Shared mobility – where now, where next? Second report of the Commission on Travel Demand September 2019 Greg Marsden, Jillian Anable, Jonathan Bray, Elaine Seagriff and Nicola Spurling About the Commission on Travel Demand Shared Mobility Inquiry The Commission on Travel Demand is an expert group established as part of our work to explore how to reduce the energy and carbon emissions associated with transport. The Commission’s first report reviewed declining trends in per capita travel across the UK and the reasons for this. The future work programme will focus on other areas of policy which are critical to rapid decarbonisation. This inquiry focuses on shared mobility and the potential to increase the occupancy of vehicles in-use, reduce individual ownership of assets and enhance multi-modal travel. We are using the term ‘shared mobility’ to mean: • Shared ownership: where the use of the vehicle asset is shared across individuals incorporating various models of commercially or peer-to-peer operated ‘car club’s’/ car sharing schemes, fractional car ownership, bike sharing schemes. • Shared at the point of use: Car/ride sharing (or trip sharing) – rides that are actually shared between different individuals or different parties, sometimes paid separately. In the future, this may include ‘robot taxis’ as shared mobility where the vehicle is shared across individuals. Reference This report should be referenced as: Marsden, G., Anable, J., Bray, J., Seagriff, E. and Spurling, N. 2019. Shared mobility: where now? where next? The second report of the Commission on Travel Demand. Centre for Reseach into Energy Demand Solutions. Oxford. ISBN: 978-1-913299-01-9 Authors: • Prof Greg Marsden, University of Leeds • Prof. Jillian Anable, University of Leeds • Jonathan Bray, Urban Transport Group • Elaine Seagriff, Jacobs Consulting • Dr. Nicola Spurling, Lancaster University Acknowledgements We are grateful to the support of the RAC Foundation for hosting our fourth evidence session. The Commission on Travel Demand is funded as part of the Centre for Research into Energy Demand Solutions (Funded by UK Research and Innovation, Grant agreement number EP/R035288/1). We are grateful also to Aimee Eeles and Stephanie Ferguson of the CREDS Centre for their assistance with the website, graphics and report production. 2 Shared mobility – where now, where next? Executive summary As the largest carbon emitting sector, and one which has yet to show any clear emissions reduction trajectory, transport is at the heart of the climate emergency and centre stage in the shift to a Net Zero economy. This inquiry into shared mobility takes, therefore, the position that more rapid and radical action is required to decarbonise the transport sector. More intensive use of fewer vehicles already offers a cost-effective, socially progressive and implementable set of options to cut carbon. There is however no coherent national or consistent local policy framework for integrating shared car use within the wider set of mobility options. This runs from taxation, through management of the motorway network to the local allocation of parking space. Public bodies collect little data on sharing and have demonstrated only passing interest in the role of sharing cars and sharing lifts or rides. The failure to integrate the sharing of cars into transport policy is limiting and unhelpful, particularly for places where there is not a good set of public transport alternatives on offer. Some of the evidence we received suggests that, when asked, many people struggle with the idea of giving up their cars or sharing vehicles. It seemed to follow then that sharing might be too difficult in policy terms. We believe that these answers come from asking the wrong sort of question. People already share their mobility today quite extensively. They used to share more, even in the recent past. And there are places where greater levels of sharing are normal. Some activities involve more shared transport than others. The exam question is not “Can you survive or not without a car?” but, rather “What needs to happen to enable greater levels of sharing to happen?” and “What sorts of innovations need to be in place so that not owning a car (or two cars) does not mean missing out on accessibility?” The data suggests that vehicles are utilised for only very small amounts of the week and that there is great potential to share assets and journeys more. But it will not happen in the absence of a set of policy commitments to bringing it about. We contrast the ambivalence to sharing and the perceived difficulties of it with the positivity and investment around automated vehicles, despite the manifestly more complex issues which arise from that transition. 