(Photo credit @autumnstudio)
One of the things I have struggled with over the past few months is my inability to travel. I don't like sitting in one place and I love to travel! If these past few months had been ‘normal’ times, I would have visited Barcelona for my b-school reunion, and New York City, Los Angeles and San Francisco for work. Instead, I haven't left the 50-mile radius of my home since March 7. At least I have been able to go hiking & kayaking and generally be outside in nature. I cannot even imagine what it’s like being inside of a large city & not leaving your 600 sq foot apartment for weeks on end. As we consider how to carefully re-open parts of our country & our lives, the rise in tools that support contactless mobility is exponential.
#techtopic
When you think about how people move around in a city, the trend of micro-mobility has already been on the rise for the past decade. Think Lime or Bird scooters and Citibikes for short distances and ride-hailing with Uber or Lyft for cross-town trips. And for many of those who own cars while living in a big city, you realize quickly that it sits empty for the majority of time - so you turn to ride-sharing programs like Zipcar or Turo. (Check out this really great overview by CBInsights on today’s micro-mobilty market map.) Now, these micro forms of transportation will become even more important as cities wrestle with how to move large volumes of people via public transportation without increasing infection rates. And for anyone who has been on a subway during rush hour, you know how impossible that task will be. There has been an increase in sales of leisure bikes and scooters in the past month, which bodes well for the future of micro-mobility. And since you already pay for all of these services with an app on your phone, this continues to help accelerate the move to a (near) cashless society.
When you shift to thinking about leisure & business travel over much longer distances, many of these challenges are magnified. JetBlue Tech Ventures wrote up a piece on the entire flow of moving passengers from one place to another, and highlighted startups working on each part of the process. As an avid traveler, it was helpful to see how much thought and effort some are putting into my safety & comfort (especially when you read horror stories like this and this of packed planes). Hotels are also exploring contactless methods for check-in and for robot food delivery. Skift has a great overview article on all of these trends across leisure & corporate travel. Ultimately, even as medical authorities shift focus to stopping infection via masks vs surface disinfection, the rise of contactless tool usage in the US may finally catch us up to the rest of the world.
