New GM office in Kitchener to experiment with bikes, car sharing

As the new kid on the block at Communitech, General Motors engineers will be thinking about making the daily commute easier, diversifying beyond the car itself.

GM will set up shop at the former Lang Tannery building in Kitchener early next year, and work at the "innovation research outpost" will initially focus on car-sharingand how to work in other modes of transportation like e-bikes and bicycles, as well asmobile appdevelopment.

• Communitech receives $9.7 million in federal grant
• Communitech gets $15M in funding from the province
• Rev incubator at Communitech to help companies boost sales

As people increasingly crowd into large cities around the world, there is a pressing need to keep people moving from point A to B, saidBrian Tossan,the director of Canadian engineering for GM Canada.

1:33Brian Tossan: Multi-modal transportation the new reality

GM Canada's Brian Tossan says more people are taking multiple forms of transportation to get around in cities

"There's increased traffic congestion, there are additional issues with parking," he said, in an interview with CBC Radio's Craig Norris on The Morning Edition Friday. "It's just really hard for people to get around in the city. So when you think about how we may be able to provide solutions and innovations in that space to make that easier, that's the kind of area that we're looking to investigate and understand."

People in large cities often resort to taking multiple forms of transportation.Tossan says GM will be coming up with ways to help them to get through those "first mile, last mile-type issues."

"That very first and end point of their destination is often the trickiest to navigate," he says.

• GM plans push into self-driving cars, ride-sharing

One of GM's pilot car-sharing projects was set up in New York City, where residents of a condo development got access to a fleet of vehicles supplied by GM that they could share as part of their occupancy.

A few months ago, GM launched a partnership with AutoShare to provide Chevroletvehicles as part of a car-sharing fleet for university students in Toronto.

The Communitech hub, funded by all three levels of government, is a private not-for-profit company and home to Google as well as a list of high-tech startups.

As an incubator of sorts for high-tech innnovation, GM's Communitech office will tap into Waterloo Region's technical talent pool, but the company has yet to announced how big that office will be, or how many people will work there.