[Music]
when I say local government what is the
first thing that comes to mind shut it
out corruption any others slow yes
what about innovation no we must think
that innovation is where our local
government is where innovation goes to
die is that fair well I want you to
think about this question as I tell you
the story about one small town that
decided to use ride-sharing to power its
public transit system so about two years
ago I was driving along one of our rural
roads and I saw this woman walking along
on the the dirt shoulder and I you know
your mind sometimes reminds you of
things I think I had seen her before
walking in the same direction around the
same time so this time I pulled over and
I said would you like a ride and she
said yeah I’d really appreciate that I’m
on my way to my local grocery store for
my four-hour shift so I should sir hop
in turns out Joanne does this three or
four times a week she can’t drive
because her car’s broken down she
doesn’t have a bike and there’s no local
bus in town so she walks seven
kilometres four miles to work for a four
hour shift and back again our town is
about the size of Mississauga so it’s
quite large but it only has 36,000
people so it’s fairly spread out when I
got to work I couldn’t get Joanne’s
predicament out of my mind how could we
connect these cars that are whipping up
and down our rural roads with the people
that need to get from point A to point B
so I put a challenge to our team I said
guys gals we got to do something about
this what can we do and of course our
first thought was well will reintroduce
hitchhiking worked in the 60s you know
you can see the slogan peace love and
public transit
we sort of thought it maybe wasn’t gonna
be the safest way of traveling so then
we kept doing some research and some
brainstorming and of course we figured
out that ride-sharing was already
connecting the demand for a ride with
the cars that were going in the same
direction so shortly after the town of
Innisfail Ontario Canada launched what
we understand to be a global first a
public transit system actually powered
by uber we call it in a still transit so
how does it work well you open up your
spot you take out your smartphone you
put in an address of where you want to
go and the the app knows that you’re
within the town so it actually gives you
the Innisfil transit option on your
phone really simple ahead of the uberx
you click confirm’ Innisfil transit you
pay your $3 for your credit card or a
prepaid uber card and you travel to your
destination door-to-door in comfort and
sometimes in style
pretty simple right then once a month
uber sends us a bill sends the town of
bill and the bill is our subsidy so we
write a cheque to burr and that’s it
pretty simple I so but when I talk to
people about this you know the first
there’s lots of concerns that come up
and people say well is it really better
than traditional transit so I want you
to come with a journey come on a journey
with me and let’s compare the two
systems we’re gonna use this really
sophisticated chart to keep track of
which system is better based on the
criteria that we apply ok ready all
right let’s talk about affordability so
from a user perspective in traditional
transit you’d pay sort of 2 to 3 bucks
to get around town in Innisfil transit
you pay 3 to 5 dollars to go to our key
destinations those are things like the
library the recreation center and
everywhere else you get a $5 discount
off the standard uberx price
so from an affordability perspective I
think Innisfil transit is pretty close
but traditional transit probably still
kind of gets the point there from a
convenience perspective which one’s
better well in traditional transit you
have service every 30 minutes or so
there’s limited number of routes there’s
a couple of bus stops you probably
travel indirectly to get to where you
want to go right
sometimes you have to transfer one or
two times well with Innisfil transit you
have the power of transit in your pocket
on demand real time you wait about an
average of less than 10 minutes for the
car to show up to your door and then you
travel to your destination pretty
convenient right be hard to get more
convenient I think than Innisfil transit
what about from an accessibility
perspective well in in traditional
transit hopefully you have a fully
accessible bus that can accommodate all
kinds of mobility challenges in Innisfil
transit the town partnered with a taxi
company that actually has fully
accessible vehicles so you also get that
accessibility for mobility perspective
but accessibility is not only about
physical challenges it’s also about how
you access the system so what happens if
you don’t have a smart phone well in the
initial transits case you call the town
and the customer service department can
book you a ride once you set up an
account with them so from an
accessibility perspective I think
Innisfil transit takes it as well what
about from a subsidy perspective well in
traditional transit to have a
north-south east-west route with two
buses it was gonna cost the town about
six hundred thousand dollars a year in
Innisfil transit the first year subsidy
was a hundred and fifty thousand dollars
now I gotta take a little sidebar here
in government we don’t ask ourselves
very often what happens if we succeed
beyond our wildest imagination it is
that is not
