Navigating the Road to the Future: How Autonomous Transit Will Impact Hospitality - Timothy Papandreou, Emerging Transport Advisors

Josiah: 0:00

The future might be closer than you think. One of my favorite things I appreciate about Living in San Francisco is we sometimes get to see technology before it hits wider adoption, and an example of this is the self-driving cars I see passing my home every few minutes. You might even remember Tom Wolfe, Chief Concierge at the Fairmont Hotel, here, talking about this.

Tom: 0:21

I embrace everything that is new and exciting and has technology. I am still very anxious to take my first ride in a vehicle that has no driver. I mean, could you ask for more?

Josiah: 0:34

It feels like we're living in the future, doesn't it?

Tom: 0:36

A driver that doesn't talk. You know, and I don't want no stinking artificial intelligence driver saying what's your sign?

Josiah: 0:44

Today we're learning about the implications of all of this on hospitality, travel and the cities we operate in from someone who has a unique perspective on it all, Timothy Papandreou, founder and CEO of Emerging Transport Advisors and key advisor for the Google X Moonshot Factory. I wonder just if we spend a couple of minutes talking about your career just to provide a little bit of context, and then we'll get into the core part of our conversation. Can you tell me a little bit about yourself and what's your journey been to your role today?

Timothy: 1:35

Yeah, so ever since I was a kid, I was fascinated with how people and things moved around cities. I was one of those weirdo kids who knew what they wanted to be when they grew up. I wanted to manage cities and manage transport and how things work. I'm talking like super geekery. I would draw maps of cities and then draw the transport networks and then draw the schedules and the timetables of the trains and the buses. I would draw how much the tolls were in the freeways. In my world, everything cost money. It was nothing was free and it was all efficient and everything was like sustainable and eco and there were trees on buildings and a lot of things that don't defy any laws of physics. My cities did that. So forget MidJourney. I was pre-mid journey. I was already doing, like you know, wild, lucky cities, but the one thing that kept on doing was when I was growing up was like, try to understand, like you know, what is this job Like? How do I do this? As I grow up and my family was convinced that, oh, this is what an architect does or this is what an engineer does, and I went into those schools and I realized that's not what I want to do I really like the systems of how things connect to each other. And it wasn't until I complained to my architecture professor and said I really don't care about this one building. I know you guys do, but I don't. I care about how everything gets to and from this building and moves around the city. And they're like, oh, that's urban and regional planning. I was like, oh, what's that? So they said, here you can go and go to these classes and sit in with them and they're talking about like macroeconomics and microeconomics and like urban ecology and urban economics and the environment and people, gender, race, culture, etc. I was like, oh yeah, these are my people. So I was like, okay, system, system, systems. And so ever since then I've worked in. I went to go to degrees in this and I've worked for big transport authorities, small ones, cities, states, etc. And lately, recently, I was the chief innovation officer for the city of San Francisco, for the MTA, and then after that I got recruited by Google X to go Windows call Google X to work on the self-driving car project at X and we created the company Waymo and I was part of the launch team, which was really fun to do that, and then I left inside of my own company and have been advising governments, corporations, startups and investors ever since on how to get the hands on this wacky world of transportation and all these big trends of like. We're moving towards this on demand, electrified, automated future, which is upending and going to change everything that we know about the future of living and working as we know it. So it's a really exciting and I mean literally exciting which is both interesting and frightening future, because a lot of it is not written down. We don't really know what's going to look like, and there's a lot of people who are, on one side, super excited by everything and a little too optimistic about it and, on the other end, way too pessimistic and super scared of it. Like it's the end of the world, and history has shown us that cities are always these really vibrant, viable, resilient things that are always in this messy middle. You know it's the messy middle that makes people uncomfortable, but that's where we are going to be for the next couple of decades.

Josiah: 4:40

It's so interesting. I do want to ask about that transition from being the Chief Innovation Officer at San Francisco's Municipal Transportation Agency and then being recruited to Google for, as you mentioned, X, their Moonshot Factory. I guess, why are Moonshots or these big, bold projects important for us, for our society?

