Shared transport or shared mobility is a transportation system where travelers share a vehicle either simultaneously as a group (e.g. ride-sharing) or over time (e.g. carsharing or bike sharing) as personal rental, and in the process share the cost of the journey. It is a transportation strategy that allows users to access transportation services on an as-needed basis, and can be regarded as a hybrid between private vehicle use and mass or public transport. Shared mobility is an umbrella term that encompasses a variety of transportation modes including carsharing, Bicycle-sharing systems, ridesharing companies, carpools, and microtransit.
Each shared mobility service has unique attributes that have a range of impacts on travel behavior, the environment, and the development of cities and urban areas. Some impacts of shared mobility include enhanced transportation accessibility as well as reduced driving and decreased personal vehicle ownership.Shaheen, S., et al., "Shared Mobility: Definitions, Industry Developments, and Early Understanding." Transportation Sustainability Research Center, Innovative Mobility Research. July 2015.Cohen, Adam and Susan Shaheen, “Planning for Shared Mobility.” Planning Advisory Service (PAS) 583, American Planning Association, Washington, D.C.. July 2016. Shared mobility programs often yield a variety of environmental, social, and transportation system benefits. These are primarily related to personal vehicle usage and ownership, and vehicle miles or kilometers traveled (VMT/VKT). Shared mobility networks also retain the potential to expand the reach of public transportation by addressing gaps in existing public transportation systems. They can also provide economic benefits to users in the form of cost savings in some cases.
Shared transport systems include carsharing (also called car clubs in the UK), bicycle sharing (also known as PBS or public bicycle systems), carpools and vanpools (aka ride-sharing or lift-sharing), real-time ridesharing, slugging (casual carpooling), community buses and vans, demand responsive transit (DRT), paratransit, a range of taxi projects and even hitchhiking and its numerous variants.
Shared transport is taking on increasing importance as a key strategy for reducing greenhouse gas and other emissions from the transport sector in the face of the global climate emergency by finding ways of getting more intensive use of vehicles on the road. Together with other emerging automotive technologies such as vehicle electrification, connected vehicles and autonomous driving, shared transports form a future mobility vision called Connected, Autonomous, Shared and Electric (CASE) Mobility.
A somewhat different form of shared transport is the "shared taxi", a vehicle which follows a predetermined route and takes anybody waiting for it, more like a bus than a taxi.
History Shared mobility is a subgroup of the larger sharing economy. The sharing economy is a term that encompasses a wide variety of services, usually involving the online transactions of goods or services as part of a peer-to-peer marketplace. Innovations in social networking, location-based services, and Internet technologies have enabled shared mobility to develop and expand rapidly. By improving efficiency, providing cost savings, and monetizing underused resources, shared mobility services have become widely used in many cities around the world. Although the proliferation of tech-enabled shared mobility has occurred mostly within the last decade, shared mobility services are not a new phenomenon. The first carsharing program was established in 1948 in Zurich, Switzerland,“A brief history of carsharing.“ Portland Bureau of Transportation. 2011. Retrieved 24 August 2017. and the first bikesharing program began in 1965 in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Smartphone applications and location data have increased the feasibility of shared transportation services, including carsharing companies and mobile app-based vehicle for hire companies.
Auto rickshaws
Auto rickshaws carry people and goods in many developing countries. Also known as a three-wheeler, Samosa, tempo, tuk-tuk, trishaw, auto, rickshaw, autorick, bajaj, rick, tricycle, mototaxi, baby taxi or lapa in popular parlance, they are motorized version of the traditional pulled rickshaw or cycle rickshaw. They are an essential form of urban transport, both as vehicles for hire and for private use, in many developing countries, and a form of novelty transport in many Eastern countries.
Bikesharing
Bicycle-sharing systems allow users to access and use a shared fleet of bicycles, typically located within a given spatial boundary. These systems are mostly concentrated in cities or other urban areas and bikes or stations are normally unattended and always accessible. This availability during most or all of the day makes bikesharing an on-demand mobility option.
The first bikesharing system debuted in Amsterdam in 1965, under the name ‘White Bikes.’ The bicycles were left unlocked around the city to be used by anyone in need of transportation. Bikesharing systems have since exploded in popularity starting in the mid-2000s due to advances in information technology (IT) that have improved bikesharing communications and tracking.Shared Use Mobility Center. "What is Shared Mobility?" Shared-Used Mobility Center 2017. As of April 2016, there were 99 U.S. cities with technology-enabled public bikesharing systems, with approximately 32,200 bikes and 3,400 stations.“The Bike-sharing World Map.“ Russell Meddin. Retrieved 24 August 2017.
