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Urban Innovate TALKS explores how cities, technology, and people shape the future of mobility. Hosted by Dr. Henriette Cornet, the series features conversations with global experts on autonomous vehicles, public transit, and the human side of innovation — including insights from pulsur, our AI platform for understanding public sentiment and travel behavior.
Henriette Cornet (00:14)
Hi William, nice to have you back with us on Urban Innovate Talks.
William Levassor (00:18)
on it and thank you for having me again
Henriette Cornet (00:22)
Again. So now it's great to have you because for the topic today, I think you're the best person to talk about it. we talk about it a lot in general when we meet on the impact that autonomous vehicles may have in the future and things we hear. And what I'd like to do with you is to debunk this idea, to speak about this idea. Is it true? Is there a reason for it?
We will dig into detail, but for those who don't know you yet, I think it would be great if you say a few words about yourself, what you're doing, where you are located, and after we can jump into the topic.
William Levassor (01:03)
Yeah, so nice to meet everyone. I'm William Levassor, I'm based in France. I worked first part in my career in the automotive industry. And now it's been actually I was thinking about it, it's been 10 years I'm in the AV industry, mainly on the operator side. So in the public transportation side, working on experimenting.
Henriette Cornet (01:21)
Yeah, I'm out.
William Levassor (01:29)
self-driving vehicles and building all the operation management system around it so operators and local operators can integrate this technology in their networks. they field solutions and control center solutions.
Henriette Cornet (01:42)
Yeah, yeah. Thanks.
Yeah, you say that you say the word and I think it's it's.
The audience should really know if they have questions about field operation, really what's happening on the ground. Actually, not theoretically, you are really the person to talk to. You have tested probably all possible AVs, particularly those for public transit, public transportation. So that's fantastic to have your view. And you do also a lot on the regulation side and all the monitoring. we had the last episode was very much focused on the monitoring side.
when we were preparing this episode and discussing in general, we realized that we hear a that fear coming regarding expansion, let's say, of autonomous vehicles in many cities in the US and also more will come for sure in Europe. And in China, it's also super spread out in many cities, et cetera.
latent so to say fear that it could have a very negative impact on public transportation.
William Levassor (02:45)
Yeah, it's
funny, we hear a lot. And it's funny, in one of the last shows I went to, I heard people in the tramways or in the way to the exhibition, and you hear a lot of things about AVs, like, it will kill all the jobs, it will kill public transit, we will only have Tesla and that's it. So we hear, I saw it, so it works.
That's maybe the worst thing in A lot of ideas to debunk, so that's a very good idea to have discussions on that.
Henriette Cornet (03:15)
I know that, I know. We'll take this one for another.
Yeah, and you said also the word jobs. I think we need to mention that because with killing public transit, mostly we think of transit as such as a service for the people. But behind public transit, there is also many jobs are linked with them, et cetera. So what will happen? What can we really expect from this deployment or from this technology? And we will dig into the tech, the service, but like what can really be the impact?
So you already mentioned, you heard about people saying that in the tram and say like having kind of conception, preconception. Where do you think this fear is coming from? Or not fear, but like this statement when we say it will replace public transit, where do you think it comes from?
William Levassor (04:09)
I think it may come from the fact that we imagine a vehicle like a robotaxi driving by itself and doing everything around by itself, mainly operating by itself. And I put a lot of difference between driving and operating.
obviously but I think that's a kind of simplification because you see a taxi you see the driver and you don't see the rest you don't see it and people remind or you know
feel what they see and they see a vehicle and so it's very difficult when you pitch control center etc. It's crucial but people see vehicles and they see drivers and when they see robotaxi they see there is no human anymore and so it will replace jobs and that's it. It's just a simplification of things and when you go deeper I think
Henriette Cornet (05:03)
Mm-hmm.
