Mr. Matthew Pencharz:

I will try to run through some of the Senator's questions as quickly as I can. Certainly, Voi does record driver behaviour: speeds, where they have gone, etc. That is on our system in the cloud, which gives lots of interesting data insights on driver behaviour to transport planners as to what the most popular routes are and where, for example, cycling infrastructure could be put in. It gives quite interesting information to the people thinking about modal shift.

As for driving licences, this will be, for once, a moment of disagreement among us because I think one of my colleagues said she quite liked the idea of driving licences. Like somebody on the earlier session, Voi does not believe that a driving licence, certainly a provisional licence, is proof of roadworthiness or road sense. However, it certainly is a block to modal shift. It gets people on the road to car ownership. Surely, the longer you delay a younger person getting a driving licence, the more you will embed the modal shift behaviours of not owning your own car and single-occupancy journeys.

As for intoxication, I do not yet know of a technology that can detect alcohol intoxication through handlebars.

What Voi can certainly do is a kind of reaction test in the app off certain hours in order to see if the rider might be intoxicated and advise on connecting him or her to other modes of transport. It is up to cities to decide the hours of operation. In the markets that I look after in the UK, some markets are 24-7 and others are not. The system is turned off at a particular time of night where there are levels of people who are more likely to be intoxicated. That is up to the cities and an important message I would like to give is that every city is different and it is really up to them as to how they design the services, including the timings of operations.

When it comes to operators, Voi is very lucky in that we have a great number of exclusive licences in the UK. What is keeping the number of operators fairly low is that these companies are going to invest to stay in that city. If we have a concession for two, three or four years, we will invest to really improve and optimise that service through putting in the racks, for example, if that is what the city wants, integrating into the other transport providers to offer that multimodal operation if that is, for example, Dublin transport or Cork transport, or whatever the city transit authority is. If one has many operators, there is inevitably going to be too much competition and a race to the bottom. What one wants to see is operators competing, like we will all be competing for the licences when they come forward in Ireland, to offer the best service and technology offering, the best integration into other transport operators and the best partnerships with some of the bodies and civil society groups in Ireland’s cities.

For that, the number of operators should be kept very low. In Voi’s view, it would be one or two. When one gets more than that number, one falls into the danger of potentially too much competition, too much confusion for users and more difficulties for the cities to manage us as a transport partner.