Timothy: 5:01

Yeah, it's a really good question. When entering a world where the world is getting much more complicated and more complex, we've got complications and with all the different things that are happening around us our energy mix, our environment mix, our biodiversity, the way we grow food, the way we get around, the way we have things brought to us, the way we make things All these things have created an enormous opportunity for a lot of people worldwide. But it's also come with tremendous costs to the environment, society, just to our way of life, the stress levels that are through the river living in these big cities and this is the first time in human history that more people live in cities than not. So more than half of our world's population now lives in cities and the next 30 years we're going to have three-quarters of world's population living in cities. So we're creating a city planet. That stuff creates massive problems. If we expect to move around the way we do now to make food and to do all the things we do right now in 30s time and still have the same outcome, that little is the definition of insanity. So we need moonshots because these are big, audacious, radical ideas that will try and wrestle with a global problem that can impact hundreds of millions, if not billions, of people with a radical breakthrough technology that can actually be commercialized. Because that's the hard part World problems, we know them all. There's about thousands of them. Right Breakthrough technology we've got some that we can actually try out and then a radical new way of looking at it. But is it commercially viable? Can we actually make this breakthrough and solve the problem and actually create a market for it? And I think that's where we really need moonshots right now, because we're entering a world where there's so many things that are potentially going in the wrong direction and so many things that are potentially going in the right direction that a moonshot approach allows us to think really big, to dream as big as we possibly can and to try new things and then radically learn over and over again until we get it right and then basically scale it. I think that's the exciting bit right there and that's what I do and it's super fun because you're not failing even though you are failing, and you're learning fast. You're just learning and learning and learning and all of that information, whether we use it or not, builds up for the next moonshot and the next moonshot, and then so on and so on. So you're building this car drive information and this world knowledge base that basically helps us to get closer and closer to solving some of these mega complex problems that we have in our society right now.

Josiah: 7:32

I appreciate that definition and I was excited to speak with you because this shows about hospitality, but, as we were talking about before, we started recording hospitality. So integrated into its neighborhoods, its cities, it's very connected to transit, how we live. I can't think of a business that touches some of these elements more. I want to talk a little bit specifically about a post that you made recently on LinkedIn. I'll link to it in the show notes, but you talked about an experience you had in a robo-taxi company. You were, as we touched on, you were one of the key, influential early employees at Waymo, and this is another company, Cruise, that you tried their taxi service. I want to talk more about the category of robo taxis. I find it really interesting to live at San Francisco in this moment in time because in front of my house it feels like every couple of minutes an autonomous taxi will drive down the street, and it feels, even though I've seen it so many times over the past couple of years, it does feel like you're living in the future, and so my question for you is you've been in this space, involved in that, for a long time, building for a long time. How might robo taxis affect how we move around our cities.

Timothy: 8:39

It's a really good question, but I want us to step back. Automated vehicle technology, which is the technology that propels these vehicles, really doesn't care what kind of vehicle it is. So we could actually propel people in the minibuses on the trains, planes, the ferries, across the bay, the caltrain, like it does the high, you know the big, high speed trains, buses, vans, trucks, ships, garbage trucks, parking enforcement, If you name it. If it has wheels, the automated vehicle technology can propel it for mining vehicles, for example, construction vehicles, agriculture, everything is going to become automated very soon.

Josiah: 9:14

So this is about transit. You're saying this is about how people move around space, this is the opportunity, and so we had initially connected about one sliver of that with autonomous taxis. But you're saying this is actually a kind of meta trend that's happening.