William Levassor (05:07)
That's also our job to educate the general public and to show them. And maybe one thing when we open to the public in experimentation, they see the vehicles driving, they say, wow, it's incredible, et cetera. But once we show the control centers, they realize there is much more than driving. They realize it is
may be safer than what they feared at the beginning. And when we have tests on public and say, do you feel safe, the rate on the feeling of safety is much higher once they are visited for the operation in the control center. So I think it's really a perception and education based on the first thing that you see.
Henriette Cornet (05:59)
Yeah, that's good point. And I can imagine that here in the US, having mainly Waymo and Waymo being now in many cities, that's the first gate, so to say, to the technology. And it's even in the word robotaxi when you think about it, because it's like, when we say an autonomous shuttle, we just think we don't know how it is operated yet. But in robotaxi, there is a form of like a model on how it operates in the word.
William Levassor (06:27)
Exactly,
it's very funny that you say that because actually in France a few years ago, I don't remember when but maybe two or three years ago, the state changes the wording. It is not anymore autonomous, it's automated. Exactly like the metros etc, it's automated. mean you operate a service, there is people out...
Henriette Cornet (06:44)
yeah, on top of it.
William Levassor (06:52)
outside of the vehicle, there are control centers, the vehicle, the driving is automated. But the service is not autonomous, it doesn't run by itself. And I think, as you said, it's very funny in the perception, because for example, when we saw in the social media, when Waymo talked about their remote operations, people were saying, wow, there is remote operation, it's not autonomous.
Henriette Cornet (06:58)
Mm-hmm.
William Levassor (07:18)
Yeah, it's autonomous, it's driving by itself, but yes, there are. And I think we all need to acknowledge that it is normal to have control centers. It is absolutely normal. And metros are automated, they have control centers. Tramway can be automated, they have control centers. Elevators, they are automated. And they have control centers. Yes.
Henriette Cornet (07:36)
Mm-hmm.
You do hope that when you ring, there will be someone.
William Levassor (07:43)
And
even for big networks of driven buses, we have remote control centers with a lot of people that run the service, the quality of service and passenger security. And so that's normal to have people.
Henriette Cornet (07:50)
Yeah, of course.
Yeah, yeah,
absolutely. And yes, this distinction about
autonomous, automated, I think all these terms and the term robotaxi and the level of automation, that's also a topic I think we need to take aside. It's like growing so organically, so to say step by step by researchers and people all over the world that it has never been defined properly and agreed properly. And at some point we just call it an autonomous vehicle and both you and me, we know what we mean with that, but it's true, it can be misleading for users.
William Levassor (08:08)
Yeah.
Hmm.
Yeah, I think first we need to, as we say, differentiate the technology and the service. You have self-driving vehicles and then you have the service. The service in the US is mainly ride-hailing services. You have public transit, know, ride-hailing market is the one. Yeah.
Henriette Cornet (08:49)
So ride hailing, we mean Uber, Lyft, this type of
services.
William Levassor (08:54)
In Europe, You have ride-hailing services, obviously, a big market, but the shared mobility market is higher than that in Europe.
you know, maybe the technology itself, the self-driving technology will be mainly used for ride hailing services in the US and mainly used for shared mobility in Europe. We'll see that. It doesn't have to, I think it doesn't have to...
Henriette Cornet (09:17)
Mm-hmm.
William Levassor (09:21)
destroy the demand and the market in terms of services. The mobility services are organized this way in the US and Europe and you have a technology that can serve those two markets and I really see this technology as a way to improve public transit first and not destroy it.
Yes, we have to have boundaries But it's a really huge opportunity to improve public transit. We all have...
bad experience in public transit, for example a bus that comes only one time an hour, that is five minutes late, that is not comfortable, etc. this technology will enable first, I think, to digitalize the vehicles. Today we have a very human industry.
in the transit services.
so I think it's a really an opportunity for public transit not only a risk so obviously yes it can be
Difficulty in the short term because in the short term. Yes, we see a lot of robot axis and we don't see Automated buses. Yes, but there there's a lot of reasons for for this, you know, the vehicles are smaller so you have it's easier to get those vehicles and to to to build the technology on it because you already have the
you know, the transportation and yeah, the vehicles. From the AV provider perspective, the market in terms of number of vehicles is also higher. Maybe not in terms of markets, but in terms of number of vehicles, clearly it's higher, clearly.
