“Mobility” has been used to describe everything from shared bikes and scooters to mass transit to walking to the ability of people to simply get around. If someone outside the industry asked, how would you define “mobility”?

That’s the question we posed to our Ask the Experts panel for the February 2022 issue of Parking & Mobility, and the answers we got were quite insightful. A few additional thoughts we loved:

• “The range of options any given person may convey themselves from point A to point B at any given time. As Mobility pertains to our industry, we strive to solve for the myriad of individual circumstances which vary based on economic status, geographic location, available time, physical mobility, and weather, among other variables.” – Ben Wesley,  CAPP, market president Nashville, Premium Parking.
• “Often, I think we mistake mobility for accessibility.  The difference between the two concepts is simple: Mobility is how far you can go in a given amount of time (how far you travel to go to work or visit a place of business).  Accessibility is how much you can get to in that time (access to different modes of transportation, or parking spaces once you have arrived).”   Katherine Beaty, vice president of implementation, TEZ Technology.
• “While the generic definition of ‘mobility’ can have a multitude of industry meanings, in my world, it’s primarily providing alternative transportation and environmentally friendly solutions and methods to the general public in an effort to help shift individual (single occupancy) vehicle driving behavior.  Also, it’s providing the public with the policies, education, and networks necessary to encourage and promote the adoption of new/alternate modes of travel.” – Scott Bauman, CAPP, manager of parking & mobility services, City of Aurora, CO
• “Mobility is everything that happens from A to B. It is the series of intentional choices users make to transport themselves or their goods to a destination. The term mobility allows us to describe an ever-evolving landscape that adds new modes methods daily.”  – Casey Jones, CAPP, director, customer success, FLASH Parking.

Read from more our experts in February’s magazine. Interested in joining our panel as an expert? Email Melissa Rysak.