Projected prevalence of car-sharing in four Asian-Pacific countries in 2030: What the experts think

This paper presents a “big-picture view” for policymakers and related stakeholders regarding the future development of car-sharing services. Car-sharing has the potential to significantly disrupt the personal mobility market. Thus, understanding their market penetration and implications is urgently needed. Previous studies in this domain have predominantly focused on the views, opinions, and preferences of consumers. In this study, we complement the current demand modelling research on car-sharing by applying an expert elicitation and aggregation technique that relies on transport experts’ opinions to investigate the role of car-sharing in the future. Specifically, based on the opinions of mobility suppliers, this research elicits experts’ judgment from across government, industry, and academia to gain insights into the future of car-sharing markets in four countries – Australia, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand. The analysis reveals that, from a mobility supplier’s perspective, energy and vehicle prices will not have a statistically significant impact on the future adoption of car-sharing. The results also show that the more knowledgeable an expert is, the more pessimistic they are about the market penetration of car-sharing in 2016, and the more optimistic they are about the prevalence of car-sharing in 2030.     

Exploring the influence of built environment on Uber demand

Ride-sourcing services have made significant changes to the transportation system, essentially creating a new mode of transport, arguably with its own relative utility compared to the other standard modes. As ride-sourcing services have become more popular each year and their markets have grown, so have the publications related to the emergence of these services. One question that has not been addressed yet is how the built environment, the so-called D variables (i.e., density, diversity, design, distance to transit, and destination accessibility), affect demand for ride-sourcing services. By having unique access to Uber trip data in 24 diverse U.S. regions, we provide a robust data-driven understanding of how ride-sourcing demand is affected by the built environment, after controlling for socioeconomic factors. Our results show that Uber demand is positively correlated with total population and employment, activity density, land use mix or entropy, and transit stop density of a census block group. In contrast, Uber demand is negatively correlated with intersection density and destination accessibility (both by auto and transit) variables. This result might be attributed to the relative advantages of other modes – driving, taking transit, walking, or biking – in areas with denser street networks and better regional job access. The findings of this paper have important implications for policy, planning, and travel demand modeling, where decision-makers seek solutions to shape the built environment in order to reduce automobile dependence and promote walking, biking, and transit use.     

To compete or not compete: exploring the relationships between motorcycle-based ride-sourcing,motorcycle taxis,and public transport in the Jakarta metropolitan area

Transportation - In the last decade, the emergence of ride-sourcing services has transformed personal trip behavior. In the context of Indonesia, ride-sourcing services have evolved into two modes...     

Investigating heterogeneity in social influence by social distance in car-sharing decisions under uncertainty: A regret-minimizing hybrid choice model framework based on sequential stated adaptation experiments

The present study is designed to investigate social influence in car-sharing decisions under uncertainty. Social influence indicates that individuals’ decisions are influenced by the choices made by members of their social networks. An individual may experience different degrees of influence depending on social distance, i.e. the strength of the social relationship between individuals. Such heterogeneity in social influence has been largely ignored in the previous travel behavior research. The data used in this study stems from an egocentric social network survey, which measures the strength of the social relationships of each respondent. In addition, a sequential stated adaptation experiment was developed to capture more explicitly the effect of social network choices on the individual decision-making process. Social distance is regarded as a random latent variable. The estimated social distance and social network choices are incorporated into a social influence variable, which is treated as an explanatory variable in the car-sharing decision model. To simultaneously estimate latent social distance and the effects of social influence on the car-sharing decision, we expand the hybrid choice framework to incorporate the latent social distance model into discrete choice analysis. The estimation results show substantial social influence in car-sharing decisions. The magnitude of social influence varies according to the type of relationship, similarity of socio-demographics and the number of social interactions.     