Timothy: 9:30

Exactly. The automation trend is meta. It's basically anything that moves people or things or connects people to things will become automated. And I'm talking even inside your hotels. So all the cleaning systems we've got robots now that can clean bathrooms, they can clean hospitality suites and they do it. They're doing it really well the food delivery services, the food making, the food prep all these different things are going to have some element of automation or robotics or services. Many of your industry folks are ordering things in now and they're coming. Someone is literally bring them inside the hotel. They're coming through like an app, but they don't really see how it gets made and how it gets brought in. But all of those things are happening right now. And the thing about robot taxes which is really interesting is that they're basically a transport as a service, so it's like Uber and Lyft, but it's actually summoned by. Same thing is something by an app. It's basically managed by a computer that basically brings the vehicle to you and then it takes you to where you want to go. And there's a lot of interesting things about this in that, because a lot of our transport system is very inefficient. A lot of vehicles out there for no reason other than that. They're owned by people and people own their cars and they have them parked 95% of the time and only really utilize 5% of the day. So we have a lot of vehicles taking up a lot of space, creating a lot of pollution, congestion etc. And they're not really being utilized. The theory, at least, is that with the robot taxes system, because it is a network, it can get people to where they want to get to in the most efficient manner possible and because there's no human driving it, there's no one to nudge, for example, or to incentivize with pay or whatever it is to get them to be at those places. They will be there because that's where they're being commanded to be there. So there's a whole network efficiency there. That's very interesting. That can really help improve the overall make of the transportation system. It does come with some question marks, like will this result in more people opting for rubber taxi instead of other forms of transport? Will they walk less? Will they bicycle less? Will they take public transport less because this is actually so convenient? Is it convenient or will it become just stuck in traffic like everything else? So we have a lot of big questions that come with these new technologies, but what's exciting is that we're trying it out, we're learning, we're seeing more of it happen, and I think we need to do more of that to figure out what is the best mix, what is the best amount of these vehicles in our city, and what do they look like? And are they just going to be cars or are they going to be vans? Are they going to be buses? Are they going to be shuttles of some kind? What does the form factor, as we call it, the shape of the vehicle, what does it ultimately look like and how does it serve the most people in the safest, most affordable and greenest way?

Josiah: 12:22

I want to touch on that, but just to underscore, in the sense of experimentation and seeing what it looks like. You posted recently about having a ride around San Francisco in one of these robotaxies. I was curious what did you notice about the people around you as you were driving around the city in this?

Timothy: 12:40

I have to say I was shocked. I don't really ride around that close to people driving in their cars. I tend to take public transport. I'm either in a bus, much higher than them, or I'm in a train underground or on my bicycle, which is another thing in itself, and I'm when I'm walking. But because I was actually in a vehicle and I was actually riding in a robo taxi alongside people driving, I mean this when I say almost every single person that was driving next to me was looking at their phone. I'm not kidding, I literally was shocked If they weren't looking at their phone. They were eating, they were doing something, people were getting changed, people were having full on arguments, they were singing, whatever it was. What they weren't doing was paying attention. I think there's this natural I don't know if it's just this evolution where people think they know their city and they know their streets and they're kind of just not paying attention anymore. There were so many times where people walking by were flipping off the drivers because they weren't giving eye contact. Then I come up in the robotaxie and they're trying to make eye contact with and they're like, oh my God, there's no in the front seat. I was like who do you make eye contact with. But the vehicle made the gestures that it's going to basically obey the traffic rules. People basically were crossing walking on a scooter, I will tell you. People riding their bicycles, I think, have been clued in that the vehicle gives them a lot more room than regular human drivers are. They were almost oblivious when a robotaxie almost maybe they're side of relief, I don't know they kind of knew that they'd be given more space so they just kind of took that space. It was just very interesting experience because I was laughing sometimes and then I was just truly shocked. I was like wow, there's literally no one paying attention. So is it just a matter of time before they just bump into each other or they bump into a person walking on the street? It was really interesting. Most people crossing the street, except for maybe a handful, were looking at their phones crossing the street. They didn't even give me any eye attention. So I think no one is paying attention anymore and it's just somehow we're all kind of moving in this time and space. But I mean there's been tragedies in speaking of San Francisco. I think it was two weeks ago. A young child and a father. They were killed crossing the Caltrain crossing the Forth and King station and they were just crossing in the street. So this is deadly. We need to figure this out, not to say that technology can fix this, but we're just no one's paying attention anymore.

