Shared transport

This article is about hired vehicles or hired rides. For nonexclusive shared passenger journeys for the public, see public transport.
Zipcar Charging Station in San Francisco, California

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.[1][2] 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).[3] Shared mobility networks also retain the potential to expand the reach of public transportation by addressed gaps in existing public transportation systems. They can also provide economic benefits to users in the form of cost savings in some cases.[1]

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.[4][5]

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.[citation needed] 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. [6]

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.

  1. ^ a b Shaheen, S., et al., "Shared Mobility: Definitions, Industry Developments, and Early Understanding." Transportation Sustainability Research Center, Innovative Mobility Research. July 2015.
  2. ^ Cohen, Adam and Susan Shaheen, “Planning for Shared Mobility.” Planning Advisory Service (PAS) 583, American Planning Association, Washington, D.C.. July 2016.
  3. ^ Taiebat; Brown; Safford; Qu; Xu (2018). "A Review on Energy, Environmental, and Sustainability Implications of Connected and Automated Vehicles". Environmental Science & Technology. 52 (20): 11449–11465. arXiv:1901.10581. doi:10.1021/acs.est.8b00127. PMID 30192527. S2CID 52174043.
  4. ^ Eisenberg, Anne (December 21, 2008). "Need a Ride? Check Your iPhone". The New York Times.
  5. ^ "EcoPlan.org article". 2008. Archived from the original on 2010-06-13. Retrieved 2009-06-24.
  6. ^ Hamid, Umar Zakir Abdul (2022). "Autonomous, Connected, Electric and Shared Vehicles: Disrupting the Automotive and Mobility Sectors". Retrieved 11 November 2022. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)