Henriette Cornet (10:54)
fleet of them.
Then...
Something very particular for the US market is in the case of Waymo particularly having and other manufacturers, by the way, why do they start with the ride-hailing services when they deploy in the US? It's because on a regulatory point of view and it's the easiest way to get as many vehicles as you can on the market.
So imagine you manage to, to get a bus, automated. you can't deploy directly like a 500 like bus fleet from, from day one to day two.
you will have to go through procurement process long with like kind of complicated one.
Whereas the ride-hailing market is more free here, I mean, it's more flexible here. it's regulated mostly at state level. So you don't even need to talk to cities about it. So you can have quite quick, a big fleet
William Levassor (12:00)
Yeah,
is more flexible. In Europe it's the same, it's more flexible because when you start to think about shared vehicles or buses, you are first the constraints of having to manage different people at the same time and it's more complicated because you cannot... People fighting, cannot... They are not...
Henriette Cornet (12:19)
You
William Levassor (12:24)
you don't know exactly who is. It's not that you just book a vehicle, you can have like 10 people going in the vehicle at the same time. So it's more complicated. And in terms of regulation, as you said, it's also more complicated because as if it's a public service, you have all this, the constraint to be inclusive and serve all kind of populations. So it's more difficult.
Henriette Cornet (12:32)
Absolutely.
William Levassor (12:50)
But again, I think it's a service issue. It's maybe more flexible. So we see the first step being a lot of robotaxi. But at the end, believe we'll see. But I believe it's a huge opportunity for public transit For example, when you have a dense line and a lot of demand,
it's clearly more efficient to have a big vehicle than a small vehicle. We always say we need to move people and not metal. So in some scenarios it's clearly more efficient to have big vehicles. So maybe it will reshape.
I see maybe the average size of buses, maybe it will decrease. We will still have big buses and that's clearly useful. Yeah.
Henriette Cornet (13:35)
Yeah, more like BRT system on trunk line with dedicated
lanes with this type of almost rail or light rail, et cetera. And then smaller.
William Levassor (13:40)
Yeah, yeah, and we need that. We need that. And then, as you say,
instead of having one bus that is almost empty, one every hour, having one shuttle every 20 minutes, clearly it will be better, it will improve the user experience, and people will take those services and not their own car. So everyone will gain from that.
Henriette Cornet (14:07)
So
we tapped already a little bit on that, the topic of kind of what's today's, if I may say, weaknesses of public transit? What do you see? And I can share a bit my experience here in the US. what do you see? Because I would love to hear your view in France and in Europe of what are the weaknesses these days? You think the biggest problem.
from the service, from the customer rider point of view, or like even the non-rider, but from people point of view, what's a big weakness. And we have in the US, I think a bit of an idealized vision of Europe being where transit is so great, et And not to be too negative about some US cities are doing fantastic, are doing a great job with their public transportation.
But where do you see in Europe the big weaknesses?
William Levassor (15:03)
Clearly in big cities, think transit is fantastic in Europe. Clearly. You have tramways, metros, buses. So if you are in a big city, you have a lot of different options to move.
without having to take your car. I used to live in cities where I had just one tiny car just for weekends and we never took our own vehicles. So you have a lot of options. The pain point is more in suburban areas or rural areas where you have low density. It's clearly not
efficient and profitable for public transit agencies to put buses that again are empty most of the time but there are people that need that and you know it's the less you have buses the less people take them and you know at the end it costs money for the public and nobody takes it and again that's why I believe having one
Henriette Cornet (16:08)
Exactly, it's a vicious circle.
