New Solutions in Sustainable Commuting—The Attitudes and Experience of European Stakeholders and Experts in Switzerland

Abstract

New technologies and services can support sustainable mobility if they are successfully integrated into the given mobility system. Decision-makers play a decisive role as ‘enablers’ for such commodities. To find out how a transformation towards sustainable commuting can be forced by implementing innovative solutions like carsharing, Mobility as a Service, or autonomous vehicles, relevant stakeholders were identified for three European case studies. Their perspectives and openness towards trends and new solutions were researched in an online survey. In addition, five expert interviews and two workshops in Switzerland deepened the understanding of how new mobility services could be incorporated into companies through mobility management. Results reflect a strong distinction of stakeholders by their national borders and responsibilities. As new mobility technologies and solutions require collaboration, the acts of supporting strong cross-border and cross-disciplinary cooperation, as well as developing joint interests and work processes beyond traditional ones, are suggested as important starting points. The study reveals a high openness of important stakeholders towards new mobility services and discusses the experience of experts in company mobility management.

Encouraging sustainable mobility: community case study on workplace initiatives in Lahti, Finland

“…These initiatives show an employer's commitment to the mobility shift and corporate responsibility. As Hoerler et al (2019) point out it is important to assign a responsible person supporting the sustainable commuting measures at the workplace. In this pilot, the support provided by the employer was perceived as sufficient and positive.…”

“…This includes improving the mobility culture. Another key issue is also to assign a responsible person with enough resources to support the sustainable commuting measures at the workplace (Hoerler et al, 2019). However, in rural areas, where mobility relies heavily on individual car usage, the situation can be different.…”

“…The costs related to implementing such measures exceed the corresponding benefits. Moreover, free car parking at work is related to more driving (Hamre and Buehler, 2014;Hoerler et al, 2019). To conclude, however, the relationship between commuter benefits and the likelihood to walk and cycle has been scarcely explored (Bueno et al, 2017), and, also, the interaction effects among commuter benefits have received relatively little attention in the literature (Hamre and Buehler, 2014).…”

The fear of urban sprawl through autonomous vehicles in commuting - a segmentation analysis of the Swiss population

“…Moreover, the distributed communication amongst automated vehicles is expected to increase efficiency in road transport and make traffic more fluid (reducing congestion and emissions) as well as safer, since fewer errors are expected in comparison to human driving [3]. Also, considering that the car fleet necessary to satisfy travel demand could be reduced substantially within a sharing-based mobility model, with estimates ranging between 46% to 91% in vehicle fleet reduction [4], many stakeholders and scholars emphasize the importance of a shared automated taxi fleet instead of private ownership [5], [6]. Stoiber et al [7] for example, showed that the Swiss population would be open towards a shared and automated taxi fleet.…”

Are carsharing users more likely to buy a battery electric, plug-in hybrid electric or hybrid electric vehicle? Powertrain choice and shared mobility in Switzerland

“…With the current and anticipated negative external impacts of private motorized transport including increased congestion and higher costs related to CO2 emissions, health problems and noise, carsharing is actively supported by many stakeholders as scholars find a potential for increased sustainability [1], [2]. Chen and Kockelman [3], for example, estimate a total greenhouse gas reduction of over 50 percent by shifting from private car use to station-based carsharing, taking into account the combined effects of reduced vehicle ownership, reduced vehicle-distance traveled, fleet-level fuel efficiency improvements, reduced parking infrastructure demand, and trips shifted to no-car modes.…”