A literature review of mobility services: definitions, modelling state-of-the-art, and key considerations for a conceptual modelling framework

ABSTRACT

This paper presents a comprehensive literature review focused on the supply side of mobility services, providing relevant insights at the conceptual, operational, and modelling levels. Definitions are first drawn from the Mobility as a Service paradigm due to its predominance in the literature. This is followed by an assessment of the operational features of a range of mobility services, including carsharing, bikesharing, ridehailing, and demand responsive transit. To conclude the review, the state-of-the-art in modelling approaches for mobility services is reported, at different levels of complexity and integration. Three of the most important findings and arguments from this paper suggest that a high degree of generality exists for operational features of mobility services; that it is essential to make a distinction between Mobility as a Service and a mobility service in isolation; along with the argument that human agency should be carefully considered in modelling efforts, both for user agent and driver agent decision-making processes. Finally, key considerations are proposed for the future development of a conceptual framework for modelling the supply side of mobility services, which would have a generic service provider model as its core component.

KEYWORDS:

• Mobility as a Service
• mobility services
• supply
• agent-based modelling
• conceptual framework

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Francisco Calderón http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1716-3514

Notes

1 Vulog https://www.vulog.com/our-clients/; Car2Go https://www.car2go.com/US/en/; DriveNow https://www.drive-now.com/de/en/how-it-works.

2 Facedrive https://www.facedrive.com/; Instaryde https://www.instaryde.com/.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded in part by a National Sciences and Engineering Research Council (Canada) Discovery Grant. To the National Government of Ecuador, for scholarship support provided by the “Secretaría de Educación Superior, Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación”, allowing Francisco to pursue his graduate studies in Canada.