Assessing the welfare impacts of shared mobility and Mobility as a Service (MaaS)

Abstract

Mobility as a Service (MaaS) aims to allow less biased mode choice decisions by overcoming market segmentation. To this end, all available modes are offered at their respective marginal cost for each trip. Such a setting favors shared modes, where fixed costs can be apportioned among a large number of users. In turn, car-sharing, bike-sharing or ride- hailing may themselves become an efficient alternative of public transport. Although early field studies confirm the expected changes in behaviour, impacts have not been studied for larger transport systems yet. This research conducts a first joint simulation of car-sharing, bike-sharing and ride-hailing for a city-scale transport system using MATSim. Results show that in Zurich, through less biased mode choice decisions, transport- related energy consumption can be reduced by 25 %. In addition, introduction of shared modes may increase transport system efficiency by up to 7 %. Efficiency gains may reach 11 % if shared modes were used as a substitute for public transport in lower-density areas. Hence, a MaaS scheme with shared mobility allows to increase system efficiency (travel times & cost), while substantially reducing energy consumption.