How have pedestrian-friendly cities influenced a change in your career?

Importance of mobility

"How did Pedestrian-Friendly Cities influence a change in your career?" I've been working in mobility since I began my journey in the corporate world, and what I feel today,more than during my time at Europcar,is that with Bolt we're truly changing the way people move around,and how the new design of cities will impact our lives, not just mine, not just yours,but the lives of my children and everyone's.

They're small steps,but they're happening,and they depend on different countries,some more traditional, others less traditional.

Companies play a very important role in personal mobility,not only in corporate mobility,it ends up extending from the company to the person.

How?Because, objectively, we still have many companies,and this is something independent of the market where the car is part of a salary package,and objectively that car is part of a salary package,without there being a clear assessment of whether the person actually needs a car or not.

Meaning, the car market, for many years now,has been influencing this purchase through that benefit,because through that benefit,and depending on the country,there are also some tax exemptions,some tax incentives: people pay less tax if they have a company car benefit.

And honestly, even at Europcar,we already offered some flexibility,but now, especially at Bolt,our main mission is to explain to companies that this isn't really the right approach,nor the most efficient one,nor the most eco-friendly,and that, if they think about it carefully,that's not how they should want their people to move.

Meaning, people don't really need their own car.I often say,without meaning to offend anyone,that among all car categories, there’s one called the "utility car." There are cars with other kinds of names,but one is "utility." "Utility" comes from "user," and no one is excited to buy a utility car.

It's not like buying a phone,I mean, we buy a utility car because we need a car,there's no reason that utility car we need to use shouldn't be shared because there's no need for it to be ours.

We can buy another kind of car, because we like cars,because we want to have one,and that's a totally different approach.

And companies, frankly, most of the time,have utility cars.

Meaning, we can explain this to a company like...without naming brands,but big companies that, since forever, for 56 years,have been dealing with mobility in a very traditional way,and we see that.this change happen is very gratifying.

And we have already had several events, not only in Portugal, but in Spain, a lot in the Baltics,but also society in the Baltic zone and the Nordics are already much more evolved on this issue of no ownership, where they understand very well that this mobility is as shared as possible, and that companies are in fact game-changers, whether they want or don't want to be part of it.

And I think that increasingly we see those companies themselves, traditionally with many years,making this alteration, and that is visible.

In other words, there is a clear change in the market,there is a clear change in the European market that is being seen now, and that started in Portugal and Spain, where a person, if they have an accident, doesn't need a car, they can have shared mobility.

Something that didn't happen two or three years ago.

That started with us.It started with Bolt, selling a use case, explaining that mobility, for mobility's sake didn't have to be indexed to the car, because it doesn't have to be.

Because the use of that car itself makes no sense, due to the personal logistics of getting the car, leaving the car, it's not needed.

And whenever we do this, and whenever this happens gradually, this will have an impact on everyone's life.