Emerging technologies and business models have contributed to the improvement of transportation systems and services towards a more sustainable approach to mobility. Shared mobility has become widespread as a viable solution to the increasing demand for transportation. Many cities worldwide have implemented shared mobility service and demonstrated that it could offer numerous environmental and operational benefits. However, their implementation in rural and suburban areas that feature lower population density and dispersed travel demand is not receiving the same attention. This research considers four suburban communities to evaluate the operation of a fleet of shared mobility as a potential substitute for the currently fix-route public transportation services. For each area, four scenarios were defined to consider different powertrain technologies. These scenarios include the Internal Combustion Engine, Battery Electric, and two Autonomous Electric Vehicles scenarios. While assessing the efficiency of the fleet composition system, four vehicle sizes are considered. Further, an optimized routing solution for serving the known travel demand is utilized to calculate the total cost of fleet ownership, which accounts for the purchase price, energy consumption, CO2, and driver labour costs. The results highlight potential benefits of adopting a fleet of shared Autonomous Electric Vehicles for the case studies and show approximately 67-68% and 69-70% savings compared to a shared fleet of conventional and Battery Electric vehicles, respectively, mainly due to the omission of the driver costs. In the absence of operationally safe Autonomous Electric Vehicles, the more conservative scenario of employing a fleet of shared Autonomous Electric Vehicles with the presence of safety attendants could result in 6-8% and 13-14% savings compared to a shared fleet of conventional and Battery Electric vehicles. Nevertheless, the results indicate low utilization rates for the fleet attributed to the inconsistency in demand throughout the day. The results provided in this research can inform policymakers and service providers and be used for further evaluations of such transportation services. / Thesis / Master of Applied Science (MASc) / In pursuit of more equitable, sustainable, and connected transportation services in rural and suburban areas, this research investigates the quantitative benefits and costs of operating a ride-sharing service for four suburban areas located in Hamilton, Ontario. The study considers and compares several options in vehicle sizes and technologies to provide a better ground of knowledge for service providers and policymakers.

This dissertation conducted an extensive examination of dockless e-scooter dynamics using high-resolution trip data from Austin, Texas. Four studies were conducted to capture the multifaceted nature of e-scooter operations and demand. The first study aimed to identify and quantify the influence of contributing factors affecting e-scooter demand by partitioning the data by time period for weekdays and weekends. Utilizing a joint panel linear regression (JPLR) model, significant associations were observed between e-scooter demand and variables such as sociodemographic attributes, transportation infrastructure, land use, meteorological attributes, and situational factors. The second study shifted focus to shared e-scooter origin-destination (OD) flows in the urban region. By employing a joint binary logit-fractional split model, e-scooter OD flows were analyzed, emphasizing variations across distinct time periods and the subsequent implications for e-scooter deployment and rebalancing strategies. The third study delved into e-scooter utilization efficiency, introducing a time-to-book (TtB) measure. Through a Mixed Grouped Ordered Logit (MGOL) model, the study highlighted variations between regular and peak weeks, offering operators a chance to enhance fleet utilization. The final study addressed the broader context of the e-scooter industry, investigating the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. By analyzing datasets spanning January 2019 through December 2021, a spatial approach illuminated changes in e-scooter demand patterns before, during, and after the pandemic, highlighting the effects of COVID-19-related factors and vaccine attributes on e-scooter trends. These collective insights from the four studies provide valuable contributions to understanding and enhancing e-scooter operations in urban landscapes

