“Rethinking mobility has to be one of our priorities as a society,” Alexandre Taillefer remarked during his September 27 visit to the Chamber of Commerce of Metropolitan Montreal. As part of Semaines de la mobilité 2017 (mobility weeks), the former Dragon laid out his vision for the future of sustainable mobility. The inspired senior partner at XPND Capital believes that mobility is one of the greatest opportunities that Québec has seen since the nationalization of energy.
Here are three key things to take away from his visit to the Chamber.
Four indicators to track
Alexandre Taillefer sees a roadmap that involves four indicators to build objectives around by 2025 to make sustainable mobility a priority in Québec and increase the modal share of public transit in Greater Montréal from 23% to 35%.
First he wants to reduce the number of cars per household in Québec from 1.8 to 1. And he thinks that residents of municipalities with a population over 20,000 should have access to an efficient public transit system in one form or another.
He hopes that by 2025, travel by public transit at rush hour will be as fast as or faster than solo car travel, under better conditions. And when it comes to active transportation, Alexandre Taillefer would like every individual, whether children or adults, to walk or bike for 30 minutes a day to get around.
The Téo Taxi founder adds three objectives to these four indicators:
- A “zero fatality” objective for pedestrians and cyclists in accidents involving cars or trucks by 2020.
- The prohibition of the sale of gas-powered vehicles by 2030, with a 100% electric car fleet by 2040.
- The prohibition of the sale of traditional combustion engine trucks by 2030, to have all trucks equipped with green engines.
Six priorities to get us there
To achieve his ambitious objectives, Alexandre Taillefer proposes six areas of action.
- Review the structure of the Ministère des Transports et de la Mobilité durable and how the Government of Québec takes action on mobility
- Reorganize transportation systems, with better cooperation among public transit companies and centralized data to better plan investments
- Optimize merchandise shipping and the logistics chains
- Introduce a single method of payment for all modes of transportation in Greater Montréal (taxi, metro, bus, REM, BIXI, car sharing and commuter trains)
- Review the business model of transportation companies to balance the contribution of the public and private sectors
- Ask the private sector to better organize, particularly through the new Industrial Cluster for Electric and Smart Vehicles, for which Alexandre Taillefer sits on the board of directors.
New projects for Téo
In addition to presenting his vision of the future for sustainable mobility and ways to maximize results, Alexandre Taillefer took advantage of his forum at the Chamber to offer an update on Téo Taxi, launched before the Montréal business community in November 2015.
In two years, Téo made almost 600,000 trips, and its 100% electric cars have travelled 9 million kilometres.
Two new components of Téo are currently under development. First, Téo Express, which will offer a last-kilometre merchandise delivery service that is also 100% electric. Then Téo Cargo, which will promote a 100% electric truck shipping service between Montréal and Toronto.