The GEMINI partner Universidad Politecnica de Madrid conducted an online survey between September 27 and October 26, 2023. It was shared among the GEMINI partners and disseminated through the project dissemination channels (LinkedIn, Twitter, and website) and other channels. The target stakeholders were government and regulations bodies, infrastructure managers and providers, mobility operators, ancillary services of mobility services, investors, financial institutions and insurance, and other stakeholders such as researchers, think tanks, consultancy firms, transport and user associations, urban planners, and smart city initiatives.
The result of the survey has been successful with 280 responses, of which 195 were complete and valid.
The 61% of the respondents do not belong to GEMINI and the most common categories of work of them were Government and Regulation Bodies (53%) and Research and Academia (41%).
Furthermore, 59% of respondents consider themselves experts in while 23% consider they are not.
On the other hand, 45% of respondents use NMS at least once per month —with only 3% using NMS on a daily basis— and 55% use them rarely or just every once in a while.
Regarding the type of NMS used by respondents, the result showed that the most widely used is micro-mobility —especially bike sharing (51%) and, to a lesser extent, kick scooter sharing (18%), and moped scooter sharing (11%). Car sharing was also widely used (41%). Ride-hailing and ridesharing services are also used although to a lesser extent.
Moreover, the following key points emerged from the survey responses:
- The most important economic-related goals for the society are “Keeping prices of essential services at an affordable level“, “Financial sustainability to government and businesses” and “Resiliency“. On the other hand, concerning the potential contributions of NMS to promote key economic-related goals, the “Promotion of Innovation” and “Productivity gains from reducing congestion” are considered the most important ones.
- The most important social-related goals for the society are: “Better use of public space in cities”, “Safety and security”, “Accessibility for people with reduced mobility” and “Accessibility and proximity to goods and services”. On the other hand, the key goals that were found the least important were “Quality Jobs” and “Gender equality“. With regard to the potential contributions of NMS to promote key social-related goals, the “Better use of public space in the cities” and “Accessibility and proximity to good and services” are considered the most important ones. The least important key goals were “Quality Jobs” and “Gender equality“, which also happen to be of relatively little importance for society.
- As far as the importance for society of the environmental-related goals, respondents consider that environmental criteria are very important for society, being “Air quality in cities” and “Mitigation of Climate Change” the most important ones. In its turn, concerning the potential contributions of NMS to promote key environmental-related goals, the importance for society is fully aligned with the contribution of NMS to improve them, as “Air quality in cities” and “Mitigation of Climate Change” are considered the goals that NMS can improve the most.
- Regarding the governance-related goals, all were considered important (Legal certainity, Institutional Quality, Transparency, Justice, Democracy) for the successful implementation of NMS. However, the highest scores for the successful implementation of NMS were given to “Legal certainty” and “Institutional Quality“. This is an expected result since they are paramount to reducing the risk of implementing NMS.
Moreover, a part of the survey has been dedicated to the potential of new technologies and how they may benefit and enhance aspects necessary for the right implementation of NMS.
With regard to the potential that different technology enablers are expected to have in the transformation of the current global mobility landscape, “Physical and ICT infrastructure” stands out with the highest potential to change the current mobility landscape, according to respondents.
It is worth noting that “Alternative power and energy solutions” and “Data security and management” are not considered as important by respondents as might initially be expected.
Figure 1 shows the opinions of the respondents on the expected potential of specific emerging technologies to drive innovative NMS, ranked from the most to least potential.
The results show that the technologies that have the greatest potential to drive NMS innovation are “Advanced fleet monitoring and management solutions“, “IoT infrastructure and smart cities“, “Big Data, AI and machine learning techniques” and “Connected, cooperative and autonomous vehicles“. Respondents consider that new technologies can contribute most to improving “Modal integration“, “User experience, customer satisfaction, and quality of service“, and “Accessibility and proximity of transport services to people”.
Moreover, concerning the NMS that can benefit the most from innovative technologies, according to respondents is MaaS, which are services that allow accessing different modes of transportation in an integrated manner.
In addition, services such as mobility hubs that facilitate integration between different modes, and on-demand micro transit, show a high potential to benefit from technological innovations. It is worth noting that these two NMS were among those with the lowest level of use reported by respondents so new technologies can be crucial to boost the usage of those services to a greater extent in the next few years.
Figure 2 shows the opinions of the respondents on which are the main challenges to promoting the integration of technical innovations in the NMS, ranked from the most to the least important. For instance, “Regulator hurdles” was found to be a challenge by 70% of respondents.
It is worth mentioning that respondents considered “Regulatory hurdles” as the main challenge to promote the integration of technical innovations into NMS. It should be noted that this result is aligned with the most important key governance goal pointed out by the respondents for the proper implementation of NMS, which was “Legal certainly“. It is therefore considered one of the key aspects to work for promoting and guaranteeing the suitable operation of NMS. The second most important challenge is “infrastructure availability“.
In conclusion, the survey, by collecting the key information regarding technological drivers and key societal goals, gave an overview for the design of innovative business models for shared mobility.