Mobility Trends in 2024
2024 Mobility Trends
Last update: January 15, 2024
More than anything, mobility is shaped by macro trends such as general population growth and urbanization, looming climate challenges, right-sizing and transitioning from vehicle ownership to a trip economy. Below are 10 specific and current trends driving new mobility in 2024.
Corporate Mobility and Mobility Budgets
As employee satisfaction and well-being, as well as sustainability, are becoming increasingly important, many companies are looking into corporate mobility or a mobility budget (EIT Urban Mobility). This is a term describing company benefits that are adapting to the individual mobility needs of each employee. Deloitte describes how flexibility for the employee makes this option especially intriguing. In turn, this leads to quick adaptation towards so-called ‘holistic mobility programs’ by employers. Corporate Mobility Programs have also been an important tool in bringing staff back into the office after the pandemic.
Consolidation and Ceased Operations
The consolidation of mobility startups began at the end of 2022 with a prominent example, the acquisition of Gorillas by Getir. Multiple car-sharing providers exited from their markets. Bird filed for bankruptcy towards the end of 2023. And this year got started with the news of Tier and Dott joining forces. The low investments in the mobility startup sector and the high number of startups will show a rising number of consolidations in the market, a prediction made for the hundreds of companies in the drone, EV charging, and micromobility sector.
Demand Responsive Transport (DRT)
Public transport has traditionally relied on fixed capacity and static routing. With data-based forecasting and an app-based relation to customers, operators and PTAs are gradually exploring an offering that is both on-demand in nature and responsive in capacity. As this approach matures in the market, there is a potential for improving service quality, while reducing operating cost.
(Shared) Autonomy in actual operation
After its peak in attention around 2015 the topic of autonomous driving calmed down. However, 2023 was been filled with autonomous news from around the world (with a particular influx of stories from the operations of Waymo and Cruise in San Francisco). Either optimistic such as the planned implementation of 10.000 autonomous shuttles in Hamburg until 2030 and the first AVs on the road in Oslo, or sobering news like the halting of Cruise’s operations. Technologically speaking, advances are being made, as the example of the Level 3 approval in California shows.
Last Mile Delivery Robots
While autonomy in mixed car traffic continues to promise lofty potential in an unknown future, delivery robots utilizing other infrastructure, and operating in a more controlled (unregulated) space might be a lot closer. Similarly to micromobility, these robots can make use of strategically placed inventory in so-called “dark stores” scattered around the city.
Pedestrianisation of cities
A common theme across cities is various ways of reclaiming the streets from car traffic. Politicians and urban planners are implementing city-wide strategies such as banning cars altogether, implementing zero-emission zones, or routing traffic around areas prioritizing pedestrians. The 15-minute city idea has spread rapidly and in parallel, a lot of cities are considering lowering the general speed limits to 30 or 40 km/hr in order to make their streets more friendly to pedestrians, cyclists, and other micromobility. Similar concepts such as The Mobility Diet further advance this trend.
Aggregation and Superapps
The original MaaS (Mobility-as-a-service) idea of a Netflix for mobility’ has panned out in a focus on aggregation and variants of superapps. More important than a common subscription is the aggregation of supply and demand in the same UI. Having a common ID + payment setup makes changes of modality a breeze. Most noteable in Europe is Berlin-based Jelbi with a strong public transit offering at the core (BVG). Private companies include Bolt where all options are offered under a common brand, while FreeNow integrates 3. party brands.
Drones for Last-Mile Services
Drones are replacing traditional modes of transport for a variety of use cases. Last Mile delivery, visual infrastructure maintenance and using drones for the health sectors are at the forefront of drone usage. In 2022 McKinsey found out that Drones are becoming cost competitive to traditional means of transport for Last-Mile delivery. As unit delivery costs per package can be expected to decrease, it will only be a matter of time before this trend will gain more and more traction
E-Bikes
Looking at the numbers, it is really e-bikes, not electric cars, that is the true electric revolution. As this article highlights, the e-bikes imported to the US are already outnumbering cars. Total e-bike sales are projected to surpass cars in the general EU market by the middle of this decade. E-bikes are deployed in subscriptions as referenced above, making ownership easier and more accessible to most. The big numbers however are in traditional retail and the growing market of direct-to-consumer brands.
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Mobility as a Subscription
In the BCG-report ‘The future of urban mobility’, having access to a vehicle through subscription is predicted to be the primary, growing market ahead. To a consumer, this is often communicated as ‘hassle-free ownership’, combining flexibility with maintenance and no need for upfront capital. In micro, the market was originally developed by Swapfiets. Today there are a growing number of startups, offering different flavors of subscriptions. In the car market - Casi (NO) is a white-label platform powering several car subscription concepts.
Dance (DE) - electric bikes and mopeds
Whee! (NO) - electric mid-tail, utility bikes for families
Imove (NO) - car subscription
AI & Data Spaces
Generative AI was the general topic in 2023. In mobility the the theme is still focused on smarter insight based generated data. New vehicles having onboard sensors and processing power, or being connected to generate movement data, are all ideal for machine learning use cases. However, the processing of such data is about to change fundamentally, as a study on European Data Spaces showed. Mobility data spaces enable data sharing between entities to create a data ecosystem on which AI solutions can be built.
Battery and energy storage technology
With the increase of EVs on our streets, infrastructure for smart distribution of electricity is critical. The first generation of electric kick scooters was brought in to be charged, this has been replaced by operational strategies of battery swapping and centralized charging. Roadside gas stations do not scale to support requirements in charging cars, this needs to happen privately and at workplaces. Sidenote: Even hydrogen is looking at swappable pods, like this initiative from Toyota.