It is widely recognized that the world’s over-reliance on transportation contributes to many environmental problems, especially in urban areas. Sustainable  mobility is a solution and an important dimension of a Smart City. Shared mobility services are part of sustainable mobility and they are widening its portfolio especially in the past decade. However, the number of users is still low compared to its high potential, and innovative solutions can only succeed with the combination  of increasing the awareness of citizens, incentivizing them, and promoting their behavioural change. This paper is dedicated to the shared mobility business models as part of the collaborative consumption, and finding out the challenges and opportunities of this emerging market in a Swedish context and comparing it to a Moroccan one.  The goal is to explore the key features of the main market players and the possible ways of improvements that could possibly take carpooling and car-sharing to a next level. It explores the high potential of gamification and other mechanisms to incentivize voluntary behavioural changes towards shared  mobility solutions. In a first place the theoretical part provide an overview of the shared mobility in general with its different aspects highlighting the role of new technologies and internet in the development of this concept. An online survey aimed at testing the knowledge of the respondents on the concept, discover which elements affect  their involvement and find out how things can be improved by analysing the feedbacks. / Det är allmänt känt att världens beroenden av transporter bidrar till många miljöproblem, särskilt i stadsområden. Hållbar mobilitet är en lösning och en viktig dimension i en smart stad. Delade mobilitetstjänster är en del av hållbar mobilitet och dess portfölj har utökats särskilt under det senaste decenniet. Antalet användare är dock fortfarande lågt jämfört med den höga potentialen och innovativa lösningar kan bara lyckas med kombinationen av att öka medvetenheten om medborgarna, stimulera dem och främja deras beteendeförändringar. Denna rapport är inriktat på affärsmodellerna för delad mobilitet som en del av konsumtion genom samarbete och identifierar utmaningarna och möjligheterna på den nya marknaden i ett svenskt sammanhang och jämför det med en marockansk. Målet är att utforska huvudaktörerna hos de viktigaste marknadsaktörerna och möjliga sätt för förbättringar som möjligen kan ta bilpoolning och bildelning till nästa nivå. Potentialen inom gamification och andra mekanismer för att stimulera frivilliga beteendemässiga förändringar mot gemensamma mobila lösningar undersöks. Inledningsvis ger den teoretiska delen en översikt över den delade mobiliteten i allmänhet med sina olika aspekter som framhäver rollen som ny teknik och internet vid utvecklingen av detta koncept. Genom en online-undersökning som syftar till att testa kunskapen om konceptet hos de svarande, har faktorer som påverkar deras engagemang och hur saker kan förbättras identifierats.

According to innovation literature, between 50% and 90% of innovations fail. An explanation for failing innovations is offered by scholars in the field of innovation resistance, who argue that it is more relevant to pay attention to the reasons why consumers reject an innovation, rather than learning about their motivations to adopt a new product or service. At the same time, previous marketing literature has devoted little attention towards design, despite its strategic importance and its role as a driver of innovation and competitive advantage. The purpose of this study was to investigate how companies perceive innovation resistance towards service innovations and how it is reflected in the service design. The major takeaways in this study revealed that companies were aware of all the barriers, except for social risk and perceived security risk. Furthermore, companies made most service design adaptations based on the usage and value barrier both prior and post launch. Also, although the tradition and norm barrier and image barrier were considered critical for an innovation’s success, companies did not change the service design accordingly. Finally, it was revealed that companies followed a hybrid approach of innovation, where more of a design-driven innovation strategy was used to generate innovation ideas and a user-centered approach was applied by involving consumers in pilot studies and listening to the consumer voices post launch.

The purpose of this study was to investigate how the use of the private car has developed throughout history and to describe options for private use of private cars. The study aimed to investigate how municipalities in Sweden encourage and support their residents away from private car ownership to reduce car traffic. The study is based on literature research and a survey which were sent to 30 municipalities in Sweden to study the work of shared use of vehicle, shared mobility, combined mobility and mobility management interventions which aims to, by changing travellers’ attitudes and behaviour reduce private car use. Private cars are a major source to anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide which contributes to climate change and global warming. Renewable fuels and fuel efficient vehicles are part of the solutions for reducing the emission of carbon dioxide, but also reduce private car use. The result of the survey showed that mobility management interventions were most common. More than half of the municipalities offered shared mobility, especially the larger municipalities. Combined mobility was not offered by the municipalities today. Municipalities state that they are both working on a strategy to reduce private car use along with various other projects. Challenges with the strategies to reduce private car use were reported to be the work of getting different actors to move in the same direction, toward reduced emissions from private car use.