William Levassor (16:17)
operator for few vehicles, few vehicles that are smaller and maybe on demand for those areas will clearly improve this specific pain point and know address the big lines and backbones as we say it. Yeah exactly.
Henriette Cornet (16:35)
Yeah, like feeder services, first last mile. No, absolutely.
It's funny because I'm usually starting with this use case what would be the first thing to improve in transit. And it's the same here. I'm talking at least for San Francisco where I live, where they have a train system, have trains, they have rail and light rail.
And both are fantastic. I like them both. They have also their issue in terms of, yeah, they have some issue inherent to shared public spaces. Let's say that you have, when you have crowds, have, you know, issues that come with crowds. But the first last mile is really discouraging. It's discouraging even, I personally, sometimes you just check the time and you...
the train line will be shorter than the car, but getting there, it's like, yeah, I have to take three buses and wait and everything. I'm like, no, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to take my car and be faster. So definitely the first last mile. And you know, that's something if I can share a bit also my view on this, the weaknesses, And I don't like because I mean, it's a harsh word because I'm
William Levassor (17:27)
Exactly.
Mmm. Yeah.
Henriette Cornet (17:46)
absolutely a supporter of public transit and I mean you know that but I hope the audience who listen to us know that as well I'm absolutely on the public transportation side and in general public services but I have the impression over the years and I speak like since public transportation exists there have been a need that came the past 20 years probably slowly but with all the smartphone internet all the kind of the revolution that came with that
William Levassor (17:50)
Yeah.
Henriette Cornet (18:16)
that people have a need for immediacy. For something, you have your phone in the pocket and you can order whatever. You can order on Amazon, can book a hotel room, you can watch a movie. You have this immediacy directly in your pocket and you book an Uber. And you know you are somewhere, whatever the time of the day, you book an Uber, someone will come and pick you up. And you are okay to wait a bit longer if the demand is higher, you are okay to pay a little bit more if the demand is higher.
It's kind of an evolution naturally that we came into like owning less, like we rent movies and we don't own them anymore. Same with the music. Everything is kind of in your pocket and very accessible in these terms, at least in terms of immediacy. And this aspect, I think it has been missed yet so far by public transportation agencies, that it's kind of inevitable.
and worldwide it has had an impact, all this mindset of app-based services. You can't run away from it.
William Levassor (19:17)
Yeah, completely. I completely agree. And we touched on that earlier when we said self-driving vehicles is a big opportunity to digitalize vehicles. You know that's one of the things I am focused on because I really believe in that. There are a companies working to...
Henriette Cornet (19:30)
Exactly, yep.
William Levassor (19:39)
digitalized vehicles, not self-driving vehicles, just first, I think it's a really, it's a base layer because it enables operators to manage the vehicles. And when you don't have drivers to connect, you know, the field to the control center and the operators, you need that direct connection. And once you have that direct connection, you can build anything.
So clearly, that's why I think self-driving technology is a huge opportunity for PT because it will enable to catch up with this immediacy and
phone and digitalized word. For example, with the experimentation we have currently at beti So we have this connection to monitor the security of the operation as we discussed in the last episode. But again, having those data enable us to...
offer a lot more for the clients and the passengers. For example, they have the app, they know exactly where are the mini buses, when they will come at the station, etc. So they know that. So again, I really believe it's a pain point today, clearly, in the process.
Henriette Cornet (20:55)
you
William Levassor (20:56)
In dense cities you have lot of improvement over the last years. Clearly I saw the metros and the suburban in France in the two cities where I am the most.
It's fantastic compared to what it was 10 years ago. The metros, they are automated and every two minutes you have every live data on your phone. So you have everything, everything. For the buses, it's more complicated, it takes more time, but it's starting to come.
Henriette Cornet (21:17)
I said.
