Reinventing the wheel: mobility as a service

Most of the planet’s emissions are produced by cities and their populations: in the coming years urban mobility will have to play a greater role in reducing them. From hydrogen buses and smart traffic lights, to reimagined town plans and data-driven cycle routes, cities around the world are already finding ways to become greener and easier places to live and work.

Integrating transport services – or ‘bundling’ – looks set to make mobility easier, greener, healthier and more personalised, especially in urban areas. So, what are the next steps to making bundling go mainstream?

Ride pooling looks like an attractive solution to reduce carbon emissions and make people’s commutes and lives easier. With smart technology and green credentials that rival established public transport, it offers a vision for the future of mobility. Yet it faces roadblocks like public sector buy-in and passenger preferences. How does it score in practice, and how big is it likely to grow?

Driven by the growth in smartphone usage, concern for sustainability and the uptake of electric vehicles, carsharing is on the rise. In the coming years, this is likely to change how manufacturers and car rental companies operate: altering the market pattern of demand for cars and speeding up their adoption of data and analytics capabilities.

Automotive consumers’ priorities have long been shifting from simply getting from A to B to comfort, status, entertainment, and more. Today, they are changing again, accelerating towards sustainability and ‘mobility as a service’ (MaaS). Companies in the automotive ecosystem that stand to win and grow in this environment will form strategic partnerships, make the best use of data, and be imaginative about how they can improve the automotive experience.