Emerging automotive and transportation technologies have provided revolutionary possibilities in the way we might travel in the future. Major car manufacturers and technology giants have demonstrated significant progress in advancing and testing autonomous vehicles in real-life traffic conditions. Governmental agencies are grappling with how to plan transportation systems for a world with autonomous vehicles. Past research has shown that not all technologies are immediately welcomed by the public. Autonomous Vehicles would have to likely go through a similar phase, and would need to overcome not just technological challenges but also social barriers for successful penetration into the marketplace. Most previous studies on consumer opinions, and potential adoption of these technologies provide only descriptive, univariate analyses that fail to extract deeper insights on consumers’ perceptions, and their intended adoption of autonomous vehicles. Multi-population surveys were conducted to obtain data on consumers’ perceptions, their intended adoption, and eventual use of autonomous vehicles. Descriptive results revealed that around one-fifth of the respondents were unfamiliar about this technology, with larger shares of the younger generations expressing unfamiliarity. Questions on intended adoption of autonomous vehicles were asked across two stages of the survey and results revealed the merit of providing information to the recipients which seem to have assisted them in making more informed decisions about their intended adoption (or non-adoption process). 40% of the respondents were unlikely to adopt autonomous vehicles with a further 20% being unsure, presently. When analyzed across generations, it was seen that higher shares of older generations were unlikely to adopt autonomous vehicles than their younger counterparts. In addition to adoption, other interesting insights on use of autonomous vehicles, and travel behavioral implications of autonomous vehicles were also obtained in this analysis. Considering the vast market potential of this technology, it is important to obtain insights on possible differences in adoption (or non-adoption) across various consumer market segments. The current dissertation fills these gaps in the literature by providing an in-depth understanding of the potential market segments of autonomous vehicle consumers, and revealing the factors influencing their adoption (or non-adoption of autonomous vehicles). Two-step cluster analysis of consumers’ perceptions of potential benefits and concerns with autonomous vehicles reveal four distinct consumer market segments – the benefits-dominated market segment, the concerns-dominated market segment, the uncertain market segment, and the well-informed market segment. The insights obtained are further used to uncover various triggers influencing the adoption (or non-adoption) of autonomous vehicles across these market segments. It can be seen that in addition to the influence of sociodemographics, various other factors such as current travel characteristics, crash history, and current vehicle purchase inventory have significant influences in the adoption process across each market segment. The results from this exercise provide autonomous vehicle stakeholders with a more in-depth understanding of the potential market segments interested (or uninterested) in adopting autonomous vehicles, which could be used to develop enhanced marketing and policy initiatives to achieve better outcomes. Considering the high initial cost of autonomous vehicles, novel business models like shared autonomous vehicles (SAVs), could emerge as possible alternatives to individually owning, and operating autonomous vehicles. The recent emergence of popular rideshare giants, such as Uber and Lyft, into the SAV market have further brought some discussion on possible alterations to household vehicle ownership models in a shared environment. Previous research simulating SAV fleets in a gridded city network reveal the cost benefits of having shared autonomous vehicles in comparison to owning and individually operating them. This study looks into the implications of shared autonomous vehicles on current household vehicle ownership and uncovers the factors influencing the relinquishment of a household vehicle to use shared autonomous vehicles for commute trips. Results show that the effect of relinquishing household vehicles is different among single- and multi-vehicle households with different triggers such as socio-demographics, current travel characteristics, crash severities, and vehicle purchase histories influencing the relinquishment of household vehicles.

