Mobilty-as-a-Service: Speculative Design

Part of the challenge of building physical activity and outdoor time back into everyday life is to shift transportation habits away from cars and toward more active alternatives, like walking, biking, using public transit (which tends to include a good amount of walking) and even scootering. It’s a tall challenge that in large part depends upon a supportive physical infrastructure and the availability of frequent, reliable services. But given how convenience and ease-of-use play into most people’s choices, the experience of transportation alternatives is very important. To that end, we sponsored a team at the University of Washington to create a speculative design of a mobility-as-a-service app that would unite different transportation modes and — crucially — enable users to specify and ultimately align their values to their choices. The design, the lessons learned, and the background on the project are all now available on our website.