Shared mobility services in Swedish rural areas : Development and demonstration of the KomILand-concept

Transport accounts for a large share of global green-house gas emissions (cf. Sims et al. 2014). Research efforts are being made to identify, develop, and test new types of resource efficient solutions that meet peoples’ mobility needs. A growing trend within this realm is so called shared mobility services – such as car-sharing, bicycle rental, and ride-sourcing – which is expected to have the potential to complement and strengthen public transport and support less car-centric lifestyles (cf. Smith 2020). Shared mobility has become an integral part of the dominant discourse around the future of transport (autonomous-connected-electric-shared), and although their modal shares still are minor (e.g. Brundell-Freij et al. 2018), recent years have seen significant growth of shared mobility services (e.g. Shaheen & Cohen 2020). However, eforts to develop shared mobility services have predominantly been made in urban areas where the services are expected to have greater impact on green-house gas reduction. Further, most research on shared mobility has focused on urban areas (e.g. Boyer & Sarasini 2019). Consequently, there is a lack of empirical research on how shared mobility services can be organized in rural areas, and what effects they can have on aspects such as of car ownership, green-house gas emissions, and quality of life. The KomILand project set out to address these knowledge gaps by developing and testing the KomILand concept – a regional Mobility-as-a-Service platform that enable rural dwellers to put together shared mobility service offerings that are tailored to the specific needs of their communities. An initial pre-study (2017-2018) paved the way for a trial of the concept by identifying suitable rural towns, likely user groups and their demands, key service components, and possible business models. Subsequently, the ongoing trial phase of the project (2019-2021) aims to develop a functional prototype and to test it in collaboration with civic associations in three rural towns with 800-900 inhabitants in Västra Götaland in West Sweden. In the following, this extended abstract first presents key findings from the pre-study. Thereafter, a few insights from the ongoing trial are provided prior to a concluding discussion on possible pathways for the journey from a temporary, small-scale trial towards a region-wide and continuous operation.