Collaborative mobility: Common features in a new generation of mobility business models

Abstract

Mobility has been massively disrupted by new-generation telecoms and mobile apps, which allow an optimised utilisation of both transport means and infrastructures. When it comes to this kind of mobility, transport authorities and ‘traditional’ transport planning can only do little. Citizens step in and fill in the gaps at neighbourhood level by co-creating mobility solutions, as they already own or have at their disposal enough assets to work with: private and commercial vehicles, tracking and geo-location capabilities, smart communication devices, a transportation infrastructure grid and so on. Without additional investment in physical assets for marginal uses of the infrastructure, and without adding more vehicles to the streets, it becomes possible to ‘kick start’ a new mobility ‘metabolism’ through collaborative solutions that concatenate several ‘sharing’ approaches: car-pooling, car-sharing, crowd-parking, bike-sharing, cargo-pooling, data-sharing. In sum, crowd-sourcing and shared-economy ideas are turbo-charged by new technologies. Such technologies can bridge social capital and citizen power with the valuable aspects of free market economics. In addition, crowd-sourcing mobility solutions seem to make economic sense and bring democratic thinking and environmental conscience. But are they financially sustainable?