Work, Housing and Transport without private cars
The following outlines a proof of concept which could be applied to Brompton’s proposed new factory in Ashford, designed to be free from private cars.
Linking housing and work is not new*. But, if they are both car-free, new transport services are required to meet the same needs as met by the private cars currently owned by employees. Work, housing and transport all need to be linked.
*Bournville, Saltaire, Toyota City, Silicon Valley tech campuses and Tata’s Jamshedpur
There are some fundamental problems with developing transport:
-
New shared services need more than one user, each of whom currently owns a car which needs more than one new service to replace it. The complexity of this cannot be managed centrally
-
Only end-users know what transport their households need, another reason this cannot be managed centrally
-
If new services co-exist with the private cars of target users, costs are increased presenting a barrier to change
.png)
Transport Groups enable users and providers to establish compatible supply and demand on a decentralised network before changes, to car ownership and transport provision, are made on the ground.
Smart contracts are used to manage variable pay-per-use rates which combine the capital and running costs of interdependent new services. A simple example is shown in the diagram below, where a car commuter converts to e-bike and becomes compatible to share access to a car (carshare), with someone who needs a car on workdays.
-
A smart contract combines the cost of the bike with the pay-per-use rate for carshare
-
The capital cost of a cycle path, which has no pay-per-use rate, can be included in the rent of car-free housing. Tokens exchanged for this part of the rent can be used to issue and sell voluntary carbon credits.
.png)
Brompton’s proposed car-free factory in Ashford is an opportunity to develop Transport Groups that link work, housing and transport. The map below shows planned housing developments within cycling distance of the Brompton factory, all of which require new cycling infrastructure, bikes and access to carshare.
.png)
To complete this picture of sustainability, the new housing could also be affordable and meet Passivhaus standards. Employees who relocate could convert the value of their previous homes into tokenised shares of the housing development, with a guaranteed return.