14 January 2021, 6pm: Webinar: “Is Micromobility the future of urban transportation or just a fad?”
This 90-minute panel debate was jointly hosted by the UCD Energy Institute (https://energyinstitute.ucd.ie/) and the Chartered Institution of Highways and Transportation (CIHT) Ireland (https://www.ciht.org.uk/about-us/international-groups/republic-of-ireland/).
Recording now available here.
Chair
Dr. Páraic Carroll (Assistant Professor in the School of Civil Engineering, University College Dublin)
Panellists
- Charlie Gleeson: Founder & CEO of Zipp Mobility (https://zippmobility.com/)
- Hugh Cooney: CEO of Bleeper (https://bleeperbike.com/)
- Luke Mackey: Country Manager of Bolt (https://bolt.eu/en/)
- Dr. Anne de Bortoli: Research Affiliate at Ecole des Ponts ParisTech/Université Gustave Eiffel and Research Scientist at Eurovia Management (https://www.eurovia.com/en)
- Cllr Maeve O’Connell: Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council (https://www.finegael.ie/our-people/councillors/dublin/dun-laoghaire-rathdown/stillorgan/maeve-oconnell/)
To frame this panel discussion are the following questions & topics:
– What are the benefits that micromobility presents to urban areas?
– Dispelling the myths and discussing the facts about micromobility
– What are the challenges and obstacles to wider private and shared micromobility adoption (e.g. the safety and environmental considerations)?
– Micromobility legalisation in Ireland
Information on the Moderator and Panel:
Dr. Páraic Carroll – Assistant Professor in the School of Civil Engineering, University College Dublin
Dr. Páraic Carroll is an Assistant Professor in the School of Civil Engineering, where his teaching and research focus is Transportation Engineering. He is a member of the UCD Energy Institute and the Chartered Institution of Highways and Transportation (CIHT) Ireland. He is currently investigating the potential that micromobility holds for enhancing accessibility to public transport services for first and last mile trips. (https://people.ucd.ie/paraic.carroll)
Charlie Gleeson – Founder and CEO of Zipp Mobility
About the Company: Zipp are a Dublin based scooter sharing company founded in 2019. Last year they raised €1.1 million in seed funding and launched their service in three UK cities with 4 more schemes to be rolled out in Q1 2021. This year, Zipp plan to increase their UK market share as well as lead the Irish e-scooter sharing market. They currently employ 20 people across Ireland and the UK.
About the Founder: Charlie (25) is a recent UCD BComm graduate with experience in both asset management and corporate finance.
Luke Mackey – Country Manager at Bolt
Luke Mackey is Country Manager at Bolt, Europe’s leading on-demand transportation platform with more than 30 million passengers in 150 countries. Previously, Luke founded multiple startups in the consumer technology space.
Hugh Cooney – CEO of Bleeper
Hugh is a chartered accountant. He worked in China from 2005 to 2010, while on a visit back to China in 2016 he came across the first iteration of station less bike sharing. He set-up Bleeper in 2017 to bring a more European approach to the stationless bike sharing model that first emerged in China. Today they have 800 bikes on-street across Dublin.
Dr. Anne de Bortoli – Research Scientist at Ecole des Ponts ParisTech & Eurovia (VINCI)
Anne de Bortoli is an engineer and doctor in transport specialized in quantitative models to assess the sustainability of transport components. She is a research affiliate at Ecole des Ponts ParisTech and a research scientist in eco-design at Eurovia (VINCI)
Councillor Maeve O’Connell – Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council
Maeve is a qualified barrister and also holds an MBA. She is a lecturer in Ethics, Governance and Law at TUDublin (formerly DIT), and is also a local Peace Commissioner. Previously she worked extensively in the private sector for various multinational companies including Diageo, Wyeth, Kerry and Cadbury.