Economic analysis of ride-sourcing markets

Ride-sourcing refers to an emerging urban mobility service that private car owners drive their own vehicles to provide for-hire rides. This paper analyzes the ride-sourcing market using an aggregate model where the matchings between customers and drivers are captured by an exogenous matching function. It is found that without any regulatory intervention a monopoly ride-sourcing platform will maximize the joint profit with its drivers. On the other hand, the first-best solution is not sustainable when the matching function exhibits increasing returns to scale and the cost function of the platform is subject to economies of scale. Regardless of the examined market scenarios, the average waiting time of customers is proportional to the average searching time of drivers. We establish conditions for regulators to solely regulate the commission charged by the platform to guarantee the second-best. We further investigate the competition of ride-sourcing platforms and find that competition does not necessarily lower the price level or improve social welfare. In the latter case, regulators may rather encourage the merger of the platforms and regulate them directly as a monopolist.     

An analysis of university employee car-sharers in Los Angeles

This paper analyzes personal and car-sharing characteristics of commuters at university in Los Angeles, California. These commuters do not hold an on-campus parking permit and commute by an alternative mode other than driving alone. Each month, the university offers them 8 h free use of shared vehicles across the campus. University employee car-sharers’ housing distribution is significantly different from that of their counterparts who drive to work. Commuter benefits influence not only the participation rate of a car-sharing program but also the program participants’ frequency, time and quantity of car-sharing consumption. Car-sharing is most popular among bus commuters, university students and female employees.     

The effects of activity-travel context and individual attitudes on car-sharing decisions under travel time uncertainty: A hybrid choice modeling approach

People’s daily decision to use car-sharing rather than other transport modes for conducting a specific activity has been investigated recently in assessing the market potential of car-sharing systems. Most studies have estimated transport mode choice models with an extended choice set using attributes such as average travel time and costs. However, car-sharing systems have some distinctive features: users have to reserve a car in advance and pay time-based costs for using the car. Therefore, the effects of activity-travel context and travel time uncertainty require further consideration in models that predict car-sharing demand. Moreover, the relationships between individual latent attitudes and the intention to use car-sharing have not yet been investigated in much detail. In contributing to the research on car-sharing, the present study is designed to examine the effects of activity-travel context and individual latent attitudes on short-term car-sharing decisions under travel time uncertainty. The effects of all these factors were simultaneously estimated using a hybrid choice modeling framework. The data used in this study was collected in the Netherlands, 2015 using a stated choice experiment. Hypothetical choice situations were designed to collect respondents’ intention to use a shared-car for their travel to work. A total of 791 respondents completed the experiment. The estimation results suggest that time constraints, lack of spontaneity and a larger variation in travel times have significant negative effects on people’s intention to use a shared-car. Furthermore, this intention is significantly associated with latent attitudes about pro-environmental preferences, the symbolic value of cars, and privacy-seeking.     

A literature review of mobility services: definitions,modelling state-of-the-art,and key considerations for a conceptual modelling framework

ABSTRACT

This paper presents a comprehensive literature review focused on the supply side of mobility services, providing relevant insights at the conceptual, operational, and modelling levels. Definitions are first drawn from the Mobility as a Service paradigm due to its predominance in the literature. This is followed by an assessment of the operational features of a range of mobility services, including carsharing, bikesharing, ridehailing, and demand responsive transit. To conclude the review, the state-of-the-art in modelling approaches for mobility services is reported, at different levels of complexity and integration. Three of the most important findings and arguments from this paper suggest that a high degree of generality exists for operational features of mobility services; that it is essential to make a distinction between Mobility as a Service and a mobility service in isolation; along with the argument that human agency should be carefully considered in modelling efforts, both for user agent and driver agent decision-making processes. Finally, key considerations are proposed for the future development of a conceptual framework for modelling the supply side of mobility services, which would have a generic service provider model as its core component.     