Josiah: 15:15

I couldn't agree more. It does shock me as I'm going around San Francisco and it's true for any city but how many people are on their phones, and the cultural reasons for that probably exceed the time that we have to talk about today. But I want to talk about the safety piece because, I agree, I feel safer when I see one of these moving through the streets than somebody who is, more than likely than not, on their phones. I guess my question for you is how do we change public opinion to accelerate adoption if we believe this is good? You mentioned we're still going through an experimentation phase, but how do we maybe correct some of the misconceptions around this and help you understand? This is what it does, this is the outcome, so on.

Timothy: 15:56

Yeah, I mean there's been some issues, right. So the Cruise vehicles have had some issues where they have not been performing as well as they, the people, expected into. There's been some network issues, for example. There's been some connectivity issues. So all those things need to be lined up and they will be over time, and I think there's been less of that for way more. The regulatory authority, for example, has not said anything about way more than Waymo's been doing pretty good job on this stuff. So there is a difference between way more and Cruise in terms of how they've been perceived by the, at least by the public authorities and the regulatory bodies. From the public perspective, I think that maybe have a difference of opinion. I may see both as the same. I think we need to do is really we need to be a lot more engaging with the public about what is the purpose of of robotaxis, what is the value? and benefit to the system. How do they work better in a system that we have right now and then also being a bit realistic as well, like In a what we call a mixed fleet environment, where some cars are driven by computers, most cars are driven by humans? We have a cultural phenomenon of where most people are not paying attention and if they are not following the law, the laws, exactly when is the computers following the law and the rules to the letter, right? So that will create hiccups. For example, it won't speed, it won't road rage, it won't tell gay, it won't do like weird uterns, it won't do things that may potentially free up the traffic flow. It makes you slow things down. So we just need to be very clear about what are the current capabilities of the robotex system, what are its goals and opportunities, what are the issues that we're dealing with and how to do them transparently and work together with the, with both government, the startups themselves, the companies and the public, and maybe academia, because they do a lot of research in the space and start figuring out what's the benchmarks, what are the, what are the must haves to start this operation and going. They've been given the green light by the state regulatory authority. The city doesn't agree that decision. So Public agency and public agency are not on the same page. So first things first is that we need to get all of the public agencies aligned and have a very clear narrative of like, what are we doing, why we're doing this, and then have the corporations aligned and then have the public sector. The public sector and the private sector work together. So the public here's a consistent measure, because they're hearing mixed messages right now. They're super safe, they're not safe. They're super reliable, they're unreliable, like it's all, it's a, it's very binary right now and there's something in the middle where the truth is lying somewhere in the middle. So we just need to have that moment where it's funny to do is when I was the chief innovation officer bring in the public sector, the project together, have the two hands like David must be like a true touch and join and actually have those hard conversations about what is this for, what problem are we solving for and how does this benefit society. And then what does this look like as we roll it out? I think that hasn't happened enough, honestly, and I think that's where there's a lot of confusion, there's a lot of misinformation, there's a lot of disinformation going on and there's just a lot of skepticism, which, frankly, is healthy. But when you don't have everything in one place, you kind of just fill in the gaps. And you know a colleague of mine and say you know it without data. You have anecdotes and anecdotes. Anybody can make those up, right. So I have just as many people who posted on my post saying I had a terrible experience and I was like, well, that was you. I wrote them for a couple of days and a couple of dozen rides and I had a really flawless experience. Now, that's how it should be, you know we call it. In the AV world, it should be extraordinarily ordinary, right, we want to have things to be extraordinarily ordinary, which is like all the magic of AV technology, giving me a basically a neutral, benign ride. It shouldn't be anything other than yeah. I summoned it. It worked and I got out. Should be, I got like that right, so yeah.

