The "New Mobility Index"

Abstract

Shared mobility services (e-scooters, bike sharing) co-exist with public transport (PT) in cities around the globe. Despite intuition that their integration with PT could be beneficial, assessment of their impact on transport system quality remains challenging. Questions such as where they should be made available have not been satisfactorily answered, while deployment is often driven by companies' interests in developing their business.

We develop a novel composite quality index that combines public transport and shared mobility metrics in a unified framework. This index allows assessment of the quality of transport options on a spatially disaggregated level, indicating where shared mobility is a useful complement to PT.

The index combines data on transport infrastructure, shared services and public transport schedules; and leverages open data including GTFS/GBFS. Normalized, weighted metrics ensure it captures diverse mobility aspects, while updates and validation are possible as new data arrives.

Initial versions are generated for select cities in Germany at grid-cell levels, then visualized with interactive maps. This enables examination of service differences between districts, between urban/suburban areas, and more. Ultimately, the index is designed to inform strategic decisions for sustainable, multifaceted urban transport systems.