Ridesharing in North America: Past,Present, and Future

Since the late 1990s, numerous ridematching programmes have integrated the Internet, mobile phones, and social networking into their services. Online ridematching systems are employing a range of new strategies to create “critical mass”: (1) regional and large employer partnerships, (2) financial incentives, (3) social networking to younger populations, and (4) real-time ridematching services that employ “smartphones” and automated ridematching software. Enhanced casual carpooling approaches, which focus on “meeting places”, are also being explored. Today, ridesharing represents approximately 8–11% of the transportation modal share in Canada and the USA, respectively. There are approximately 638 ridematching programmes in North America. Ridesharing's evolution can be categorized into five phases: (1) World War II car-sharing (or carpooling) clubs; (2) major responses to the 1970s energy crises; (3) early organized ridesharing schemes; (4) reliable ridesharing systems; and (5) technology-enabled ridematching. While ridesharing's future growth and direction are uncertain, the next decade is likely to include greater interoperability among services, technology integration, and stronger policy support. In light of growing concerns about climate change, congestion, and oil dependency, more research is needed to better understand ridesharing's impacts on infrastructure, congestion, and energy/emissions.     

Measuring the car ownership impact of free-floating car-sharing – A case study in Basel,Switzerland

Free-floating car-sharing schemes operate without fixed car-sharing stations, ahead reservations or return-trip requirements. Providing fast and convenient motorization, they attract both public transport users and (former) car-owners. Thus, their impact on individual travel behavior depends on the user type. Estimating the travel behavior impact of these systems therefore requires quantitative data. Using a two-wave survey approach (shortly after launch of the scheme plus one year later) including travel diaries, this research indicates that (due to their membership) 6% of the free-floating car-sharing customers reduce their private vehicle ownership. Moreover, the results suggest that free-floating car-sharing both complements and competes with station-based car-sharing.     

The mobility and accessibility expectations of seniors in an aging population

Populations of post-industrial nations are aging. With a growing number of people living well into their 80s and maintaining active lives, the transportation system will have to start focussing more closely on understanding their mobility and accessibility needs, so as to ensure that specific requirements of this large segment are not being ignored through the promotion of traditional ‘solutions’ and historical assumptions. This paper takes a close look at the evidence on the mobility needs and travel patterns of individuals over 64, distinguishing between the “young” elderly (aged 65–75 years) and the “old” elderly (over 75 years). This distinction is particularly useful in recognising the threshold of health change that impacts in a non-marginal way on mobility needs. This distinction also focuses transport planning and policy on a commitment to understanding the different needs of these sub-groups of the population, identifying services and facilities that better cater for these groups. We review the evidence, in particular, on the mobility characteristics of the over 75 years age group, including how they secure support through migration and settlement patterns. We use the empirical evidence from a number of western nations to identify the role of conventional and specialised public transport as an alternative to the automobile in meeting mobility and accessibility needs.     

Perceived accessibility,mobility, and connectivity of public transportation systems

Although public transportation is considered effective at reducing the external cost of driving private vehicles, many urbanites do not use public transportation. This study develops measures employing accessibility, mobility, and seamless connectivity for an entire public transportation service chain as indicators for evaluating public transport services, prioritizes underperforming scenarios from the perspective of urban travelers, and derives various market segmentation strategies that consider different socio-demographic characteristics. A conceptual model is set up herein to assess these latent constructs that describe unobservable and immeasurable characteristics. As a Likert ordinal scale can generate misleading statistical inferences, the Rasch model is used to eliminate bias generated by an ordinal scale when measuring these three latent constructs separately. The Rasch model compares person parameters with item parameters, which are then subjected to logarithmic transformation along a logit scale so as to recognize specific difficulties of service scenarios that cannot be easily eliminated by certain urban travelers. The multidimensional Rasch model also measures the perceptions of urban travelers in terms of the interactions between accessibility, mobility, and seamless connectivity of this public transportation system. While comparing urban travelers of two large cities in Taiwan, Taipei and Kaohsiung, the empirical results demonstrate that perceived accessibility, mobility, and seamless connectivity differ based on travelers’ age, frequency of weekly sports activities, and environmental awareness. This paper also advances appropriate improvement strategies and provides policy suggestions for urban planners, public transportation service operation agencies, and policy makers when they seek to create user-friendly public transportation services. The proposed approach can be generalized in other cities by considering their local context uniqueness and further evaluating their public transport services.     