Josiah: 19:49

Yeah, that's really interesting, tim, at the beginning of our conversation we talked a little bit about some of the opportunities, but I want to spend a couple more minutes talking about that and specifically the kind of future of autonomous transit Might mean for the future of living and working. as you mentioned out, there's a lot of experimentation going on, but you've been a leader in the space for a long time, so I'm curious either kind of the opportunities you see or the things that you hope for in this area as it impacts how we traverse our cities.

Timothy: 20:17

Yeah, it's a very interesting thing that we're dealing with. So it's not going to happen tomorrow, it's going to happen over time and what we're hoping to see is that, with AV technology as we roll it out for moving people and moving things, it's going to free up a lot of space in our cities, our cities, half of our private space, frankly, is taken up by parking for cars. Half of our public space is taken up by roads and on-street parking. The reason we have so much parking is because we've created single-family zoning and we've created single-use zoning, and then everybody needs to drive everywhere, so everyone has to have their own car. Most cities have four to six spaces per resident, per owner of a car, right, so it's a crazy amount of space. So if we have a robotaxi fleet that is big enough and dense enough that can move a single person, two people or even 20 people on a bus, we should be able to free up enough space in cities that we can actually add a lot more housing, a lot more development, a lot more public spaces, gardens, parks, what do you name it? More bike lanes, more bus lanes. All those things can be done at a pace where the technology can actually show and deliver those changes over time. By the way, cities are also growing right. Three quarters will be urbanized in the next 25 years, so we need to free up that space regardless. Now. Do we need AV technology to be the catalyst to do that? No, there's plenty of ways we can do that ourselves. Unfortunately, it's politically hard to do. It's one of the most expensive things to do politically is to give up space that was given to private cars over to the two bikes, transit walking, et cetera. It's also very difficult to change the zoning ordinances to have them no parking requirement, because you can build buildings without any parking. The banks won't give you the financing for that because they're using models of that suburban nature. So there is this need for some kind of technology or data-driven approach to basically show that you can do all these changes. So they're the huge opportunities from a long-term perspective. So the winners may not be the AV technology companies or the technology itself. The winners may be the real estate industry, because there's a huge bonanza for the real estate opportunity. Also, from a hospitality perspective, there's a huge win If you can free up a lot of space in the hospitality space for things to come to you and for robots to serve your patrons. You now have a huge differential in terms of your margins and the cost per visit, et cetera, et cetera. So all the metrics that you guys use in the industry. They all of a sudden become much broader and deeper and the value chain becomes much broader as well. So automation while we see the vehicles of rubber taxes as the first indicator species, this is a meta change across all industries. So think of it from a perspective of how much space do hotels need for parking, for guest parking, for any new cars that they have in the space, versus having nothing, just a curb? All you'll need is the curb and a valet space, and this now you're serving multiple customers. You also now can repurpose your land. You can add more hotel rooms to your site and still with the confines of your existing land. So you may end up having 50% more hotel rooms or 50% more visitors on the same plot because of automation, regardless of whether or not it's actually designed for your service or not, it's just very physically changing the real estate equation. So there's a lot there. We're going to change laws, we're going to change rules. We are not going to need those Anduans chases anymore. We're not going to need half of our legal system. So many things are in our subsidy system that we put in place and subsidized transport so that driving is easy. But most of that will go away. We won't need as much parking anymore. We won't need as much fuel, for example. Things are moving to electric. We're changing so much of our overall education system as well. Hardly anyone will get driving license anymore. I mean, those things are huge changes, so we're going to see a lot of things. Again not going to happen tomorrow, but it's going to happen in a series of 10, 15, 20 years.

Josiah: 24:21

It's super exciting as you're talking about this. If I think about this, hospitality obviously happens from the built environment and as we think about what the future of our cities and our communities can look like, you think about all those ugly parking decks and what those could be repurposed, as it's really really exciting. So, Tim, thanks so much for taking some time to walk through this with us.