Urban mobility refers to the movement of people within urban environments and includes both personal and commercial mobility.
The modal split is determined by choosing transportation modes based on cost, technology and availability considerations. Furthermore, personal preferences, travel time and distance also play a part.
Public transport
Public transportation is an integral component of urban mobility ecosystem, providing high levels of accessibility while being energy efficient. Yet public transport requires substantial investments and often relies on subsidies as its backbone.
Public transit usage varies across cities and countries. New York City boasts one of the world’s most sophisticated systems but ranks poorly when measured for mobility.
Cities looking to enhance public transport should invest in infrastructure and encourage multimodality, while creating carbon strategies tailored specifically for their needs.
Mobility as a Service (MaaS) is key to creating superior public transport, offering seamless customer experiences via digital integration of various mobility services into a comprehensive package. MaaS can include travel planning and booking, integrated ticketing systems, ridesourcing/peer-to-peer shared mobility on demand (ridesourcing or peer-to-peer mobility), last mile cargo delivery as well as green sustainable vehicle solutions to enhance urban mobility.
Cars
Urban mobility planning brings many advantages to public services by reducing air and noise pollution, traffic jams and safety risks on roads – translating to lower maintenance costs and reduced resources needed for responding to accidents.
Reduced carbon emissions contribute to climate change. Many cities have implemented environment-sensitive traffic management measures such as restricting access for vehicles with high carbon emissions.
Car-as-a-service (CaaS) market is expanding quickly as consumers demand flexibility and cost efficiency in their vehicle use. Customers prefer paying only for time used rather than covering expenses like insurance, maintenance and depreciation costs; plus it removes parking issues as well as traffic congestion headaches – particularly appealing for younger consumers seeking new transport options without investing in traditional ownership models; CaaS is therefore an attractive solution for keeping a vehicle but without being tied down by ownership obligations.
Other means of transport
Personal mobility brought on by automobiles has caused profound changes at social, economic and morphological levels in cities. It led to an expansion of trackside suburbs near city centers which did not provide convenient locations for public transit systems and thus contributed to their declining use.
Online transactions also facilitated freight movements in the form of home deliveries from retail outlets, underscoring the necessity for city logistics and last-mile distribution networks as part of effective urban mobility planning strategies.
Effective urban mobility planning can significantly decrease congestion in cities by eliminating unnecessary traffic and air pollution, decreasing risks of accidents and improving citizens’ quality of lives. Furthermore, effective mobility planning can boost goods and service deliveries to residents at more competitive prices; alternatives to private cars such as metro, tramway, bus/coach services and trains offer alternatives that take up less space, are eco-friendly, allow carpooling/ride sharing options (carpooling), are faster commuting options or offer ride sharing (carpooling / ride sharing).
Mobility as a service
Integrated Mobility Services (MaaS) offer commuters a personalized travel plan via one app, such as public transport, e-scooters or bike/car sharing – helping them reach their destinations sustainably while cutting costs, traffic congestion and pollution levels.
MaaS is an approach utilizing technology that integrates public transport modes, commercial mobility services like ride-sourcing, e-bike sharing and car sharing, taxis as well as taxi services into one unified framework for point-to-point journey planning. At its most advanced stage, MaaS can even bundle all transportation services – access to private vehicles as well as access to related ancillary services – into one application.
MaaS aims to promote a paradigm shift in people’s transport behaviors away from private car use towards sustainable alternatives that promote better livability in urban areas by cutting emissions and streamlining traffic flow, making vehicle ownership unnecessary for city residents.