a dramatic reduction of traffic and
improvement in the air quality of many
urban areas, but the long-term impacts
will be complex for all aspects of the
transportation sector. This provides
a unique opportunity to reassess the
current accepted transportation models
and create meaningful policies to progress
more purposefully toward cleaner
and equitable solutions for moving
people and goods, but will people seek
an alternative to public transit due to
the threat of contagion? Will companies
continue to enable remote working for
employees now that it has been tested,
successfully, at scale? Can we develop a
more equitable solution to provide more
people in disadvantaged communities
with adequate mobility solutions?
The landscape that is now laid out
before us is one of opportunity. The
California Mobility Center is designed
to establish a hub of excellence in future
mobility in Sacramento. The CMC will
enable industry innovators, educational
institutions and clean-tech regulators to
work together to create the next wave of
smart mobility solutions for the automotive
industry. This new mobility future,
driven by the emergence of a number of
cultural, regulatory and technological
evolutions, will be vital in the post-
COVID-19 world.
Public and private collaboration
It is estimated that the transportation
industry in the U.S. represents almost
$2 trillion in revenue, or more than 10
percent of the country’s gross domestic
product, according to Deloitte. In addition
to the economic impact caused by
COVID-19, any shift within this industry
will affect many stakeholders — automotive
manufacturers, transportation
operators, insurance providers, financial
lending institutions, energy utilities, the
public — so any impactful global shift
will be dependent on a combined force
of public and private partners working
together to cultivate change.
The CMC will provide a platform for
our region to address some of the major
challenges the transportation industry
needs to overcome in the recovery period.
Aligning policymaking with cutting-edge
technological advancement is a way to
amplify innovation. This alignment can
allow open communication for innovators
and policymakers to ensure incentives
and subsidies for new technologies
that help California meet its aggressive
carbon-reduction goals while promoting
innovation and local job creation.
In addition, public sector partners
with CMC like SMUD, Sacramento State
and the City of Sacramento can become
early adopters of applicable technology
that comes through the CMC to help
scale solutions, both hardware and software,
that will drive significant change.
Rapid adoption of new technologies
The challenge for innovating the future of
mobility is increasingly in the space where
hardware and software meet. Whether
it is the electrification of fleets, creating
interim hybrid solutions for heavy-duty
vehicles, or smart software technology to
manage the flow of city traffic, creating an
environment where these innovations are
able to be built at scale in an economically
viable way is a challenge that must be met.
Creating the environment for success will
enable ideas from incubation to implementation.
Such a platform should be
leveraged by companies to invest in ideas
to bring them to a scalable phase. Venture
capital and corporate venture arms have
a significant role to play to invest in and
guide the next transformative companies
in the mobility space.
New workforce opportunities
The CMC will help identify demand for
new types of training programs and,
through its partner network, align existing
programs to the requirements of the
clean-tech mobility industry. This will
ensure the region’s workforce is at the
forefront of the latest industry innovation,
providing a clear pathway to high-paying,
technical jobs. This holistic and integrated
approach will meet the demands of
businesses and industry by employing
interns and students from adult training
programs, colleges and universities in our
region, ensuring residents from disadvantaged
communities fully benefit from job
opportunities being created by the CMC
and the companies it attracts.
Support a robust supply chain
The creation of the CMC provides a nexus
for manufacturers in the transportation
supply chain to interface with growth
stage startups and more established
industry original equipment manufacturers.
Cultivating this network of advanced
manufacturers is critical to enable companies
to develop new technologies. A robust
supply chain will improve the region’s
ability to attract and retain companies and
ensure the long-term sustainability of the
future mobility industry.
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