Conceptualizing an individual full-trip tradable credit scheme for multi-modal demand and supply management: The MobilityCoin System

Abstract

Economic instruments are considered promising to achieve the urgently needed reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in the transportation sector. In this context, tradable credit schemes have received more and more attention in recent years. These cap-and-trade systems have the primary goal of limiting congestion, but they can also incorporate emission reduction goals. In this paper, we present the conceptual extension of a tradable credit scheme from a congestion and emission-oriented to a holistic, full-trip, multi-modal mobility traffic management system. In addition to the demand it also includes the management of the supply side. The integration of all existing modes into one holistic scheme ensures that the overall system goals are reached as all behavioral responses remain within the system boundaries. The system comprises two key innovations. First, a central agency has the possibility to provide full-trip incentives across modes to support the overall system’s goal. Second, users of the system can spend parts of their allocated mobility budget for transport infrastructure upgrades as an addition to paying for mobility or monetizing it on the market. Those innovations are a distinct extension to the idea of tradable credits. Commonly used smartphones would serve as the enabling technology of the proposed system. They offer all technical requirements and almost every citizen has access to one. Smartphones are affordable compared to dedicated traffic management infrastructure and they are flexible to accommodate system changes, e.g., new modes, through software updates. Besides the potential technical implementation, overall design questions, social aspects as well as general implications of the concept are covered.

Modeling MobilityCoins—Charges, Incentives and Multi-period Budgets in Multimodal Transportation Networks

“…In case 𝜅 ij > 0 or 𝜆 odm > 0 , the charge is subtracted from the available MobilityCoin budget; in case 𝜅 ij < 0 or 𝜆 odm < 0 the charge becomes a subsidy or incentive, i.e., it is added to the available budget. Here, the original MobilityCoin conceptualization argues that only sustainable modes of transport should be marginally subsidized as well as to limit the amount of MobilityCoins that can be earned to avoid induced travel only for such a purpose (Blum et al 2022). Here, Xiao et al (2019) argue that it should be ensured that "negative cycles", i.e., loops in the network with overall negative path costs should be avoided.…”

“…The objective of a MobilityCoin scheme is to reduce the external cost of car travel (Blum et al 2022), which typically includes congestion externalities as well as pollution, noise, etc. It is the agency that defines , ij , and odm in (9)…”

“…Second, it is considered a currency in the mobility system that can be earned, saved, and spent. It has a natural validity spanning over multiple days or weeks, defined as multi-period budgets, compared to approaches in the literature that usually consider only one or a few days (Blum et al 2022). These aspects interfere with the credit market and thus could affect the outcomes observed in the transportation system.…”