Depending on where you live, your mobility needs may differ quite a bit: In rural regions, individual mobility is key but often suffers from weak public transport infrastructure. In cities, many options of public transport are available and new services of micro-mobility options cover the “last mile” between public transport grids and your final destination. These new services usher in changes in mobility patterns and cater to new needs, facilitated by new digital infrastructures and payment systems. They also encourage us to rethink mobility as a common, everyday behaviour, need, and practice. The more options we have for mobility, the more we think about ways in which different resources can be deployed across modes of transport - from cycling to trains to buses and e-scooters. In other words, how can we develop information and service systems, that work across public, personal and private resources for mobility? And how are we enabled – individually and collectively – to use mobility resources in efficient and sustainable ways, reflecting the conditions of where we live and to what we can afford?
Digital media and information technologies are becoming more personalised in everyday practices. There is a growing trend to develop individual and public transport offers across different modes of transport as integrated solutions. Approaches of the platform economy begin to capture more and more realms of our daily lives. The question is how we can integrate public values into the designs of platforms (van Dick, Poell and de Waal, 2018). The key to sustainable mobility seems not to be a single technology (e.g. electric cars or ride share platforms). The key seems rather in networking different public and private offers for mobility through an individualised interface that addresses the specific needs of users, depending on where they are and when they need transport solutions. Mobility is also a key to civic participation, whether you are using a wheelchair, have a baby stroller or are walking & riding without baggage and worry. Inclusion in this sense means to adopt existing transport options to the needs of their users, account for seasonal changes and for new combinations of modes of transport (Buehler 2021).
Without promoting or endorsing any of the following offers, we here present a few mobility models and their underlying platforms from Denmark and Germany.
BlaBlaCar, is a widely known ride-sharing platform that claims over 100 million users globally. It serves as a pivotal hub for individuals seeking efficient and cost-effective transport solutions on the local and regional level by putting drivers of vehicles and passengers in contact with each other. The platform offers a trustworthy environment and reputation for offering and seeking shared rides (with strangers). It also streamlines booking, claims and payment processes for both sides.
GoMore is headquartered in Copenhagen has evolved into a multi-country car-sharing model. To increase the efficiency of using private vehicles in everyday life, the concept of GoMore goes in a different direction. Most cars are parked 95% of the time (Barter, 2013). Private vehicle owners offer their cars for a fee, facilitated by GoMore handling bookings, payments, and insurance. Their keyless option enhances convenience and security for users and owners of cars by installing a digital lock device in registered owners’ vehicles. The privately owned car, dormant most of its time, thus can help out others seeking a temporary transport option for multiple purposes.
Driven by local authorities, Flextrafik offers flexible transportation options in Jutland – a rather rural region in Denmark. Its transport options cater to the special needs of citizens in underserved areas. Flextrafik integrates various providers to enhance public transport accessibility for citizens outside the denser grids of public buses and trains.
Jelbi is a comprehensive mobility app of Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (Berlin Transport Company, BVG) in Germany, integrating public mobility options with rental and scooter services. It integrates multiple services for seamless journey planning, booking, and payment – all in real-time. By taking an integrative approach, Jelbi emphasises multimodal, public options such as bike-sharing and enhanced the use rate of vehicle fleets (e.g. from rental providers). The platform aims to alleviate traffic congestion in the streets of Berlin through real-time options and enhance local transport efficiency.
Nabogo is a Danish company that offers a platform for city-driven mobility solutions, collaborating especially with municipalities and transport authorities in countries across Europe. Cities and municipalities are Nabogo’s direct client, following a business-to-business approach, but the target users are individual citizens seeking mobility options in their region. Unlike typical carpooling or ridesharing platforms, Nabogo integrates various public transport modes like scooters and buses, especially to cover the “last mile” between a public transport hub or stop and the final destination.
The Digitale Dörfer App (Smart Villages App) and its pilot from Fraunhofer Society from Germany has been adopted by numerous small towns and villages across the country. It connects municipalities and their citizens, but also citizens amongst each other, with a modular digital service platform. Unlike the other platforms introduced above, the smart villages app offers a mobility app that is tailored to local needs, feeding on data streams and services that are locally defined – if available. The Digitale Dörfer App is a modular tool-box for digital services that serve local communities and citizens based on a federated platform infrastructure that is affordable to smaller municipalities.
These examples of mobility platforms collectively signal a shift towards sustainable and integrated mobility solutions in the making. Their different approaches all take advantage of the different personalised and datafied resources that allow citizens to manage their mobility needs. Public transport used to be a monolithic system of well-coordinated, infrastructural resources. With platformed resources we are seeing a new level of integration at the systemic level meeting individual needs. Many of these modes are not yet reflecting the economic and social inequalities that emerge between service provides and those actually providing the mobility (ie. precarious employment of drivers, legal and tax conditions for owners of vehicles, or members of communities where (digital) mobility patterns are experienced as disruptive of local peace and customs). But mobility remains essential for participation in society and the demand for inclusion and equitable options require us to rethink infrastructures of mobility as driven by individualised needs and expectations.
(MB/FG/CR)
Literature:
Barns, S. (2020). Platform Urbanism: Negotiating Platform Ecosystems in Connected Cities. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9725-8.
Barter, P. (2013, 22. Februar). „Cars are parked 95% of the time“. Let’s check! Reinventing Parking. https://www.reinventingparking.org/2013/02/cars-are-parked-95-of-time-lets-check.html.
Buehler, R. (2021). The politics of cycling infrastructure. Spaces and (In)Equality. European Planning Studies, 29(1), 219–220. https://doi.org/10.1080/09654313.2020.1845427.
Dijck, J. V., Poell, T., & de Waal, M. (2018). The Platform Society. Public Values in a Connective World. Oxford University Press. https://academic.oup.com/book/12378.
Nabogo (2023): “Europese verkenning: first en last mile oplossingen" [European exploration: first and last mile solutions"] https://nabogo.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/E-13-Rapport-Europese-verkenning-.1740390.pdf (in Dutch).
