Mobility Nation: provide knowledge to change urban mobility

First, could you tell us in a few words what is Mobility Nation?

Nils: Mobility Nation is a joint initiative bringing together key players of the mobility industry: public authorities, research institutes, large private companies and startups. The main objective is to build concrete recommendations for both public institutions and private stakeholders to help “Ile-de-France” be the first European agglomeration to reinvent its mobility by 2030. These recommendations will notably contribute to the public debate launched by the French Government in September 2017, in order to prepare the update of French transportation regulation in 2018.

Why did AXA join this initiative and what were you expecting from it?

Nils: In the context of the sharing economy and disruptive innovations like autonomous vehicles, our role will be to protect the mobility of customers more than just insure their cars.

As such, “Mobility Nation” presented a great opportunity to complement the large variety of work that AXA has already launched on the future of mobility and its implications. It allowed us to co-design a fact-based, holistic vision for one of Europe’s most vital cities, and problem-solve together with 18 other leading companies plus public transport organizations which ultimately will make the rules.

Indeed, Ile-de-France is one of the most dynamic European agglomerations, with huge mobility challenges (56% of inhabitants have difficulties every week in their mobility; around one third of CO2 emissions were related to road traffic). Therefore, it is a great area to develop cutting-edge solutions that we can bring to the market together with our partners. Instead of being a mere observer of what’s going to happen, we want to shape what the future of mobility will look like.

Could you describe some of the key outcomes and concrete actions defined by Mobility Nation?

Julien: We started by building a common vision of the Future of Mobility for the region. It is articulated around 3 technologic disruptions (connected mobility, zero-emission and autonomous driving) and 3 customer usage disruptions (on-Demand, sharing and “co-modal ”).

Based on this vision, we have defined concrete actions that we will collectively put in place, in order to accelerate and industrialize the implementation of those disruptions. Our goal is to change the mobility ecosystem of the Ile-de-France region before the Olympic Games in 2024, and target a full implementation of our vision by 2030.

In order to accelerate the adoption of the technological disruptions, we agreed to make all technical and vehicle data available in real time and in a standard format, so that any service provider can easily build new and personalized services – including innovative insurance services.

We have decided to define in 2018 a regulatory framework which will allow a quick and ambitious deployment of experimentations for autonomous vehicles and new types of mobility, as well as their financial protection.

We also believe that changing customer behaviors will require to design specific types of solutions for different areas of a city. For instance, in suburbs (where people commute) we want to enable more on-demand and sharing transportation, in addition to public transports.

We agreed to make “multi-modality” (i.e. using several types of mobility in one journey) more attractive, for instance by creating mobility hubs where it will be easier to switch from one solution to another. AXA may then provide insurance and assistance solutions specifically for these new customer journeys.

Finally, we also want to apply similar measures to re-invent business transport, as it plays a significant role in motor traffic in Ile-de-France.

All those measures will be implemented thanks to a strong operational collaboration between all mobility players, which is directly creating several partnership opportunities for AXA.

What could bring this initiative for the insurance industry, and more precisely for AXA?

Julien: The future of mobility will not be possible without insurance. While some risks may be reduced, others will remain and new risks - such as Cyber - will arise.

For AXA, it is essential to be proactive in the definition of this future and to create a strong network. This will offer us substantial new business opportunities and protect ourselves against certain - even if long-term - disruptions of the motor insurance business.