Problem Statement

Changes in travel demand have led to numerous new forms of mobility over the past years. Shifts in demographic structures, travel behavior as well as technical advancements and a rising environmental consciousness are some of the aspects impacting the changes in travel demand. The supply of new forms of mobility is not only provided by start-ups but also by established companies such as automotive manufactures and public transportation providers. Developments in mobility supply and demand are not independent from one another. While the dependence of transportation supply and demand is not a novel finding, it's complexity has continuously increased with the rising number of mobility providers offering mobility solutions. Mobility markets have proven to be a very volatile environment with new offerings arising and existing services retiring continuously due to incomplete knowledge of the effect of mobility servicey on mobility demand and the impact on travel behavior often being gradual.

Objective

This project investigates the cause and effect of the relationship between supply and demand of new forms of mobility that are not yet completely known. Factors for success and failure of new forms of mobility are to be identified and impacts and reasons for changes in the travel behavior of consumers are analyzed to show focus group specific diffusion of novel of mobility solutions. Services of new forms of mobility are often of low density and have a restricted spatial extent. A fundamental bias of the willingness to use such offers at a high density of supply versus a possible high density of supply at a high willingness of use is to be considered. This study has the objective to give an informed assessment of new forms of mobility as a foundation for the development of recommended actions to support and encourage these new forms of mobility.

Methods

The users of new forms of mobility will be considered based on general mobility surveys as well as already available specific data from studies on such forms of mobility. Building upon national and international databases the users will be categorized into user-groups with similar properties. To enable a forecast of long-term effects of new forms of mobility that cannot yet be observed today, traffic demand will be microscopically modelled for a selection of national cities. These models are based on the knowledge of factors influencing the traffic behavior per user-group. This knowledge is generated through a literature review as well as the evaluation of empirical data and validated by experts in workshops.