Exploring everyday mobility in a living lab based on economic interventions

Abstract

New mobility solutions, such as Mobility as a Service, have been suggested to have the potential to reduce car ownership and be part of a transition towards a more sustainable transportation system. However, research suggests that governance measures such as taxation and policies will be needed to ensure sustainability aspects. This paper explores everyday mobility by use of interventions in people's everyday lives. The focus is on identifying underlying factors that may motivate or hinder changes that are positive from a sustainability perspective. This is then put in the perspective of new mobility services and policy making. Our findings support the view that privately owned cars are hard to replace with new mobility services that contribute to sustainability and are not based on individual cars. Economic interventions for increased sustainability will likely have limited effects, since the alternatives do not offer what car owners value most. Also, limited understanding of the car's full costs may make the new services appear comparatively more expensive. Furthermore, urban planning to reduce the need for travel, and the capacity of the physical public transport infrastructure will continue to be important. Long vacation trips and "medium sized flows" are identified as opportunities for further research and for new solutions to support sustainable mobility transitions.

Living Labs: From Niche to Mainstream Innovation Management

“…Although it is not an exhaustive list, Table 1 provides a number of examples to highlight the diverse nature and understanding of Living Labs along seven dimensions: (1) definitions, (2) interpretation, (3) types of Living Labs, (4) stakeholders involved in Living Labs, (5) disciplines and concepts covering Living Lab research, (6) context of Living Labs, (7) perspective and level of analysis to examine the phenomena. [45], assisted living [46], health care [47][48][49], media [50], agriculture [51], mobility [52,53], urban and rural areas, smart cities and digital cities, buildings [4,54,55] Perspective and Level of Analysis…”

“…Such results have the potential to inform practitioners and managers in diverse fields. Among them, studies extensively discuss the application of Living Labs to a variety of contexts, including but not limited to ICT [45], assisted living [46], health care [47][48][49], media [50], agriculture [51], mobility [52,53], urban and rural areas, smart cities and digital cities, as well as buildings [4,54,55].…”

Mobility as a Service Operating Model to Enable Public Policy

“…The experience in Finland, where thoughtful policies led to preservation of public transportation services and drove innovation in the MaaS marketplace, contradicts the lessons from London where an initial lack of policies for ride hailing led to measurable increases in congestion and decreases in public transportation ridership. In Switzerland, Sjo¨man et al discovered after a 6-month smart mobility lab trial that economic incentives alone did not push drivers out of their vehicle and into car sharing, bicycle sharing, or public transportation (8).…”

“…Unfortunately, previous research confirms the digital discrimination that often occurs with sharing economy and MaaS Business Models (6,7). Without strong governmental policy pushing the needs of the community over the needs of the private companies, MaaS Business Models will instead prioritize density over coverage and lower costs over accessibility (8).…”

Human factors of digitalized mobility forms and services

“…In the second paper, Sjöman et al [12] report experiences from a Living Lab in which economic information and incentives were tested with regard to their ability to motivate sustainable mobility transitions. The three tested interventions include: 1) making costs of participants' car use transparent; 2) providing cheaper access to public transport during off-peak hours; 3) economic rewards for cycling.…”