Other Personal Mobility Vehicle Uses

Another economic challenge for present vehicles to move people locally is that they only do one thing, move a person around. Thus they sit idle most of the time, getting in the way – if you have been to a senior facility you often see whole fleets of wheelchairs and motorized scooters clogging the halls.

So what else could we do with a Personal Mobility Vehicle?  I’ve already described a frequent local transportation use: taking people to dinner and bringing dinner to people, so let’s explore other possibilities.

Every day people like to gather at the mail center in Charlestown to collect their mail, chat with friends and neighbors, read items on the bulletin board, or just hang out. But sometimes you want your mail delivered to your apartment. There isn’t a good way to do that now, unless you can arrange with a friend or neighbor, which can be a nice time to visit in your own home.  A Personal Mobility Vehicle could bring you to the mail, or the mail to you.

There are the goodies you have ordered by shopping online, flowers from friends and family, books from the library, groceries, and other deliveries.  Medicines and other health needs are significant categories of essential deliveries – often you need them while you aren’t in a condition to go get them, and in the middle of the night.  Personal Mobility Vehicles could deliver all of these things easily.

Then there are all the transport needs for a thriving community: food deliveries to the food preparation systems, trash and other wastes, office supplies, moving people's furniture and other belongings, medical equipment and supplies, and so on – just watch the number of different trucks arriving and departing from a community, and you will see the size and complexity of these transport challenges.

Fortunately, these transport needs are spread out through the day, and also the night. Thus vehicles can be shared among all of them, substantially reducing the cost for each use.  Instead of 1/12 of the cost, as we calculated for the busiest dinner hour, we can approach the 1/48 of the day.

So if the Personal Mobility Vehicle cost $2,000, your share might be only $50, because of all the different applications.

Next I’ll explore reducing these costs even further, and making the system both more efficient  and more personal.