To Share or Not? A Critical View on Personal Mobility (original) (raw)
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Sustainability and Shared Mobility Models
Sustainability, 2018
Shared mobility or mobility in the sharing economy is characterised by the sharing of a vehicle instead of ownership, and the use of technology to connect users and providers. Based on a literature review, the following four emerging models are identified: (1) peer to peer provision with a company as a broker, providing a platform where individuals can rent their cars when not in use; (2) short term rental of vehicles managed and owned by a provider; (3) companies that own no cars themselves but sign up ordinary car owners as drivers; and (4) on demand private cars, vans, or buses, and other vehicles, such as big taxis, shared by passengers going in the same direction. The first three models can yield profits to private parties, but they do not seem to have the potential to reduce congestion or CO 2 emissions substantially. The fourth model, which entails individuals not only sharing a vehicle, but actually travelling together at the same time, is promising in terms of congestion and CO 2 emissions reductions. It is also the least attractive to individuals, given the disbenefits in terms of waiting time, travel time, comfort, and convenience, in comparison with the private car. Potential incentives to encourage shared mobility are also discussed, and research needs are outlined.
The Role of Sharing Mobility in Contemporary Cities Legal, Social and Environmental Issues, 2020
The emergence of sharing mobility is having a profound impact on urban landscapes. In fact, it is deeply affecting the traditional organization of local services by calling into question how urban transportation is planned, and by redesigning city spaces. Further, by connecting people to shared assets, services or both, sharing mobility is poised to facilitate the more efficient use of underutilized resources, becoming a powerful tool for economic growth and social inclusion, while also contributing to sustainability. That being said, the economic, social and spatial impacts of sharing mobility have not been sufficiently investigated, and so far, the evidence is mixed. From a normative standpoint, while it is relevant to better understand the relations between sharing mobility, the city and the environment, it is also of crucial importance to define new policies and sound rules for sharing mobility in urban areas. Against this backdrop, this book adopts a multidisciplinary perspective to explore the role that sharing mobility can play in the creation of more just and sustainable cities.
The Missing Middle of Mobility: Unlocking Carsharing's Mobility Equity Potential
2017
Carsharing is usually examined with an environmental lens, but what about its social dimensions? Lack of access to affordable, time-efficient mobility leads to social exclusion for many Canadians, constituting a human rights issue when one considers what the choice between expensive transport and staying home deprives people of. Quality transit might be ideal, but fiscal and built-environment constraints beg for action now. This article presents how municipal intervention can make carsharing more equitable and argues that cities have an ethical obligation, as some American cities have modelled, to harness it to improve quality-of-life and the dignity of the suburban poor. L’autopartage est typiquement évalué contre une rubrique de durabilité environnementale, mais qu’en est-il de ses dimensions sociales ? Un manqué d’accès à la mobilité contribue à l’exclusion sociale de nombreux Canadiens. Dès que l’on considère les conséquences du choix entre de transports coûteux ou rester chez soi, il s’agit d’une question des droits humains. Un réseau de transport collectif de qualité est sûrement idéal, or nos contraintes fiscales et infrastructurelles exigent une action immédiate. Cet article montre comment des interventions municipales peuvent rendre l’autopartage plus équitable et soutient que les municipalités ont une obligation éthique, d’après le leadership de certaines villes américaines, de le mettre à profit pour hausser la qualité de la vie et la dignité des résidents désavantagés vivant en banlieue.
An Overview of Shared Mobility
Sustainability
In a wider understanding, shared mobility can be defined as trip alternatives that aim to maximize the utilization of the mobility resources that a society can pragmatically afford, disconnecting their usage from ownership. Then, shared mobility is the short-term access to shared vehicles according to the user’s needs and convenience. The contributions and added value of this paper are to provide an up-to-date and well-structured review on the area of shared mobility to researchers and practitioners of the transport sector. Hence, this paper presents a bibliographical review of shared mobility and its diverse modalities, as an alternative to individual transportation, especially in cases of individual automobiles or short trips restricted to an urban city. The present literature review on shared modes of transportation has discovered that the introduction of these modes alone will not solve transportation problems in large cities, with elevated and growing motorization rates. Howeve...
Car sharing schemes and MaaS: A study of shifting mobility practices from ownership to access
2021
Transport levels and private car use continue to increase worldwide representing complex challenges to climate change mitigation and the liveability of cities. In recent years, interest has arisen in the concept of Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) as one possible path towards sustainable mobility futures. MaaS builds on the idea of a shift from private car ownership to a seamless and integrated system providing access to multimodal mobility options including public transport and shared mobility services like car and bike sharing. Currently, only few examples of MaaS schemes exist and knowledge of user experiences is limited. The aim of this paper is to contribute to a better understanding of how shared mobilities, like in MaaS, fit with the everyday life of citizens. Methodologically, the paper draws on insights from qualitative interviews with families using a car sharing scheme in Copenhagen. The interviews are informed by a practice theoretical approach to study the potential of inte...