it’s not something we talk about very
often or consider but in this case think
about this for a minute we launched it
we’re into our second year now we have
7500 rides happening every month next
year we’re projecting 90,000 rides in
Innisfail through Innisfail transit so
our subsidy has grown it’s now 500
thousand dollars but it still it’s still
cheaper than traditional transit but
look at the system you get what about
data this is always a concern right when
we talk about public-private
partnerships who owns the data where’s
the data where is it transferred to so
in traditional transit you know small
transit systems have limited data
especially limited data that you can do
anything with in real time with Innisfil
transit we actually have what I like to
call the power of Silicon Valley
analytics with our friends at uber so
they’re doing fraud detection they’re
responding to demands in real time so
that we can deploy more vehicles if we
need to even coming in from outside of
the municipality into Innisfail to date
we’ve had 1,400 unique drivers working
in Ennis ville in our small town so from
a data perspective I think it’s pretty
cool and you know still transit gets
that point to what about from an
environmental perspective well look
there’s no doubt that if you have a full
bus that’s the most effective from an
environmental perspective the problem is
how many of you live in small towns
where you see the bus going by and
there’s almost nobody in it it’s quite a
common problem
so in Innisfil transit we encourage carp
or sorry ride pooling and this is where
you actually share your ride with
somebody else
not just the driver now we’re only at
about 10% of our rides that are pooling
right now but we’re trying we’re working
with uber to try to increase that number
because we think those kind of social
collisions are actually really important
they help create in a small town sort of
a get to know your neighbor kind of
opportunity because you might not talk
to somebody on a bus across the the
hallway but you might talk to somebody
who’s sitting next to you in your
Innisfil trans
right but overall from an environmental
perspective let’s call it even in our
oversimplified discussion today so what
do you think overall in as’ll transits
not bad eh it’s meeting our needs in the
town we think today definitely better
than traditional transit so if that’s
true how do we apply this thinking to
other areas of local government well I
think it starts by trying to raise the
bar of what we expect from government
you know what if we actually imagined
government iterating and piloting and
testing creative solutions what if we
expected innovation as a need to have in
local government rather than a
nice-to-have well three things would
have to happen I think to make this
possible
the first is ladies and gentlemen we
need to be more forgiving you know the
truth is we live in a political
environment today where if somebody
makes a mistake I mean you might as well
disconnect from social media for fear of
the Twitterverse wrath that’s going to
come down on you and it’s probably 12
people but it feels like a lot more you
know innovation sometimes means failure
so we have to get comfortable with that
we have to fail fast and learn and
forgive secondly we need to do more
research and development in government
the private sector does a really good
job of this
but in government we’re still learning
how to do it and you know innovation
doesn’t usually come from a lightning
bolt idea it usually is born out of
really hard work with interdisciplinary
minds working together to try to solve a
difficult intractable problem that’s not
free third and perhaps most complicated
is I think we need to reimagine the
mission of local government you know
we’ve had the mission and local
government of trying to be the best
place to live work and play it’s a great
goal but it’s hard to measure if you’re
succeeding I think we actually have to
reimagine what the mission looks like
you know to take one small example what
if our mission at local government
looked more like the Tesla mission
accelerate the world’s transition to
sustainable energy Tesla’s mission isn’t
they make a nice car that’s really good
to go to work home and the soccer field
with it’s actionable its bold it
actually improves quality of life
what if our local governments mission
actually looked more like this
accelerate local governments transition
from delivering basic services to
delivering tangible life improvements if
you think of the Innisfil transit
example you know we were able to give
people back time by dramatically
reducing their travel time within the
town we were able to give them back
money by having flat fees and capping
the tax rate or the tax subsidy that
would go into the system we were also
able to facilitate health by getting
people to the doctor getting people to
the grocery store to have fresh food
overall we’re hoping that we actually
increased people’s happiness maybe they
were able to get to their lover you know
and didn’t have another way you know the
truth is if we use this kind of a
mission for our local government we
expect them to give us back time and
money and facilitate our health our
wellness and our happiness what would
that look like
let’s make local government the place
where innovation goes to thrive not to
die thank you
you [Music]
when I say local government what is the