High speed rail passenger segmentation and ticketing channel preference

A multi-channel strategy for the purposes of marketing and ticketing has been widely employed in various fields, including the transportation industry, yet few transportation studies have investigated ticket channel-related issues. This study thus adopts Taiwan High Speed Rail (THSR) as a case study to identify passengers’ perceptions regarding key factors that affect the channel preference through which they receive their services, particularly across a four-stage ticket purchasing process, including information enquiry, booking, payment, and ticket pick-up. To investigate these key factors, we base the framework of our research model upon customers’ perceived value perspective, adopting a multinomial logit model to examine the influence of channel attributes on HSR passengers’ preferences. The relationship among the decisions made by these passengers at each ticket purchasing stage is also examined. The findings of our study demonstrate that perceived risk, perceived benefit, and perceived ease of use are critical factors influencing passengers’ channel preference throughout the ticket-purchasing process. Perceptual differences are proven to exist due to various demographic factors and trip characteristics. The conclusions of this study have implications for THSR management to design appropriate ticketing channel services for certain types of passengers and can also be generally applied to multiple distribution channels in conventional railway system and intercity bus services.     

Residential location and transit-oriented development in a new rail corridor

The relationship of form, use, and density in urban development and their influence on human behavior and travel is a key element of many land use and transport policies. Prior research indicates high-density urban development leads to decreased travel and thus sustainable mobility; however, personal attitudes seem to have greater effect on mobility than does the urban form. This research evaluates how households consider transit-oriented development (TOD) characteristics in their location decisions with regard to new Mandurah railway line stations opened in December 2007 in Perth, Western Australia. The results indicate that the choice of residence reflects neighborhood and housing attributes, with significant heterogeneity in the populations of the three precincts in terms of their valuation of various housing characteristics, proximity to urban facilities, and transport. There is also significant variation in households’ attitudes to natural and artificial environments. A better understanding of the complex relationships among environment, travel, socio-demographic characteristics, and household attitudes can help transport planners leverage the benefits of TOD and improve the quality of urban design and community life.     

The implications of the sharing economy for transport

ABSTRACT

The sharing economy has gained a lot of attention in recent years. Despite the substantial growth in shared services, its impact overall on transport is unclear. This paper analyses the literature on sharing in transport and includes government and consultant reports, websites and academic journals. The drivers of ride-sharing, car-sharing, car-pooling and freight-sharing are largely economic and convenience related for participants. Trust, technology platforms and the trend to avoid ownership of assets are facilitating factors in its growth. Over-regulation, inconsistent quality of service and the need for recommendation are potential barriers. The transport journals in particular are relatively slow to research this topic with more focusing on bike-sharing than other modes of vehicle sharing. The paper discusses the impact of sharing on transport suggesting it is likely to be part of a solution to transport problems and congestion perhaps in combination with other developments such as driverless vehicles. It also warns of the dangers of over-regulation and under-regulation. The future will require holistic transport strategies that consider sharing options and will require government departments to work cooperatively.     

Impacts of a multimodal mobility service on travel behavior and preferences: user insights from Munich’s first Mobility Station

The City of Munich, in cooperation with the local public transport provider MVG, is testing a pilot project of a “Mobility Station”, which is a multimodal mobility hub connecting public transport (PT) and new shared mobility services. The project’s goal is to provide sustainable mobility options that allow citizens to be mobile without owning a car. To evaluate the acceptance of the Mobility Station, as well as short and long term effects on mobility behavior, we developed an online user survey in close cooperation with the stakeholders and experts in the field of shared mobility. The results provide insights on the awareness and perception of the Mobility Station among users, their mobility patterns, current degree of multimodality, as well as actual and potential changes on mobility behavior and travel preferences due to the multimodal mobility service. Most users are young, male, and highly educated individuals with access to multiple mobility options. PT plays a central role for daily mobility together with the services they were identified to be customers of. The high share of users that use different mobility services at least once a month indicates some degree of multimodality. Actual and potential changes in mobility behavior towards multimodality were revealed. Some users declared to use other mobility services more often. They appreciate the availability of different mobility options and show interest in other services and intermodal connections indicating that there is still potential to increase multimodal behavior.     

