The changing transport sector: from vehicle ownership to vehicle usership

With the projected growth in transport demand, the current modus operandi in transport supply is deemed unsustainable, generating the need for innovative services that could better manage the existing fleet and deliver the vision of green, sustainable and seamless mobility and a shift from car-ownership to usership. An emerging trend has been the slow but steady shift towards shared vehicles and on-demand modes, especially in conjunction with public transport. Ideally these services can be integrated together to provide a sustainable and equally convenient alternative to private cars for door-to-door mobility. The realisation of such an alternative has set in motion the development of a new mobility concept, the Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS). This seminar will focus on Londoners’ travel behaviour, attitudes and perceptions towards owning a car and participating in shared-mobility schemes. It will also explore Londoner’s reactions towards the Mobility-as-a-Service concept and the opportunities that lie ahead.

About the Speaker:

Dr Maria Kamargianni is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Transport and Energy and the Head of MaaSLab at the Energy Institute of University College London. Her published research has won several awards, and focuses on mobility as a service (MaaS), new mobility services, transport and travel behaviour modelling and econometrics. Dr Kamargianni is the Principal Investigator of several MaaS-related projects, such as the H2020 funded project MaaS4EU and the MaaS Maturity Index that supports cities to identify their gaps for MaaS initiation. She has published papers and reports about new mobility services and MaaS, including the feasibility study for MaaS in London for the UK Department of Transport and the impact assessment of MaaS and opportunities that lie ahead for Transport for London. She has also been included in the list with the Top-10 MaaS influencers in the world. She works closely with the public sector and industry to transfer the research results to the real world.