first thing that comes to mind shut it
out corruption any others slow yes
what about innovation no we must think
that innovation is where our local
government is where innovation goes to
die is that fair well I want you to
think about this question as I tell you
the story about one small town that
decided to use ride-sharing to power its
public transit system so about two years
ago I was driving along one of our rural
roads and I saw this woman walking along
on the the dirt shoulder and I you know
your mind sometimes reminds you of
things I think I had seen her before
walking in the same direction around the
same time so this time I pulled over and
I said would you like a ride and she
said yeah I’d really appreciate that I’m
on my way to my local grocery store for
my four-hour shift so I should sir hop
in turns out Joanne does this three or
four times a week she can’t drive
because her car’s broken down she
doesn’t have a bike and there’s no local
bus in town so she walks seven
kilometres four miles to work for a four
hour shift and back again our town is
about the size of Mississauga so it’s
quite large but it only has 36,000
people so it’s fairly spread out when I
got to work I couldn’t get Joanne’s
predicament out of my mind how could we
connect these cars that are whipping up
and down our rural roads with the people
that need to get from point A to point B
so I put a challenge to our team I said
guys gals we got to do something about
this what can we do and of course our
first thought was well will reintroduce
hitchhiking worked in the 60s you know
you can see the slogan peace love and
public transit
we sort of thought it maybe wasn’t gonna
be the safest way of traveling so then
we kept doing some research and some
brainstorming and of course we figured
out that ride-sharing was already
connecting the demand for a ride with
the cars that were going in the same
direction so shortly after the town of
Innisfail Ontario Canada launched what
we understand to be a global first a
public transit system actually powered
by uber we call it in a still transit so
how does it work well you open up your
spot you take out your smartphone you
put in an address of where you want to
go and the the app knows that you’re
within the town so it actually gives you
the Innisfil transit option on your
phone really simple ahead of the uberx
you click confirm’ Innisfil transit you
pay your $3 for your credit card or a
prepaid uber card and you travel to your
destination door-to-door in comfort and
sometimes in style
pretty simple right then once a month
uber sends us a bill sends the town of
bill and the bill is our subsidy so we
write a cheque to burr and that’s it
pretty simple I so but when I talk to
people about this you know the first
there’s lots of concerns that come up
and people say well is it really better
than traditional transit so I want you
to come with a journey come on a journey
with me and let’s compare the two
systems we’re gonna use this really
sophisticated chart to keep track of
which system is better based on the
criteria that we apply ok ready all
right let’s talk about affordability so
from a user perspective in traditional
transit you’d pay sort of 2 to 3 bucks
to get around town in Innisfil transit
you pay 3 to 5 dollars to go to our key
destinations those are things like the
library the recreation center and
everywhere else you get a $5 discount
off the standard uberx price
so from an affordability perspective I
think Innisfil transit is pretty close
but traditional transit probably still
kind of gets the point there from a
convenience perspective which one’s
better well in traditional transit you
have service every 30 minutes or so
there’s limited number of routes there’s
a couple of bus stops you probably
travel indirectly to get to where you
want to go right
sometimes you have to transfer one or
two times well with Innisfil transit you
have the power of transit in your pocket
on demand real time you wait about an
average of less than 10 minutes for the
car to show up to your door and then you
travel to your destination pretty
convenient right be hard to get more
convenient I think than Innisfil transit
what about from an accessibility
perspective well in in traditional
transit hopefully you have a fully
accessible bus that can accommodate all
kinds of mobility challenges in Innisfil
transit the town partnered with a taxi
company that actually has fully
accessible vehicles so you also get that
accessibility for mobility perspective
but accessibility is not only about
physical challenges it’s also about how
you access the system so what happens if
you don’t have a smart phone well in the
initial transits case you call the town
and the customer service department can
book you a ride once you set up an
account with them so from an
accessibility perspective I think
Innisfil transit takes it as well what
about from a subsidy perspective well in
traditional transit to have a
north-south east-west route with two
buses it was gonna cost the town about
six hundred thousand dollars a year in
Innisfil transit the first year subsidy
was a hundred and fifty thousand dollars
now I gotta take a little sidebar here
in government we don’t ask ourselves
very often what happens if we succeed
beyond our wildest imagination it is
that is not
it’s not something we talk about very