Public transport demand: dynamic panel model analysis

This paper presents an original essay that explains the mobility behaviour towards the public transport supply in Tunisia. This research aims to determine the key variables affecting an individual’s decision to travel by public transport and explains how the use of these means fits the mobility strategies. The dynamic panel model is applied to twelve Tunisian Regional companies, where we aim to analyze the behaviours of Tunisian citizens in the regions where Regional Transport Companies ensure the total service supply of urban, interurban and suburban public transport of travellers. The results show that mobility behaviours are subject to various variables. In particular, service quality, mean price and active population are the most significant variables regarding public transport demand in Tunisia.     

Young people and the private car: A love-hate relationship

Urban mobility is one of the main concerns of the public authorities in developed countries. In France, household travel surveys are conducted every ten years in major cities to gather weekday mobility data. They enable decision-makers to better understand travel patterns, their change and their determinants, in order to adapt transport infrastructures to the population′s needs. While the automobile has allowed the level of mobility to increase since 1950, an unexpected finding has emerged from recent surveys in most developed countries, namely that there has been a marked decline in car use. Analyses show that this trend is mainly because young adults (18–34 years old) are less likely to acquire a driver′s license. This paper tries to better understand the decrease in the rate of driver′s license holding among young adults in the Lyon conurbation and to quantify the impact of the main explanatory factors in a temporal perspective. It also aims to analyze the consequences of this trend on private car use as a driver for daily trips. It quantifies the influence of economic, socio-demographic and spatial factors on driver ′ s license holding and car use by considering the responses to the last three household travels surveys conducted in the Lyon conurbation area (1995, 2006 and 2015). The temporal dimension allows us to highlight a change in the relationship between young adults and the private car in the French context.     

Shared versus private mobility: Modeling public interest in autonomous vehicles accounting for latent attitudes

Emerging autonomous vehicles (AVs) and shared mobility systems per se will transform urban passenger transportation. Coupled together, shared AVs (SAVs) can facilitate widespread use of shared mobility services by providing flexible public travel modes comparable to private AV. Hence, it may be conjectured that future urban mobility is likely an on-demand service and AV private ownership is unappealing. Nonetheless, it is still unclear what observable and latent factors will drive public interest in (S)AVs, the answer to which will have important implications on transportation system performance. This paper aims to jointly model public interest in private AVs and multiple SAV configurations (carsharing, ridesourcing, ridesharing, and access/egress mode) in daily and commute travels with explicit treatment of the correlations across the (S)AV types. To this end, multivariate ordered outcome models with latent variables are employed, whereby latent attitudes and preferences describing traveler safety concern about AV, green travel pattern, and mobility-on-demand savviness are accounted for using structural and measurement equations. Drawing from a stated preference survey in the State of Washington, important insights are gained into the potential user groups based on the socio-economic, built environment, and daily/commute travel behavior attributes. Key policies are also offered to promote public interest in (S)AVs by scrutinizing the marginal effects of the latent variables.     

Social influences on household location, mobility and activity choice in integrated micro-simulation models

Agent-based approaches to simulating long-term location and mobility decisions and short-term activity and travel decisions of households and individuals are receiving increasing attention in land-use and transportation interaction (LUTI) models to predict land-use changes and travel behaviour in mutual interaction. Social interactions between households and between individuals potentially have an influence on a wide range of the long-term and short-term choices involved in these systems. In this paper we identify the areas in which social interactions play a role and address the question how these influences can be modelled in the context of agent-based LUTI models. We distinguish impacts on activity participation (joint activity participation, support-and-help activities) and impacts on decision making (information exchange, social adaptation of preferences and aspirations) as the two main areas of social influence. A prototype of a LUTI model is proposed that accounts for impacts of the social network on longer-term mobility decision making through information exchange and social adaptation of preferences and aspirations. The model is demonstrated in a numerical simulation.