Overview
Online marketplaces enable in the travel context the dynamic matching of supply and demand. The shared economy can revolutionize urban mobility by blurring the traditional division between private and public transport, shifting from an ownership model to Mobility as a Service (MaaS).
Existing transport models are designed with the premise that transport consists of either fully scheduled and controlled fleets or individual privately-owned vehicles. Since MaaS breaks the conventional division between individual (ownership) and collective (usage) travel alternatives, existing theories and models of travel behaviour, transport network and operations cannot explain the behavioural dynamics, interactions and evolution of both supply-side and demand-side of the marketplace.
This research program develops and tests theories and models of transport network in the domain of two-sided mobility market.
CriticalMaaS will produce a set of new behavioural models of traveller and supplier choices in transport marketplace settings. The supply- and demand-side dynamics and their interactions will be mathematically formalized and developed in both network flow distribution and agent-based modelling frameworks designed for the analysis of their co-evolution. Models will be used to study emerging patterns, transition phases and critical mass concepts by testing the conditions required for generating economies of scale in market adoption and evolution of MaaS.
Models will be estimated and validated using a series of surveys, choice experiments, laboratory experiments, observed behavioural data from on-demand services, focus groups and interviews.
The proposed research efforts will result with several theoretical and methodological breakthroughs in the field of transport modelling. In addition, the research program will make methodological and empirical contributions to the field of travel behaviour as well as insights into the dynamics of a two-sided (mobility) marketplace.