William Levassor (21:26)
I haven't done
research on the filling and the priorities for the customers. did that a few years ago. But you know the punctuality and the reliability of the information was ranked really high in the expectation of the passengers.
Henriette Cornet (21:47)
Yeah, I saw that in my own research, having done here in the Bay Area or even in other cities in the US, this type of pulse check on what people share on social media with the tools that we are building at Urban Innovate and reliability is coming very high. And we create a persona category called pragmatic commuters.
And that most of the people in the sense, even if they don't commute, but like they just want something that works. They don't really care what's behind the tech and the fanciness of it. Exactly.
William Levassor (22:17)
It's just trustworthy. You know it will be there. They know
they will get to work at time. At least they know. Yeah.
Henriette Cornet (22:22)
Yeah, exactly. can, as long as you can, how can I say, you can plan for it, so to say, you can expect it.
I like that you bring that, really this idea of modernization, like kind of digitalization, like can bring a new, like a new wave, into services in general. But I'm sure There is more advantage that AVs...
not AVs, but let's say the technology, autonomous technology could bring to public transit. And from an operator point of view, I'm sure you can tell more about really also you mentioned jobs and cost of operation, et cetera. So there are like opportunities for the technology that may not be visible to the public, but it's also there and will play a big role. don't know if you see where I'm going and if you have something to share on that aspect.
William Levassor (23:11)
Yeah,
maybe first, maybe two points. First, to extend what we were saying when we say that the pain points we see today is the suburban area in rural, in those kind of places. you have kind of the need to feed the dense lines.
but you also have some populations that cannot drive. And that's where having a bus is most of the time not efficient, not profitable.
Here automated vehicles are clearly a way to improve this service in those kind of places. It's not cities where you already have, again, tramways, metros, et cetera. I really think about small cities and suburban areas where we don't have a lot of solutions, of shared mobility solutions, but there are people in need for that.
young people need to go to sports when dad and mom are working or elderly people that cannot drive anymore. So there are a clear need here that this kind of technology, again, once it is performant and safe enough and at approximately the same cost as driven services will enable operators to
Henriette Cornet (24:16)
needs to go to health centers.
William Levassor (24:37)
extend the current offers to those kind of areas, to those kind of populations. And the second real improvement I see is once you lower the total cost of operation, so you lower the number of people you need per ride, you will
gain a lot more when you have long hours of operations. For example, if you replace a bus that is full of passengers and that operates six hours a day
you need a lot of cost improvement on the vehicle to be profitable at the end compared to a driven services. When you operate from 5 a.m to 1 a.m here
you have to pay at least two drivers, so the gap between driven services and automated services increases. And so I think we will see a lot more public transportation solutions in the evening and during the night. That also is a clear miss today in the offers, because it's not profitable for PTOs and PTAs.
Henriette Cornet (25:56)
I mean, profitable, but if I may ask my vision of profitability, so to say, it's not really profitable. so maybe for those who listen, I know what you, I kind of know what you mean, but maybe we should just, you should clarify what you mean with profitable because there are heavily subsidized sector, right?
William Levassor (25:56)
Yeah, a lot.
No, no it's not.
Yes,
yes it is mainly 70 % of the total cost.
of operations are subsidized by local authorities because that's one of the most important services that a city can offer to the people, to the inhabitants of the city. it's always a big topic.
and yeah so the the fares are really low for for the passengers because it's paid by you know by taxes at the end
Henriette Cornet (26:50)
Yeah. Yeah. And what you mean with how AV could kind of help with that is more optimization, cost optimization. That's how I understand it.
William Levassor (26:58)
Exactly
at the end, and you know, I think it's the same anywhere on the globe the the local budgets are tight more and more and so
being private or public entities they have to look for every penny they spend and so if they can rationalize and serve more people with the same amount of budget it will be a huge improvement for the population.
