Shared Mobility/Mobility on Demand

Transportation Research Board's Transportation Explorers Podcast

January 19, 2021

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Susan Shaheen, the co-director of the Transportation Sustainability Research Center, discusses her latest study, Future of Public Transit and Shared Mobility Scenario Planning for COVID 19 Recovery.

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An Assessment of the Potential Weather Barriers of Urban Air Mobility (UAM)

Colleen Reiche, PhD, Frank Brody, Christian McGillen, Joel Siegel, Adam Cohen
2018

Urban Air Mobility (UAM), a subset of advanced air mobility, is a concept that envisions safe, sustainable, affordable, and accessible air transportation for passenger mobility, cargo delivery, and emergency management within or traversing a metropolitan area. In recent years, several companies have designed and tested enabling elements of this concept, including; prototypes of vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft, operational concepts, and market studies to understand potential business models. While UAM may be enabled by the convergence of several factors, a number of barriers...

Bikesharing across the Globe

Susan Shaheen Ph.D. , Stacey Guzman, Hua Zhang
2012

Concerns about global climate change, energy security, and unstable fuel prices have caused many decision makers and policy experts worldwide to closely examine the need for more sustainable transportation strate- gies. Sustainable strategies include clean fuels, vehicle technologies, trans- portation demand management, and integrated land use and transportation strategies (Shaheen and Lipman 2007). Bikesharing—the shared use of a bicycle fleet—is one mobility strategy that could help address many of these concerns. In recent years, interest in this evolving concept has spread across...

Key Takeaways from 2019 U.S. Workshop: Mobility on Demand, Automation, and Equity

August 29, 2019

Two people on public transit

The market for personal mobility is changing rapidly due to shifting demographics and social trends, as well as technological advances such as: smartphones, information processing, and widespread data connectivity. Over the past year, we have been writing about Mobility on Demand (MOD): an innovative transportation concept evolving around...

'I'm Back to Riding My Own Bike.' Higher Prices Threaten Silicon Valley’s Mobility Revolution

August 9, 2019

Red bike with brand label "JUMP"

When JUMP’s bright red bikes started appearing on the streets of San Francisco last year, Ian Chesal was relieved. His lengthy commute, from the hills of Oakland to his tech company’s San Francisco office, involved driving to the subway, sitting for 40 minutes, and then walking a mile to his office. Once the JUMP bikes appeared, he could use his phone to unlock one outside his subway stop, and ride it...

SAE International Publishes Set of Definitions for Shared Mobility Terms

October 3, 2018

Cartoon image of cars, vans, scooters, bikes, and people with a city skyline in the background

SAE International announces it has published new definitions for shared mobility terms – “Taxonomy and Definitions for Terms Related to Shared Mobility and Enabling Technologies – J3163™.”

A consequence of the ever-growing and -...

An Interview with Susan Shaheen, the “Mother” of Shared Mobility

October 13, 2018

Image of Susan Shaheen talking behind a podium

Lily Maxwell, smart cities content writer for iomob.net, interviews Susan Shaheen Ph.D., a pioneer in future mobility strategies. She was among the first to observe, research, and write about changing dynamics in shared mobility and the likely scenarios through which automated vehicles will gain prominence. She is an internationally recognized expert in mobility and...

Uber and Lyft are driving toward IPOs

October 18, 2018

Image of a car door with stickers on it

Uber and Lyft already compete in ride-hailing, ride-sharing, bike-sharing and e-scooters. Next year, they'll be competing for investors, too: Both companies are reportedly planning initial public offerings for early 2019.

For years, the companies have subsidized rides to keep costs low for customers. That fueled their growth, which in turn pumped up their expected...

Scooters could improve mobility in low-income areas, but they have an image problem

December 5, 2018

Person on scooter and pedestrians crossing a street

Cities around the country are grappling with what transportation planners call "the last mile problem": how to get people who don’t drive from a transit stop to their final destination faster than walking. It’s an especially big issue in low-income neighborhoods where many people don’t own cars and transit service can be spotty.

Dockless electric...

UC Berkeley releases report on disaster evacuations

July 12, 2019

Image of "UC Berkeley releases report on disaster evacuations" headline

BERKELEY — A U.C. Berkeley team that conducted wildfire evacuation focus group research in Lake County released a report this week that recommends more use by government agencies of the sharing economy during disaster evacuations.

The report, entitled “Current State of the Sharing Economy and Evacuations: Lessons from...