often or consider but in this case think
about this for a minute we launched it
we’re into our second year now we have
7500 rides happening every month next
year we’re projecting 90,000 rides in
Innisfail through Innisfail transit so
our subsidy has grown it’s now 500
thousand dollars but it still it’s still
cheaper than traditional transit but
look at the system you get what about
data this is always a concern right when
we talk about public-private
partnerships who owns the data where’s
the data where is it transferred to so
in traditional transit you know small
transit systems have limited data
especially limited data that you can do
anything with in real time with Innisfil
transit we actually have what I like to
call the power of Silicon Valley
analytics with our friends at uber so
they’re doing fraud detection they’re
responding to demands in real time so
that we can deploy more vehicles if we
need to even coming in from outside of
the municipality into Innisfail to date
we’ve had 1,400 unique drivers working
in Ennis ville in our small town so from
a data perspective I think it’s pretty
cool and you know still transit gets
that point to what about from an
environmental perspective well look
there’s no doubt that if you have a full
bus that’s the most effective from an
environmental perspective the problem is
how many of you live in small towns
where you see the bus going by and
there’s almost nobody in it it’s quite a
common problem
so in Innisfil transit we encourage carp
or sorry ride pooling and this is where
you actually share your ride with
somebody else
not just the driver now we’re only at
about 10% of our rides that are pooling
right now but we’re trying we’re working
with uber to try to increase that number
because we think those kind of social
collisions are actually really important
they help create in a small town sort of
a get to know your neighbor kind of
opportunity because you might not talk
to somebody on a bus across the the
hallway but you might talk to somebody
who’s sitting next to you in your
Innisfil trans
right but overall from an environmental
perspective let’s call it even in our
oversimplified discussion today so what
do you think overall in as’ll transits
not bad eh it’s meeting our needs in the
town we think today definitely better
than traditional transit so if that’s
true how do we apply this thinking to
other areas of local government well I
think it starts by trying to raise the
bar of what we expect from government
you know what if we actually imagined
government iterating and piloting and
testing creative solutions what if we
expected innovation as a need to have in
local government rather than a
nice-to-have well three things would
have to happen I think to make this
possible
the first is ladies and gentlemen we
need to be more forgiving you know the
truth is we live in a political
environment today where if somebody
makes a mistake I mean you might as well
disconnect from social media for fear of
the Twitterverse wrath that’s going to
come down on you and it’s probably 12
people but it feels like a lot more you
know innovation sometimes means failure
so we have to get comfortable with that
we have to fail fast and learn and
forgive secondly we need to do more
research and development in government
the private sector does a really good
job of this
but in government we’re still learning
how to do it and you know innovation
doesn’t usually come from a lightning
bolt idea it usually is born out of
really hard work with interdisciplinary
minds working together to try to solve a
difficult intractable problem that’s not
free third and perhaps most complicated
is I think we need to reimagine the
mission of local government you know
we’ve had the mission and local
government of trying to be the best
place to live work and play it’s a great
goal but it’s hard to measure if you’re
succeeding I think we actually have to
reimagine what the mission looks like
you know to take one small example what
if our mission at local government
looked more like the Tesla mission
accelerate the world’s transition to
sustainable energy Tesla’s mission isn’t
they make a nice car that’s really good
to go to work home and the soccer field
with it’s actionable its bold it
actually improves quality of life
what if our local governments mission
actually looked more like this
accelerate local governments transition
from delivering basic services to
delivering tangible life improvements if
you think of the Innisfil transit
example you know we were able to give
people back time by dramatically
reducing their travel time within the
town we were able to give them back
money by having flat fees and capping
the tax rate or the tax subsidy that
would go into the system we were also
able to facilitate health by getting
people to the doctor getting people to
the grocery store to have fresh food
overall we’re hoping that we actually
increased people’s happiness maybe they
were able to get to their lover you know
and didn’t have another way you know the
truth is if we use this kind of a
mission for our local government we
expect them to give us back time and
money and facilitate our health our
wellness and our happiness what would
that look like
let’s make local government the place
where innovation goes to thrive not to
die thank you
you [Music]
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