Henriette Cornet (27:28)
Yeah, and you know there is another use case that we don't address a lot because we mentioned automated buses but we still imagine them somehow on the road and serving like lines etc. But in the context of like depot management where the buses are getting charged and washed and doing the usual maintenance for them, I also see there a huge opportunity for the technology to be applied.
And we had this use case when I was working in Europe in Madrid, where they explore that in detail. And I know that in Austin, the transit agency in Austin is also investigating this topic of having bus driven during the day by a normal human. And in the evening, usually what is being done is at the depot, need to stay with the bus.
William Levassor (28:16)
Yeah.
Henriette Cornet (28:23)
and go from station to station to charge them, to maintain them, to deal with the kind of preparation of the bus for the next shift. But the driver is not driving anymore, it's just waiting. It's waiting time. And they calculated like a big amount of the working time for the day being spent on waiting, which is not what the person was originally paid for. And there, could be also a way to automatize
all these steps in the depot. It's closed site, the risks are pretty low. There is not many pedestrians around. It's a really predictable environment. And already there can be a lot of cost saving. I really, like I should put some link in the description of the episode because they have nice, very nice calculation done by the operator of Madrid on how much it could save if their depot management would be fully automatized. So.
William Levassor (29:07)
Yeah.
Henriette Cornet (29:17)
That's also something that if the technology is used in the right way, could really benefit public transport, public transit.
William Levassor (29:26)
Completely, I have the same experience in every operators. The depot is where you lose a lot of time and money because you are paid by the kilometers you do for passengers, not for what you do at the depot. So there's a huge improvement there.
So maybe it will be interesting if you have other studies or if anyone has feedbacks on that. yeah, was kind of surprised there is nothing yet commercialized.
Henriette Cornet (29:59)
Or it could be
the way I see it. Maybe it could be, and I don't want to dig into the level of automation, but more like a L2, L3, like assisted driving during the day and turn into like a fully automated at the depot. And maybe there are some way of thinking of how do you make the best of the technology. yeah, there are some ideas, definitely.
William Levassor (30:10)
L4, yeah, in close site yeah.
Yeah, there is
clearly something for the next years to come. But in the depots, yes, you have a lot of improvements. And that's also one of the points where I focus to...
Henriette Cornet (30:25)
Yep.
William Levassor (30:34)
Automatize or digitalize What the operators or drivers are doing today? No, they are checking the vehicles They are doing a lot of you know report in data. So it takes a lot of time
And that's the first thing that doesn't require a very costly autonomous driving stack, just an app on your phone to digitalize at least step by step, who will improve a lot. But at the end, that's something that we mentioned in we.
Henriette Cornet (30:57)
Yep, it goes in there.
William Levassor (31:07)
We are confronting robotaxis and and transit with buses, but at the end it's the same If you have vehicles you need to charge them you need to clean them you need to check if everything is alright And whether it's very small vehicles mid vehicles shuttles or big buses it's the same you need to do exactly the same You don't see it with taxi because the driver is doing it
with driven buses it takes a part of the total cost of operation because you have depots obviously but at the end if you don't own your vehicle and if you don't have a driver for your taxi someone will have to do that you will have to to to tackle the things whatever the vehicle is and whatever the service if it's a robot taxi or transit
Henriette Cornet (31:58)
But back just for kind of a closing of this really the question will AVs kill public transit with this mental model maybe the question is actually will robot taxi or ride-hailing services will kill public transit or even being more detailed will privately operated fleets this type of fleets will kill a public service
What are the possible scenarios in your opinion in terms of worst case and best case?
William Levassor (32:29)
why when you say what will be the scenario, think maybe the cities or local level has to keep control or veto or kind of organization role on how to...
manage mobility and what are the different offers and how do they compete and serve all the territory because again the the robotaxi they will all go where there is the highest demand and where there is the highest demand that's always where there is already a lot of options.
Henriette Cornet (32:57)
demand. Yeah, of course.
