As the third stage in our research and preparation for the Mobility Laboratory Workshop we have compressed a number of the emerging propositions and opportunities into a schematic narrative or scenario. The intention is to use this as a prototype or ‘first strike’ at ways of approaching the research material to begin to tease out a set of briefs or scripts for discussion and the eventual framing of a set of design studios:

Ella is running late. Ella is always running late. At 24 she feels like she is already running out of time. She has a major presentation to give at the office in the city this morning and she has a heavy pile of documents to carry. Normally, for commuting, she would use her active transport, her fold-up bikepod, because it is a great way to enjoy a spring morning, cycling through the leafy bike ways but today she will take social transport. Her mobile gives her an up-to-date real-time feed of all the transport options in the area, combined into a journey planner application. She SMS’s a feeder bus passing close to her home which drops her at her local transport hub. The network-wide, one-unit fare is deducted automatically via her mobile phone when she gets on the bus. The bustling hub is a great drop off point for kiss-and-riders and it has a massive, secure bike-park. Wifi enabled cafes, shops and a surrounding park, along with a government access counter, means you can pay your bills, drop off the dry cleaning and pick up dinner, all on your way through. Big ‘system-and-data-map’ graphics, some looking like digital graffiti, some like 3D shapes, provide constantly updated real-time transport information, and change the appearance of the building. Locally generated digital content creates a unique local character, making the hub a gateway to a neighbourhood identity. All neighbourhood transport networks use the hub and connection points are clearly identified. Social transport runs around the clock and wait times rarely exceed 5 minutes. As the light rail approaches she opts for the Café Carriage. As a moving, distributed location, the social transport network has been fully serviced-up like Melbourne’s lanes. The social transport network has also become a favourite site for new pop-up retail events, making the daily journey very diverting if that’s what you need. Commuters are often asked to participate in and score new experiences and this has also become a big part of the evening’s television. The yoga carriage is the latest addition, very popular with commuters from the outer suburbs.

Today, latte in hand and scanning the morning newspapers, Ella bumps into Paul. She hasn’t seen him for at least 2 months and its great to catch up on industry gossip. Paul has been away in the country for the weekend. His pride and joy is a silver, 1971 Ford GT-HO Phase 3. He won second prize in the Rolex Castlemaine Concours d’Elegance The concours, one of many across Australia, draws an annual crowd bigger than the grand final. Like the evolution of horse racing at the turn of the 20th Century, cars are now appropriately part of the art, culture and sport scenes, objects of fantasy and investment, not the backbone of the transport network. There is still a lot of passive transport around but it’s small, specialised; shopping buggies for mums with young kids, wheelchair-access-mobility pods for the elderly and speed-restricted local electric, modular transport trucks that make the last stage of deliveries and pick-ups from the rail networks. Getting fast trucks off the road was critical to bringing down the weight and size of all other road vehicles.

While Ella’s journey on the social transport network, across 3 vehicle types, take 20 minutes, she has used the time very effectively answering work e-mails, making appointments and preparing briefing notes for her colleagues. Like the Micronesian navigators, for whom the wide ocean was still a safe and predictable home, so for Ella, the social transport network is a controllable, comfortable and porous extension of home. Sometimes it’s like your den, sometimes like a back yard BBQ.

Arriving in town she meets up with 2 colleagues, Lisa and Peter, at the Finders Street Hub for a pre-work catch-up. Using a ‘ubiquitous city’ UbiGo kiosk they quickly checked out the upcoming Historical Survey of HipHop show at the NGV international and booked tickets to the 3D immersive New York Streets in 1973 movie. Using the 80 inch RFID enabled touch screen kiosk made a group booking and agreeing on where they should sit in the cinema a lot less painful than trying to do it on your iPhone. Lisa couldn’t resist the opportunity to upload a very beautiful graphic pattern she had been working on into the social space digital graffiti program. The hub’s digital lightwalls now played the pattern across the 20 metre high atrium space. Lisa was thrilled to see how the pattern looked at full scale. She was designing it for a digital set for a theatre production she was working on. Apart from the convenience and appealing bustle of these city spaces, they provided unequalled public access to the most sophisticated digital tools and communication. Like a digital version of the bounty and richness of the architecture and spectacles on show in ancient cities.

Ella heads off up Flinders Street to her office. Pedestrians criss-cross the boulevard between the trams, rickshaw cabs, single-person gyro-pods, bike pods, bicycles, active pods and compact speed restricted-speed electric delivery vehicles. Private passive transport no-longer has access to a lot of the CBD. Covered pedestrian travelators or moving pavements break up the longer stretches of the pavements on the main streets, if you are carrying stuff or don’t feel like walking. Carparking stations, connected to the inner ring of social transport hubs, accommodate city bound traffic. In fact the distance you once had to walk from your car park to your destination in the city is now only slightly greater except that now the streets have so much more amenity. Some streets have ULTra light electric rail cars running up the centre that operate only along the city grid. Extensive translucent wind and rain canopies create shielded environments and many have power generating wind turbines for the street lighting and digital information architecture. Some even have heaters. The city feels like a very lively, at times chaotic but inviting sprawling urban lounge room.

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