3 Shared mobility – where now, where next? The report sets out 20 recommendations which will support the evidence base around shared mobility, deliver more meaningful innovation trials and deliver a step change in the policy framework and incentives which sit around sharing mobility. Some policies are simple, such as making Highways England, whose networks carry around 32% of car miles each year, responsible for first monitoring vehicle occupancy and then facilitating a growth in it. There are significant network management as well as carbon benefits to be had. Others are more complex such as addressing the incentive system around multiple vehicles in a household or how to cross-subsidise greater provision of shared mobility in rural areas. There is no ‘one-size fits all’ approach but there are some actions which will have universal benefits such as redoubling efforts to reduce business miles driven in older private cars and to use the fleet assets of the public sector to reduce wastage and open up greater opportunities for shared access. This report comes with two clear warnings which make the adoption of policies to support sharing yet more important. First, we see potential headwinds of lower motoring costs for many, due to electrification. This creates a real risk that transport will continue to become less shared. In the absence of any corrective policies, this will lead to substantial traffic growth according to the Department for Transport’s (DfT) own forecasts. Second, such growth risks being compounded by the adoption of increasingly automated vehicles. Early estimates by the DfT suggest that in a shared model, such innovations could reduce future traffic growth to just 5% by 2050. In a more individualised model the growth could be as much as 55%. In essence, unless we deliver on sharing, our creative capacity for transport innovation could simply support the delivery of a more individualised transport system which creates higher demand futures. There will be those who will find sharing a difficult policy sell. Of course, continuing the current weak commitment is an option. However, we would ask “If not sharing, then what? What policies will reduce the energy requirements of building the vehicle fleet, even when it is electric? Which policies will enable both short-term and long-term carbon pathway compliant transport policy? What makes other policy options more palatable than a major focus on increased sharing?” Doing nothing is no longer an option, we are in a climate emergency. Whilst the Commission on Travel Demand holds no formal position in the policy system, its findings represent the considered synthesis of experts in the field. Its aims are to change the nature and pace of action on decarbonising transport. We hope that this report will create a globally leading environment in which innovations to accelerate sharing can flourish. Our report makes recommendations to the Department for Transport, the Committee on Climate Change, HM Treasury, Connected Places Catapult, Highways England, local government and companies involved in this space. We will host a summit a year on from publication of this report where we look forward to reviewing progress in the field. 4 Shared mobility – where now, where next? Contents 1. The case for change 6 2. What is shared mobility? 8 3. Where are we now? 10 4. Evidence on shared mobility innovations 12 Car clubs – back to base 12 Car clubs – one way 12 Peer-to-peer car sharing 13 Lift sharing 13 Ridepooling 14 Bike share 15 Demand responsive transport 16 Summary 17 5. Sharing behaviours 19 6. Policy options 23 6.1. Reducing vehicle ownership 23 6.2. Adapting infrastructure 26 6.3. Building communities of users 27 6.4. Changing incentives and regulations 29 6.5. Stimulating innovation 30 7. Concluding reflections 32 Final list of recommendations 33 About the Commission inquiry 36 Attendees 36 Other organisations 36 References 37 5 Shared mobility – where now, where next? 1. The case for change The UK Government has committed to reducing carbon emissions to net zero by 2050.1 The Committee on Climate Change assessment of the scale of the challenge is daunting. It states that: • Net-zero is only credible if policies are introduced to match. • Current policy is insufficient for even the existing targets. • Challenges that have so far been out of scope must now be confronted.2 Nowhere is the challenge tougher than in the transport sector. Surface transport is the largest-emitting sector in the UK with emissions broadly the same as in 1990 and having increased over the period from 2013.3 Any progress to date brought by vehicle efficiency improvements has been offset by population growth, rising van traffic and upsizing of the passenger vehicle fleet to larger and less efficient models. There is a strong emphasis on decarbonising vehicles through electrification and other technologies4 but progress on this is, as yet, also off track.3 It will also be necessary to address the industrial energy and emissions embodied in producing cars and batteries or fuel cells of the future. No vehicle is zero emission.