Micro mobility services aim to offer people new and more convenient modes of transport, usually across urban areas. In order to achieve this they make use of public space to implement their infrastructure on, for example by allowing people to freely park a vehicle almost anywhere in the city. One can imagine that this has a major impact on how people use and live in public space, as micro mobility services influence the design of a street. Since this industry is growing every year, the society-wide impact it makes grows along. Therefore this project focuses on the role of micro mobility in public space, and the relationship these services and operators have with people.
This is done by making use of the ViP (Vision in Product Design) approach, where the present context is analysed and researched in order to distill trends and developments concerning the future of this context. This context consists of not just the different micro mobility services, but also other stakeholders such as citizens (both the micro mobility users and ‘non-users’), local governments, and of course public space. Eventually, a future world is envisioned for the year 2030. As this project also falls under the Critical Speculative Design-umbrella, this future world can be seen as a form of social critique on the current state of micro mobility, as well as the direction it is heading towards. Based on this critique, a new version of this future is composed that describes what is desirable.
The final design represents the shift from the ‘undesirable’ world to the ‘desirable’ world. It aims to first and foremost communicate a certain moral standpoint to the client Springtime Design, and should not be seen as a problem-solving proposal. This speculative design should rather be seen as a prop to facilitate discussion on the topic of micro mobility in public space, and what is important in its future.
Amby, as the final design is called, is an ownerless ambiguous vehicle that drives around autonomously in the city. As its features are ambiguous in their nature, it does not force people into a predefined system that determines their use behaviour. People can interpret Amby’s features, and assign meaning to the vehicle on their own. This enables them to control their own mobility in public space, as they can use Amby for anything they like. In its core, Amby represents a future of micro mobility that is more human-centered and democratic in the way it organises and designs itself. After all, public space is meant to be shared by everyone. It should not be compromised by corporates and local governments that exploit and capitalise on public space, as a consequence of striving for maximum profit and convenience.