Three major types of bikesharing systems have emerged: public bikesharing (docked and dockless/free floating), closed campus bikesharing and peer-to-peer (P2P) bikesharing.Shaheen, S. and M. Christensen. (2014). “Shared-Use Mobility Summit: Retrospective of North America’s First Gathering on Shared-Use Mobility.” Transportation Sustainability Research Center, June 2014. Most bikesharing systems are public and allow anyone to access a bicycle for a fee, typically in daily, monthly or annual membership fees. Public bikesharing programs can be station-based (docked), or dockless (also known as free floating). Dockless systems are deployed within a geo-fenced area. Dockless systems were first introduced in Germany in the early 2000s via the Call a Bike program. Major bikesharing operators in North America include: Motivate, Social Bicycles, Spin, ofo, Mobike, and LimeBike. E-bikesharing systems (or Pedlec) have also been growing in popularity, particularly in Europe. Social Bicycles began testing an e-bikesharing program, called Jump, in San Francisco in Summer 2017. Studies have been conducted that analyze bikesharing impacts on modal shift.Shaheen,S. and E. Martin. “Unraveling the Modal Impacts of Bikesharing.” University of California Transportation Center. ACCESS Magazine 39. Fall 2015. A 2014 UC Berkeley study suggests that in larger cities, bikesharing programs remove riders from crowded or high-use bus transit systems. In smaller cities, bikesharing improves access from bus lines, filling in gaps in the public transit system. In addition, those living in larger cities report decreased rail usage as a result of increased cost savings and reduced travel times. The study also found that half of the bikesharing members surveyed reduced their personal vehicle usage due to bikesharing.Shaheen,S., E.Martin, and A. Cohen (2012b). “Public Bikesharing in North America: Early Operator and User Understanding.” Mineta Transportation Institute, Report 11-26.Shaheen, S. E. Martin, A. Cohen, M. Pogodzinski (2014). "Public Bikesharing in North America During a Period of Rapid Expansion: Understanding Business Models, Industry Trends and User Impacts." Mineta Transportation Institute , Report 12-29.Martin, Elliot and Susan Shaheen (2014). “Evaluating Public Transit Modal Shift Dynamics in Response to Bikesharing: A Tale of Two Cities,” Journal of Transportation Geography, No. 41, pp. 315–324. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2014.06.026.
Carsharing
Carsharing refers to a model of vehicle sharing where users access cars on an as-needed basis, and often pay by time of reservation or miles driven. As of January 2015, there were 23 carsharing operators in the U.S. amounting to over 1.1 million members and over 16,000 vehicles.Shaheen, S. and A. Cohen (2015). "Innovative Mobility Carsharing Outlook." Transportation Sustainability Research Center. Summer 2015. As of January 2017, there were 39 carsharing organizations in North America serving 1.9 million members with a collective fleet of 24,629 vehicles. (these numbers do not include P2P carsharing; they include roundtrip and one-way carsharing operations.).Susan Shaheen (2017). “Carsharing Trends and Research Highlights.”presented at May 31, 2017 U.S. EPA.
Roundtrip carsharing Roundtrip carsharing is one of the earliest carsharing models, granting members access to a shared vehicle fleet. As the name suggests, roundtrip carsharing requires users to return to the same location where they accessed the vehicle. One of the largest North American-based roundtrip carsharing operators is Zipcar, which operates more than 12,000 vehicles in urban areas on college campuses and at airports across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Spain, France, Belgium, Turkey and Taiwan.“Zipcar Overview.“ Zipcar. 2017. Retrieved 24 August 2017. There have been numerous studies that document behavioral changes associated with roundtrip carsharing programs. A 2004 study on City CarShare in San Francisco, CA found that nearly 30% of members reduced car ownership by one of more cars; two-thirds of members reported that they opted not to purchase an additional vehicle.Cervero, R. and Y. Tsai (2004). "City CarShare in San Francisco, California: Second-Year Travel Demand and Car Ownership Impacts." Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board. 1887, 117–127. This reduced car ownership typically translates into reduced driving, and thus lowered energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Carsharing programs also affect usage patterns of other travel modes. A 2011 study by UC Berkeley researchers found that roundtrip carsharing has a mixed impact on public transit and non-motorized modal use, with the same proportion of respondents increasing and decreasing usage of these modes. The impact on carpooling and non-motorized transportation, however, was found to be positive. The same study documented a 27% to 43% reduction in vehicle miles traveled and a 34% to 41% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions among households due to roundtrip carsharing.Martin, E. and S. Shaheen (2011). "The Impact of Carsharing on Public Transit and Non-Motorized Travel: An Exploration of North American Carsharing Survey Data." Energies, 4, 2094–2114.Shaheen, S. and Elliot Martin, "The Impact of Carsharing on Household Vehicle Ownership." University of California Transportation Center. ACCESS Magazine 38.. Spring 2011.
One-way carsharing One-way carsharing varies from roundtrip carsharing in that it grants members more flexibility in pickup and dropoff location. In one-way carsharing—also known as point-to-point carsharing—members can access a vehicle at one location and end their trip in another location. As of September 2015, companies that offered one-way functionality in the U.S. include car2go, GIG, ReachNow, Zipcar, and BlueIndy. As of January 2015, about 35% of North American carsharing fleets were one-way capable.