Synopsis

New mobility services could improve the lives of all urban inhabitants. This first ever global survey finds that applying three types of new mobility services – electric, on-demand minibuses, subsidized shared rides, and trip-planning and ticketing apps – can make public transport more affordable, accessible and sustainable, if integrated properly.

Key Findings

The way people move in cities is changing. Innovative, technologically sophisticated operators of on-demand mobility services, car- and bicycle-sharing systems, mobile trip-planning and ticketing apps, and other services are winning users in cities around the world.

The growing popularity of new mobility services indicates that city dwellers appreciate the more convenient, flexible, and budget-friendly transportation options that technology is making possible in cities today.

A new report from the Coalition for Urban Transitions presents the first ever global survey of new mobility services: emerging operating models and technologies intended to improve the performance of urban transportation systems. These services include:

  • Shared mobility, or transportation services for which access or ownership are shared among people. Shared mobility services include existing forms such as mass transit, car rental, and taxi services as well as emerging ones such as ride-sourcing, e-hailing, and bicycle sharing.
    • More than half of new mobility start-ups fall into the shared mobility category, and 63% of those are based in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Every region of the world has local companies developing shared mobility apps.
    • On-demand services (including ride-sourcing and e-hailing) represent more than a quarter of the new shared mobility services across the globe. In Africa, on-demand services make up 68% of shared mobility services.
    • Ride-sharing or ride-splitting services, which match passengers traveling along similar routes so they can share vehicles and fares, make up a substantial proportion of on-demand services across all regions. 
  • Product innovation, including electric and autonomous vehicles and transportation equipment, which improves based on analyzed performance data.
    • More than half the product innovation companies surveyed are based in the United States. Vehicle innovation is the specialty of 49% of these companies; 11% focus on bicycle design and safety, while 9% focus on electric bicycles.
    • Electric vehicles now account for about 1% of the global automobile market, and the governments of China and India have set ambitious targets for EV sales. Autonomous vehicles are already being piloted in certain cities, and 44 companies are developing AV technology in 2017 as compared with 25 in 2015.
    • The environmental benefits of vehicle electrification and automation could be profound. The shift to electric vehicles alone could reduce GHG emissions from vehicles by 60%.
  • Consumer experience, or information services which combine information on transport options and present them in real-time.
    • Among consumer experience start-ups, transit information start-ups outnumber ticketing start-ups by about 3 to 1 globally, possibly due to open data access provided by public transit agencies. Some start-ups have used this data to identify and fill gaps in transport systems.
    • Virtual ticketing and payment platforms have been slower to develop; as of 2016 in the United States, 17 transit agencies allow their users to purchase tickets using mobile apps, far fewer than the 500 plus agencies which provide open access to their transit data.
  • Data-driven decision making, in which services aggregate data from urban transit systems and analyze them to improve transportation management, planning, and operations.
    • Data-driven decisions making services consist mostly of mapping, routing, traffic monitoring, and location-based services.
    • Nearly a third of these start-ups worldwide focus on routing information, most of which are based in Europe.

Accessible, affordable, and efficient transportation helps improve the lives of all urban inhabitants. However, many public transit systems face challenges such as rising costs, aging assets, and rapidly increasing ridership. New urban mobility services could help authorities make urban transport systems more cost effective, flexible, and convenient as well as more accessible in areas that are expensive to serve.

  • Public transit, especially mass transit, moves people around quickly, prevents congestion and crashes, limits pollution, and frees land for use other than roadways and parking space.
  • As ridership increases, so do costs. The use of public transportation has grown steadily since 2001, with developing countries showing the fastest growth (nearly 3 % per year in public transport trips per capita.) But for many cities, increased use has also meant increases in operating costs. In North America, the average operating cost per passenger mile increased for all modes of public transportation between 2000-2010.
  • Ensuring that trains and buses run with few empty seats is vital. Although public transit is often the least carbon-intensive mode of urban transport, mass-transit services running without enough users can produce more GHG emissions per passenger mile than shared private vehicles. For example, an average 40-passenger bus must carry at least 7 passengers to be more environmentally efficient than the average single-occupancy vehicle.

Cities across the world have a new opportunity: to integrate new mobility services into existing urban transportation systems for more affordable, convenient, and environmentally friendly transport for all.

  • There are already more than 70 cities partnering with new private mobility services to address the challenges public transit systems are facing. 60% of these partnerships are in North America and Europe, and they are present in only 4 cities in the Global South.
  • The most common partnerships between public transit agencies and new mobility service providers are customer experience services for planning multimodal journeys, on-demand mobility services which offer a more flexible mode of transportation than buses and subways, and shared-mobility services to help passengers make first- and last-mile trips to and from transit hubs.
  • While mobility services can complement public transit, they also have the potential to become a substitute, drawing people out of subways and buses and exacerbating problems such as traffic congestion, air pollution, and safety. Cities should develop policies that consider the complex intersection between new mobility services and the entire urban transportation system.

