Wandering through most metropolitan cities in Europe and the United States, you'll think we live in a brave new world that provides affordable and uneasy mobility for everyone, and a smartphone in your pocket is a portal to shared electronic ammunition, bikes and electric cars and a shared cornucopia of Uber or Lyft, and no more than five minutes.
But if you are disabled or older, live in a low-income area or – imagine! – Without a smartphone or credit card, using these shared mobility services will become more difficult. They tend to gather in wealthier urban areas, where less mobility or younger children who need child seats are often inaccessible. In some ways, due to these factors, users are young, affluent, healthy, white and male.
Shared mobility may be a key part of a more sustainable transportation system. But to be most effective, it needs to include everyone. For-profit shared mobility providers have largely failed to achieve this, but various plans and projects are looking for creative solutions to attract underserved communities.
The potential benefits are great. Common mobility on demand, which can be integrated into a developed public transportation system, may reduce the number of vehicles in some cities by 90% and reduce transportation emissions by 50%, but only if it largely replaces the use of private cars. “The car has to be a guest, not a main actor,” said Luis Martinez, chief modeler at the International Transport Forum. Annual review of environment and resources.
It will be challenging to achieve this, especially in the northern part of the world, where people choose 61% of private cars and 61% of their travel kilometres. The researchers say that moving more people from private to shared vehicles is an important first step to expanding access to a wider share of the population, as many people are excluded today.
For example, a 2019 study of 10 cities in the United States showed that white Americans have access to nearly three times the amount of car venues and bikes within a half-mile radius, twice as much as African-Americans. African Americans also have to wait 22% of the time to arrive when they ride from home.
But even if efforts are made to expand services to underserved areas in cities, other obstacles remain. One in five low-income Americans still don’t have a smartphone, and almost one in four don’t have a bank account – a prerequisite for using most such services. A 2017 survey conducted in Philadelphia, Chicago and Brooklyn showed that low-income people of color were equally interested in cyclists, but the likelihood of using such a system is less likely: While 10% of high-income white residents and 5% of high-income residents are members of the Bexarray system, only two percent of the members are compared to those of the lower-money residents.
Of the 48% of color residents, 48% of color costs are a big obstacle. In addition, the lack of familiarity with the bicycle system has caused one-third to return.
How to bridge the accessibility gap? A fundamental problem, Martinez said, is that “private businesses will always go to the place of money.” So, it’s no surprise that public institutions are the institutions that intervene. In 2024, a survey of nearly 250 bike and e-bike sharing programs in the United States found that 70% have taken measures to touch underserved groups and adopted measures such as cash payments and non-smartphone options.
NGOs also fill the gap. An example is the plan of a nonprofit shared mobile company in Buffalo, New York. In the summer of 2020, it was suddenly discovered that he owned 3,000 e-bikes, and part of Uber was cancelled when he sold the bicycle arms of his business earlier that year.
Shane Paul, who oversees the program, explained: “The model of the E-Bike library was born.” Community-based organizations have established an e-bike library for the program to build an e-bike library for underserved populations. In the first location in a transit desert on the east side of Buffalo, 71% of members are first-time e-bike riders and 84% are identified as people of color.
Shared e-bikes are a particularly promising alternative to automobiles in urban areas, and one report estimates that turning to e-bikes could drive 8 million cars from U.S. roads. The e-bike library solves many obstacles: bikes are free and libraries are hosted by places that are already an important part of the community. In addition to maintaining bikes, these programs organize training, group rides and educational activities to familiarize people with the culture of bicycles and safety.
“It can be as easy as ensuring a bike is locked,” Paul said. “These types of programs provide people with room to learn these skills.”
Personal interaction and affordability are also important for Mobitwin, a social transport service for older people, and for those with reduced mobility. Founded by the Belgian non-governmental organization MPACT, it enables elderly people to require volunteers to ride nominal fees. The program has been operating since the 1980s and currently serves 40,000 people in Belgium.
MPACT project manager Esen Köse said being able to set out is a key part of participating in society, and lower mobility in older people is closely related to social isolation and loneliness. “We want to make sure that people who are not usually working or going to school in society, people who are actually often left out, still have the option to leave their homes and do simple daily tasks like going to the grocery store, going to the hair salon, meeting family.”
The booking process is still mostly run over the phone, a recent attempt to switch to an app that proves unsuitable for older users and has never been implemented. Köse said the lack of digital literacy is a problem, but members also don’t want to give up on social connections that arise from calling operators and asking for a ride. She added that the program designed to work involves not only the latest technologies or trends in sharing mobility options. “It's really from 'OK, what are people's needs?'”
Tim is a car sharing service run by the Austrian city of Graz, in addition to maintaining an email and phone-based reservation system. “The older people usually have access to the phone, too,” said Katharina Mayer, the service director. “But some are not, so we provide the necessary support.”
The service also recently added wheelchair-friendly vehicles to the fleet and focused on optimizing women's services. In 2024, only 39% of Tim's car-sharing users are women, and the customer satisfaction survey shows that the lack of child car seats is one of the reasons. This led Tim to include booster seats in all of his cars and provide toddler seats for free on request. A survey planned for later this year will measure the impact of the change, but Meyer said new customers are calling for inquiries about child seating.
Women’s mobility patterns are also different from men, partly because women tend to combine multiple excursions, such as buying groceries and picking up their kids on the way home from get off work. “This makes their mobility more complicated,” said Lina Mosshammer, CEO of Austrian mobile consulting firm Point & Point &.. Because shared mobility solutions are often priced by time, distance, or both, travel links make them more expensive, and most services don't consider small children.
Handle designs such as adapting handle designs on electronic oscilloscopes are often smaller, and providing a home account or cheaper travel fare can help meet the needs of caregivers, Mosshammer said. Free helmets and SOS buttons on bicycles and electronic oscilloscopes can also help address their concerns about personal safety. She added that when mobile companies have more management and other positions, they also tend to have more women as users. “You tend to plan what you know. That's why it's so important to introduce different perspectives on liquidity development.”
Station-based systems – picking up cars and getting out of the car at fixed locations such as train stations, rather than staying on the street like a free-floating system – can also make it easier for women to plan their complex transportation needs. “Suppose you have to bring your kids to violin class every Thursday. You can book a car every Thursday from 2pm to 4pm one month in advance, and you know the car will be there,” Meyer said.
The city of Glaz chose this model for another reason: a free-floating system competes with public transportation, while a station-based system complements it. “Our biggest goal is to get people in Glaz to sell cars,” Meyer said. “Our vehicles have to offer enough options to facilitate this transition.”
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