Iceland faces problems in achieving decarbonization goals, especially regarding its transportation sector having highly car-oriented passenger transport in the capital city, Reykjavík. Therefore, there is a need to shift toward more sustainable transport modes. It is well established that private and car-centered mobility regimes impose externalities on the environment and the livability of cities. Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) is a recent mobility service concept that poses a promising solution to shift much of the travel demand within urban settings from private car ownership to shared mobility. This thesis aims to determine whether MaaS can function as a disincentive for private car ownership and find use in the context of Reykjavík, Iceland. Specifically, it provides an initial investigation on how influences on car ownership and use, and opinions on shared mobility services and the concept of MaaS may differ between different demographic groups. To test whether MaaS can function as a disincentive for private car ownership and use in Reykjavík, an online survey was distributed to car owners in the city. Respondents volunteered and were asked to respond to two sets of inquiries relating to perceived influences on car ownership and use, and sentiments on shared mobility and MaaS, respectively. The responses were inferentially analyzed. The results showed that in Reykjavík’s current state (i.e. public transport infrastructure and built environment), MaaS would struggle to disincentivize car ownership and be adopted city-wide. However, the younger generations are the most promising first adopters of the service. The results suggest that the city should focus on increasing urban densification and enhancing public transport. Furthermore, the results suggest that as these factors are enacted, the disincentivizing function of MaaS may become more effective. In line with this, further research should be focused on how to facilitate first adopters in their use of MaaS.

Due to the current urbanization trend, people are spending more time than ever on their daily commute. However, commuting in megacities often results in irritating scenarios. Especially when using public transportation. This project tried to provide an alternative way of commuting that would allow people to refresh themselves during the journey and prepare for their activities in the best way possible. Rather than looking at the commute as a transition from A to B, this project tried to envision different scenarios of daily life and implement smart solutions that would enhance the experience through seamlessly integrated technologies—based on the technological expertise from the sponsor Huawei. In this concept, smart sensors combined with data collection would provide a tailored experience for the customer at different depth levels. The process includes brand research and topic selection to set up the design goal. Basing on the valuable material got from the first step, the design moved to the next step and tried to find the solution for the thesis topic. This is processed by gathering information from the website, brainstorming the ideation. Then the author built up the prototype by sketching, rendering, and 3D modeling. The user experience got developed basing on the robust design. The author started with user research and analyzed and set up personas. The result is an interior design concept with a particular focus on its interaction and user experience. The seating position supports the user experience by changing in harmony with individual preferences and time of the day. Three unique travel modes provide different levels of control over the overall experience based upon the user's request and their trust in the smart system.

Automobility refers to the continued, self-perpetuating dominance of privately-owned, gasoline-powered vehicles used primarily by single occupants—a system which clearly has broad environmental and societal impacts. Despite increasing societal interest in transitions to more sustainable transportation technologies, there has been little consideration of how such innovations might challenge, maintain or support different aspects of automobility, and what that means for technology deployment, transport policy, and user practices. To bring attention to the complexity and apparent durability of the automobility system, in this paper we develop a conceptual framework that explores automobility through a categorization of frames, or shared cultural meanings. This framework moves beyond the typical focus on private, functional considerations of user choice, financial costs and time use to also consider symbolic and societal frames of automobility that exist among users, non-users, industry, policymakers and other relevant social groups. We illustrate this framework with eight particular frames of automobility that fall into four broad categories: private-functional frames such as (1) cocooning and fortressing and (2) mobile digital offices; private-symbolic frames such as (3) gender identity and (4) social status; societal-functional frames such as (5) environmental stewardship and (6) suburbanization; and societal-symbolic frames such as (7) self-sufficiency and (8) innovativeness. Finally, we start the process of discussing several transportation innovations in light of these automobility frames, namely electrified, autonomous and shared mobility—examining early evidence for which frames would be challenged or supported by such transitions. We believe that appreciation of the complex and varied frames of automobility can enrich discussion of transitions and policy relating to sustainable transportation.

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(工学) / 甲第21747号 / 工博第4564号 / 新制||工||1711(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院工学研究科都市社会工学専攻 / (主査)教授 山田 忠史, 准教授 SCHMOECKER Jan-Dirk, 教授 宇野 伸宏 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Philosophy (Engineering) / Kyoto University / DFAM