Three applications of new mobility services have the potential to complement and improve public transport, both economically and environmentally. Models of these applications in London, Mexico City, and San Francisco show that if new mobility services are integrated properly into mass transit systems, they can help cities make transportation accessible to more people, reduce the costs of operating public transit, and lessen the environmental impact of mobility systems.

  1. Partnering with the developers of dynamic trip-planning and ticketing apps could allow cities to offer passengers an integrated platform for planning and paying for journeys, facilitating multimodal travel and increasing public-transit ridership.
    • A dynamic system requires a modest up-front investment that would be paid back within two years by reductions in operating costs and could generate substantial additional revenue within five years.
      • A dynamic system costs between US$4 million and US$8 million to develop and market depending on existing infrastructure, but lowers transit agencies’ operating costs by US$7 million to US$20 million per year, and generates additional revenues of US$7 million to US$70 million per year, within five years, due to increased ridership. Operational savings and increased revenues pay back development and marketing costs within as little as two years.
    • A dynamic system leads to increased kilometers traveled by public transport and decreased kilometers traveled by private vehicle, reducing GHG emissions by up to 500,000 metric tons.
    • Dynamic systems in London, San Francisco, and Mexico City would lead to up to a 6% reduction in all transport emissions, with the latter benefiting most.
  2. Integrating electric, on-demand minibuses operated privately with other forms of public transit could help agencies maintain or extend coverage in underserved areas while lowering cost of service. On-demand minibuses reduce labor costs and improve passengers’ access to public transport.
    • Building and implementing an on-demand minibus system requires a modest up-front investment that would be paid back within two years by reductions in operating costs.
      • The cost to set up an on-demand minibus service is between US$2 million and US$4 million, with a break-even period of three to four years.
    • Operating electric minibuses across London, San Francisco, and Mexico City would result in significantly lower emissions compared to standard diesel buses. Typical emissions changes per bus line were decreases of 66 to 99% for GHGs, about 88% for PM10, and between 95 to 99% for NOx.
  3. Subsidizing shared rides to and from transit hubs in neighborhoods with poor transit access can improve residents’ access to public transit, boost ridership, and reduce private motor vehicle use.
    • A major benefit of a subsidy program an increase in the number of people who use public transport for most of a journey, rather than private cars for an entire journey. In many cases, the subsidies themselves cost less than infrastructure investments for enabling passengers to use public transit.
      • Models from London, Mexico City, and San Francisco show that the additional revenues raised by an increase in public transit ridership would cover the entire expense of a ride-share subsidy program.
    • If ride-shares plus public transit trips replaced longer journeys in personal vehicles, GHG emissions could be reduced by 67 to 80%, NOx by 54 to 80%, and PM10 by 75 to 81%.

Cities should further investigate the possibilities for using new mobility services to supplement and enhance their public transit systems.

  • Additional areas of research could include regional analysis of trends in new mobility services, effects of next-generation vehicles, effects on employment and jobs, first- and last-mile transportation patterns, and the comprehensive effect of on-demand mobility services, including traffic congestion, data ownership, emissions, passenger safety, and vehicle mile increases.

Policymakers should consider some key issues as they determine how to best integrate new mobility services with cities’ transportation systems.

Considerations for policymakers include providing and sharing data openly, investing in mass transit infrastructure, incentivizing pilots and partnerships, evidence-driven planning, employment, and economic analysis.

Executive Summary

Innovative, technologically sophisticated operators of ride-hailing networks, car- and bicycle-sharing systems, mobile trip-planning and ticketing apps, and other new mobility services are winning users in cities around the world. Their reception suggests that city dwellers need transport options that are more convenient and flexible than those offered by traditional private transport companies and public transit agencies. Public transit is a vital element of efficient urban transportation systems: the use of public transportation has grown steadily since 2001, with developing countries showing the fastest growth. However, many public transit systems face challenges such as rising costs, ageing assets, and rapidly increasing ridership. While private transportation services have given passengers appealing options in many cities, these services can also exacerbate problems related to safety, environmental quality, and other issues. As new mobility services proliferate, cities will have opportunities to influence their roles so they not only improve convenience for passengers but also create wider economic and environmental benefits for all city residents. One approach, which some 70 cities worldwide have taken, is to form partnerships that allow cities to use the distinctive features of new mobility services to improve their transportation systems overall. Evaluating the possibilities associated with this approach requires an understanding of the development of new mobility services in cities around the world, the partnerships that have been formed to date, and the economic and environmental implications of complementing public transit with new mobility models.

In the consumer experience category, 70% of start-ups specialize in the analysis and provision of information about public transport, an enterprise that has been greatly aided by the trend of governments providing open access to their data on transit system operations. The remainder of consumer experience start-ups offer services that allow the planning and ticketing of urban journeys that use multiple modes of transport. Finally, start-ups in the data-driven decision-making category analyse data from multiple parts of urban transit systems to help transportation agencies make better choices about management, planning, and operations. Perhaps because new mobility services are diverse and novel, there is not yet an obvious formula for how cities can maximize the benefits of these services while mitigating their societal costs, such as worsening traffic congestion or added air pollution. But it is clear that the arrangements that cities establish between their transit agencies and the providers of new mobility services will be critically important.

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