LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today marks the launch of Lacuna, a first-of-its-kind solution provider and strategic consulting company designed to make it easier for cities to better manage new forms of mobility on urban streets. Lacuna builds off of open source, mobility-focused platforms, enabling powerful transportation management solutions. These tools let cities, as well as departments of transportation and public works, ensure streets are used safely, sustainably, equitably and efficiently as new modes of travel continue to change the way we move around.
“We have all witnessed the disruption that private mobility companies have caused in cities, both with fantastic benefits and an array of unintended consequences,” said Hugh Martin, CEO of Lacuna. “Cities know well where they need to go and what their challenges are, but they need to accelerate the development and use of new open source tools to manage this growing complexity. Lacuna helps cities navigate through the implementation choices and operate those new tools.”
As cities grapple with the complexity introduced by these new transportation options for their citizens, they are developing powerful new tools to facilitate digital two-way interactions between cities and mobility companies to create better public-private collaboration and to support the management of city transportation infrastructure. Collaborating together, cities recently launched the Open Mobility Foundation (OMF), an open source, non-profit organization, to manage and develop mobility management tools as open source software.
Lacuna believes open source software provides a key pathway for cities to continue to lead, drive and manage the rapidly changing transportation ecosystem in a sustainable, equitable, and compatible way. But developing and operating open source software comes with its own challenges. Lacuna eases this transition by providing operation, integration, and support for transportation agencies to achieve their goals. By providing services such as systems integration, security hardening, and 24/7/365 support, Lacuna helps cities more easily and readily leverage available open source mobility software - such as the Mobility Data Specification (MDS), the General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS), the General Bikeshare Feed Specification (GBFS), and open source mapping standards - to improve outcomes, reduce costs, and avoid vendor lock-in.
Solutions currently available in the market mainly provide analysis and visualization of historical mobility data. Lacuna on the other hand, helps cities use open source tools to get the dynamic information needed to effectively govern on a daily basis and in near real-time. Committed to open source and privacy-by-design, Lacuna is uniquely city and citizen friendly. Lacuna is also a commercial member of the OMF.
Lacuna has acquired Ellis & Associates, a transportation technology consultancy, to serve as the strategic consulting arm of the company. Ellis & Associates will focus on providing strategic consulting services to cities so they can better incorporate technology into their transportation ecosystems, and implement and manage open source mobility software.
About Lacuna
Lacuna helps cities manage new forms of mobility like e-scooters and bikeshare, building tools that give cities the ability to manage their streets more effectively. As open source experts, Lacuna builds on top of open-source mobility-focused platforms, creating transportation management solutions that let cities ensure streets are used safely, sustainably, equitably and efficiently as new modes of travel change the way we move around. For more information visit: https://lacuna.ai/
