Shared Mobility

Current State of the Sharing Economy and Evacuations: Lessons from California

Wong, Stephen
Shaheen, Susan, PhD
2019

In many evacuations including wildfire evacuations, public agencies often do not have enough resources to evacuate and shelter all citizens. Consequently, we propose that the sharing economy, through private companies and/or private citizens, could be leveraged in disasters for transportation and sheltering resources. To assess this feasibility, we distributed surveys to individuals impacted by three major wildfires in California: 1) the 2017 October Northern California Wildfires (n=79), 2) the 2017 December Southern California Wildfires (n=226), and 3) the 2018 Carr Wildfire (n=284)....

Future of Public Transit and Shared Mobility: Scenario Planning for COVID-19 Recovery

Shaheen, Susan, PhD
Wong, Stephen, PhD
2021

In 2020, the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic enveloped the world, leading to a public health crisis that profoundly changed all aspects of society, especially multiple sectors in transportation such as public transit and shared mobility. With so much uncertainty about the future of travel, the transportation sector needs to move rapidly to shape the nature of public transit and shared mobility services during the COVID-19 recovery period. Consequently, the University of California Institute of Transportation Studies (UC ITS) and the Transportation Research Board’s (TRB) Executive...

Shared Mobility: Current Practices and Guiding Principles Brief

Shaheen, Susan
Cohen, Adam
Zohdy, Ismail
Kock, Beaudry
2016

Shared mobility—the shared use of a vehicle, bicycle, or other mode—is an innovative transportation strategy that enables users to gain short-term access to transportation modes on an as-needed basis. The term shared mobility includes various forms of carsharing, bikesharing, ridesharing (carpooling and vanpooling), and on-demand ride services. It can also include alternative transit services, such as paratransit, shuttles, and private transit services (called microtransit), which can supplement fixed-route bus and rail services. With diverse options for mobility on the rise, smartphone...

Exploring Electric Vehicle Carsharing As A Mobility Option for Older Adults: A Case Study of A Senior Adult Community in The San Francisco Bay Area

Shaheen, Susan, PhD
Cano, Lauren
Camel, Madonna
2015

By the year 2030, 57 million people will be over the age of 65 in the United States. Baby Boomers drive approximately 17% more than other age groups and are active well past retirement. This paper examines electric vehicle (EV) carsharing (short-term vehicle access) as a future alternative to vehicle ownership for older adults living on fixed incomes in a gated community to provide reduced cost mobility and eliminate vehicle maintenance hassles. The authors conducted a study of the response to the EV carsharing concept in a senior community in Northern California, between Winter 2009 and...

Carsharing's Impact on Household Vehicle Holdings: Results from a North American Shared-Use Vehicle Survey

Martin, Elliot
Shaheen, Susan A.
Lidicker, Jeffrey
2010

Carsharing has grown considerably in North America during the past decade and has flourished within metropolitan regions across the United States and Canada. The result has been a new transportation landscape, which offers urban residents an alternative to automobility without carownership. As carsharing has expanded, there has been a growing demand to understand its environmental impacts. This paper presents the results of a North American carsharing member survey (N = 6,281). The authors establish a “before-and-after” analytical design with a focus oncarsharing’s impacts on household...

Shared Micromoblity Policy Toolkit: Docked and Dockless Bike and Scooter Sharing

Shaheen, Susan, PhD
Cohen, Adam
2019

Shared Micromobility – the shared use of a bicycle, scooter, or other low-speed mode – is an innovative transportation strategy that enables users to have short-term access to a mode of transportation on an as-needed basis. Shared micromobility includes various service models and transportation modes that meet the diverse needs of travelers, such as station-based bikesharing (a bicycle picked-up from and returned to any station or kiosk) and dockless bikesharing and scooter sharing (a bicycle or scooter picked up and returned to any location). Early documented impacts of shared...

Behavioral and Sociodemographic Impacts of Carsharing

Shaheen, Susan A.
Pan, Alexandra
2024

The growth of carsharing in North America since the service was first introduced in 1994 has had notable impacts on travel behaviour, including vehicle ownership and modal shift. Existing forms of carsharing (e.g., roundtrip, one-way, and peer-to-peer) alter the conventional cost structure of driving from one of fixed cost to variable cost. Multiple studies have shown that overall, carsharing users increase public transit and non-motorized modal use, with some users also selling their vehicle or postponing future vehicle purchases as a result of being a carsharing member. These modal...

Advancing Social Equity and Congestion Relief: Understanding the Travel Needs of Underserved Populations That Rely on Transportation Network Companies in the San Francisco Bay Area

Shaheen, Susan
Gosselin, Kate
Broader, Jacquelyn
Cohen, Adam
2022

Transportation Network Companies (TNCs) enable travelers to order and pay for rides on-demand using an online application that connects them with drivers using their personal vehicles. While these modes present opportunities to increase individual mobility and access, they also can worsen congestion and increase vehicle emissions. Researchers explored factors impacting the willingness to use pooled TNCs and identified strategies/policies that could be employed to reduce congestion from TNC use. Researchers conducted a literature review, interviews with TNC experts, semi-structured...

Mobility and the Sharing Economy: Industry Developments and Early Understanding of Impacts

Shaheen, Susan, PhD
Bansal, Apaar
Chan, Nelson
Cohen, Adam
2017

Shared mobility—the shared use of a vehicle, bicycle, or other mode—is an innovative transportation strategy that enables users to gain short-term access to transportation modes on an “as-needed” basis. Shared mobility includes various forms of carsharing, bikesharing, ridesharing, on-demand ride services, and microtransit. Additionally, smartphone and mobile “apps” aggregate and optimize these mobility services and are critical to many shared mobility modes. Courier network services connect couriers using their personal vehicles or bicycles with freight and seek to disrupt the existing...

Micromobility Evolution and Expansion: Understanding How Docked and Dockless Bikesharing Models Complement and Compete – A Case Study of San Francisco

Lazarus, Jessica
Pourquier, Jean Carpentier
Feng, Frank
Hammel, Henry
Shaheen, Susan
2020

Shared micromobility – the shared use of bicycles, scooters, or other low-speed modes – is an innovative transportation strategy growing across the United States that includes various service models such as docked, dockless, and e-bike service models. This research focuses on understanding how docked bikesharing and dockless e-bikesharing models complement and compete with respect to user travel behaviors. To inform our analysis, we used two datasets from February 2018 of Ford GoBike (docked) and JUMP (dockless electric) bikesharing trips in San Francisco. We employed three methodological...