Fifteen companies sign shared mobility principles

Fifteen of the world’s leading transport and technology companies have signed the ​Shared Mobility Principles for Livable Cities​, pledging to prioritise people over vehicles, lower emissions, promote equity and encourage data sharing.

“In the last year, it became clear that city authorities and regulators were getting a lot of advice, from many different players,” Jyot Chadha, Director for Urban Innovation, Sustainable Cities, WRI India, told Cities Today. “In some sense, it is like the tail wagging the dog when it came to new technologies. The Shared Mobility Principles were developed in response to this confusion, to shift the narrative and bring the goals of a city back into focus and then to ask how technology can help.”

The companies involved include ​BlaBlaCar, Citymapper, Didi, Keolis, LimeBike, Lyft, Mobike, Motivate, Ofo, Ola, Scoot Networks, Transit, Uber, Via ​and ​Zipcar​.

The 15 signatory companies have a significant impact on how people live, work and play in cities across the world. Together, they account for 77 million daily passenger trips and inform the travel decisions of 10 million people each day.

New technologies and modes of transport are already changing the way people move. The pace of innovation is fast and filled with opportunity, as well as risk, because decisions made today will lock in infrastructure for the future. The Shared Mobility Principles provide a clear vision for the future of cities and create alignment between the city governments, private companies and NGOs working to make them more liveable.

“Private companies have their strengths,” added Chadha. “They are very good at implementing rapid iterations on models, testing new technologies, and raising funding from the market. The questions we are faced with today are complex. Public transport stood for public good. With the emergence of so many new models, we are starting to ask whether privately-provided transport can also be for public good. Many cities are going down the path of piloting partnerships. We will have to experiment in order to see what really adds tangible value to the city and to people’s lives.”

The principles were developed by ​Robin Chase​, Zipcar co-Founder, and a consortium of leading city and transport organisations including: the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, ICLEI–Local Governments for Sustainability, Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, Natural Resources Defense Council, Partnership on Sustainable Low Carbon Transport, Transportation for America, Rocky Mountain Institute, Shared-Use Mobility Center, and WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities.

The 10 Shared Mobility Principles for Livable Cities are:

1. We plan our cities and their mobility together.
2. We prioritise people over vehicles.
3. We support the shared and efficient use of vehicles, lanes, curbs, and land.
4. We engage with stakeholders.
5. We promote equity.
6. We lead the transition towards a zero-emission future and renewable energy.
7. We support fair user fees across all modes.
8. We aim for public benefits via open data.
9. We work towards integration and seamless connectivity.
10. We support that autonomous vehicles in dense urban areas should be operated only in shared fleets.