Shared mobility services: all necessary car journeys with 96% fewer private vehicles, says study

Replacing private car traffic with new shared mobility services in urban areas can dramatically reduce the number of cars needed, significantly cut CO2 emissions and free public land for uses other than parking – without making it more difficult for users to get from door to door.

This latest report from the International Transport Forum at the OECD, presented at Smarter Travel LIVE!, examines how the optimised use of new on-demand shared transport modes could change the future of mobility in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area in Finland. Based on simulation, it provides indicators for the impact of shared mobility solutions on accessibility, metro/rail ridership, required parking space, congestion and CO2 emissions.

Speaking at SmarterTravel LIVE!, the ITF's Philippe Crist highlighted the latest findings, and outlined how earlier results from shared mobility simulations using mobility data from Lisbon, Portugal preceeded the Helsinki study, and have shown very similar results.

Download the report here

In the simulations, explained Crist, motorised road trips (private car, bus and taxi) trips were replaced by different configurations of 6-seater shared taxis that provide on-demand door-to-door service, and taxi-buses that offer a street corner-to-street corner service booked 30 minutes in advance.

With these shared services, he said, all of today’s car journeys in Helsinki Metropolitan Area could be provided with just 4% of the current number of private vehicles.?The best results in terms of reducing emissions and congestion are achieved when all private car trips are replaced with shared rides:

• CO2 emissions from cars would fall 34%;
• Congestion would be reduced by 37%;
• Much of public parking space could be used for other purposes.

Shared mobility also means fewer transfers, less waiting and shorter travel times compared to traditional public transport. The improved quality of the service could attract car users that currently do not use public transport and foster a shift away from individual car travel.

The Helsinki study also confirms initial results for Lisbon that shared mobility improves access to jobs (and public services) notably for citizens in areas with few such offers. Shared mobility services thus can play an important role in creating more equitable access to opportunities for citizens.

Finally, the Helsinki study confirms that shared mobility services can be highly effective feeder services for high-capacity public transport services. As in the Lisbon case, scenarios providing first- and last-mile shared services showed that this can increase rail and metro ridership between 15% and 23%.

The benefits of shared mobility for the Helsinki Metropolitan Area were highly significant in the simulation, yet lower than in the Lisbon case. Replacing all motorised road trips (private car, bus and taxi) with shared services reduced transport CO2 emissions by 62% in the Lisbon case, while the reduction for the Helsinki Metropolitan Area was 28%. This is because

• The Helsinki region has a good public transport offer in international comparison and people walk and cycle more. The current motorised road share in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area is 56% compared to 70% for Lisbon, meaning there is less room for improvement to start with.
• Average trip lengths in the Helsinki region are longer than in Lisbon, so that emissions will tend to be higher per trip for the same vehicle occupancy.

For the first time, a focus group and user survey complemented this shared mobility study. The feedback from potential users in the Helsinki region revealed that citizens are very positive about shared services as an additional tool to improve mobility in the Helsinki region. Potential users are very sensitive, however, to price and service quality.

Respondents want shared services to be available in the entire Metropolitan Area, not just in the city centre. Shared services as feeders for rail and metro lines are seen as highly relevant. This squares well with simulation results showing that the service would require sufficient scale to ensure positive impacts and manageable costs.

In the survey, participants chose shared mobility services for 63% of all trips. There is some evidence, however, that public transport users in the Helsinki region are more willing than car users to adopt the new shared modes. Those aged 55 and above and those living far from the city centre also tend to favour shared mobility.

The results of the study will be used by the Helsinki region in its regional long-term land use, housing and transport planning process. The main aim of the process is to decrease emissions drastically by year 2030.