Prefiguration of a Mobility Factory on the African continent
The Mobility Factory is an NGO whose objective is to bring together anyone wishing to share their knowledge or their activity, to promote the emergence and operational adoption of commonalities to build sustainable, efficient and inclusive mobilities.
Overview of the project
The Mobility Factory was first involved in various projects with an international scope with major actors of international technical and financial cooperation: DigitalTransport4Africa resource center, animation of the mobility community of the Digital Africa project, open data-open source training in transport in Kenitra.
In order to prefigure a Mobility Factory on the African continent, the FabMob is currently seeking to understand the ecosystem in place, the mobility, digital and open source actors and the challenges of local mobility paradigms:
- It has carried out an inventory of GTFS (General Transit Feed Specification) data production initiatives on the African continent: the objective has been to report on and understand the partnership dynamics present in the various projects in which these productions have taken place to begin to identify the actors in the mobility ecosystem in different African countries and to draw up an initial map of the actors invested in projects that articulate open source and mobilities, as well as to analyze the relevance of the use of digital, open source and open data in these contexts. This work also contributes to the understanding of the role and impact of informal transport in transport networks.
- In addition, it structures and finances the experimentation of a project to develop a cooperation of electric motorcycle cabs in Dar Es Salaam (Tanzania). This project consists of a 3-level improvement, based on organizational and technical changes: Replacement of thermal motorcycles by electric motorcycles with interchangeable batteries, improving local air quality and reducing noise; Structuring of a driver cooperative to share the electric motorcycle fleet and reduce maintenance and management costs; Implementation of an open source digital platform to simplify ordering a ride. The main objectives are to demonstrate the value of a cooperative to run entrepreneurial mobility projects and share resources, learn how to set up a cooperative from a social and financial point of view but also in terms of communication and pedagogy, learn how to use an open source digital platform, identify communities in Tanzania and other countries to replicate and use the deliverables.
- We also conduct interviews with members of her network who are studying and working on mobilities in Africa.
The contexts of high urbanization growth and low investment capacity of public authorities that characterize African countries are an opportunity to push the deployment of open source and digital commons and mobilities to rapidly evolve this field; and this is why the Mobility Factory France is working on the prefiguration of a Mobility Factory on the continent.
Ongoing research
Project still in progress
The first elements of definition of a Mobility Factory on the African continent have been identified:
- It is necessary that it be led by an African actor or network.
- An interlocutor is needed to bring coherence to the actions of international actors such as CODATU, MYC, ADEME international, in terms of commonalities, shared tools
- Skills are required on data, standards and software, supported by MobilityData/FabMob, to continue the update of DigitalTransport4Africa and the use of wiki, gitlab.
- It should be in strong relationship with the project leaders and rely on the OpenData/OSM communities to identify local needs.
- It should be linked with various African interlocutors such as fablab, makerspace.
- A good understanding of the mobility challenges supported by FabMobs on the African continent is necessary.
- A production of open resources is necessary; it can be based on the numerous commonalities listed on the Mobility Factory wiki
Co-financing by the French Development Agency (AFD), the Agency for Ecological Transition (ADEME) and own funds.
organisation
The Mobility Factory is an association whose objective is to bring together anyone wishing to pool their knowledge or their activity, with a goal other than sharing financial benefits, in order to promote the emergence and operational adoption of commonalities (open and shared resources) to build sustainable, efficient and inclusive mobility, for all stakeholders in the ecosystem: industries, laboratories, local authorities, schools, startups, clusters, customers, users, developers, etc.
Its mission is to :
- Contribute to the evolution of mobility practices on a large scale through open models;
- Unite public and private players in the mobility sector in a common culture of open innovation;
- Encourage the emergence of open and sustainable resources in the field of mobility;
- Encourage the diffusion of the “FabMob” model beyond the mobility sector and abroad. Its main role is to lead innovation programs, events, training and to carry out innovative projects in the field of sustainable mobility. It assists all mobility stakeholders in identifying, producing and using open and shared resources by leading the ecosystem and communities of interest in its network. It also produces methodologies, tools, software and hardware bricks, and cultural changes in the way we work together.
Today, the Fabrique des Mobilités France is an attractive model with maturity and expertise. It has the capacity to support the emergence of new factories in other fields (energy, health, logistics) but also in other geographical areas.
- Ynstant,
- La Rochelle Agglomeration,
- Agency of Innovation for Transport,
- Alpes Maritimes Department.