Yeah. that's a good
point. And I want to also say a word of this type of partnerships that have existed. I know at least from Uber, like a department called Uber Transit, where they did partnership with cities on getting a bit, some subsidized, maybe not the entire ride, but really lowering the price for the population thanks to subsidy from the city.
And the city did not have to put in place a bus that is empty most of the time, not flexible, et cetera. So these partnerships exist. And for me, if I may jump into the optimist and I want to hear what's your most optimistic view of this type of synergies that could exist. That's one I could see is more public private partnerships and having fleets of AVs that maybe run privately and
William Levassor (33:36)
a new line.
Henriette Cornet (33:59)
on the site at high price, like more like a premium service during some time of the day, but sometimes for some neighbors be subsidized to go in some areas that are less covered by transit. And actually when you think about that and even the first last mile, in general, I don't think it's even important if it's autonomous or not. I would say whatever, whatever is more practical, like just do it.
William Levassor (34:25)
Exactly. Again,
just a tech. It's a tech serving for a service.
Henriette Cornet (34:28)
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
So what about you? What's your ideal model? Or do you have an ideal model
William Levassor (34:38)
I'm not
sure there's a unique model for each and every territory or each and every city. But definitely, think as we said, low served territory, think AVs will be clearly useful, whether it is...
Henriette Cornet (34:45)
Or take one you like.
William Levassor (35:02)
inside the public transit and I clearly see it
with smaller vehicles, know, not buses, but shuttles. We see shuttles. have Chinese actors that are developing shuttles. We have Zoox also, May Mobility in the US. They are, you know, acting for this kind of suburban and shared mobility. So I think those kind of technology can really be integrated into the
Henriette Cornet (35:28)
Mm-hmm.
William Levassor (35:31)
public transit plan. So in terms of organization.
Henriette Cornet (35:37)
But would you
recommend transit agencies to buy the tech? Because my recommendation to my clients go for leasing. think leasing is better in general for this new tech services. Do you agree with that?
William Levassor (35:51)
Well here if we go on to that topic we have to differentiate the short term and the long term. In the long run, at least here, the public transit agencies are used to invest.
Henriette Cornet (35:57)
Yeah.
William Levassor (36:08)
in the assets, the rolling stocks of the vehicles and the depots and the control centers and then operators run it. So they are used to invest. In the short run, we are at the beginning of the story of automated mobility, just the beginning. So no, I don't often recommend to invest on vehicles.
unless they have clear specifications. If they have clear specifications, if they know they will be comfortable with the specifications for years, it's okay. But you need to have these efforts to be clear on the specifications before you invest a lot.
Henriette Cornet (36:51)
Thanks for sharing all that. Is there anything else you'd like to share on debunking the transit?
William Levassor (36:59)
There are lot
to debunk in this field. But I'm very excited to see where we will go in terms of technology. Technology will come and it will be here, but how it will be organized and how it will be servable.
private or public, I think at the end if it's well organized and sought in terms of a service for the populations, whatever local solution we can find it will be good.
Henriette Cornet (37:33)
be helpful. I love that. It's a good way to end. And if you don't mind, I'd love to dig next time into the topic of jobs, because with everything I said, I'm sure the audience will have a lot of questions like, about the bus driver who will lose his or her job? So I suggest that we keep that for, yeah, and I know you have a good view on that.
William Levassor (37:37)
You
Yeah.
yes, that's a very good topic. Yes. Yeah, I see it's in
the top three of the ideas are here and I want to fight against this. AVs will kill jobs. And again, I have seen an AV driving three kilometers, so it works. that's maybe the other big debunking we had to do.
Henriette Cornet (38:16)
have to address. Cool, so it's
a teasing already for the next episode. So thanks, thank you very much for being with us again and we will have new episodes coming on debunking ideas and people listening can also share like perceptions they have and we can have a look at it into more detail and at least share our humble opinion on them. Thanks William.
William Levassor (38:41)
Thank you, Aiyatsu. Thank you.