Within the EU’s Sustainable and Intelligent Mobility Strategy is the initiative to promote the use of shared transport on demand, in taxis and vehicles with a VTC driver, throughout the union. Thus, the body urges member states to “make it easier for citizens to have access to shared mobility services sustainable, smart, resilient and whose standards are in accordance with EU law”.
The Commission asks the community countries to “reconsider their current legislation regarding local on-demand passenger transport markets” to evolve towards a regulation that guarantees “available, affordable, reliable, good quality and safe transport services for its users”.
The Commission considers that promote shared passenger transport on demand, It would also facilitate and increase the use of public transport by bringing people who live in areas far from city centers closer to bus and metro stations, which would make this option more attractive and comfortable and reduce the need to use private vehicles.
An economical and sustainable way to commute daily
José María Campos, CEO of the Spanish company Celering, specialized in shared transport through mobility solutions, explains that “More and more people are looking for new formulas that allow them to travel sustainably on a daily basis and at an affordable price, such as company or private collaborative shuttles.”.
The operation is simple: the user requests the transfer to a point of their choice, through the APP, and can also indicate the time they want to reach their destination. Then, through Artificial Intelligence (AI), the vehicle adjusts its route in real time, to pick up the user without penalizing the travel time of the rest of the passengers who may already be on board. A form of transport that already works in Madrid (coverage area) and is successful in other cities around the world such as New York and Tokyo and that saves up to 30% in mobility costs compared to the use of a private vehicle.
Reduce pollution and clogging
The community body supports this transport formula which, among other benefits, could help reduce the kilometers traveled per person and therefore mitigate pollution and traffic jams in cities. The International Transport Forum (ITF) of the OECD in its 2020 report, already proposed to reduce empty vehicle movements to improve the environmental behavior of taxis/VTC in order to guarantee adequate and safe local mobility for citizens, improve the sustainability of the sector and promote the objectives of the European Green Deal and the Smart and Sustainable Mobility Strategy.
The Commission is in favor of fully exploiting the potential offered by this system to help achieve the decarbonisation objective and promote mobility. “It is essential to reduce carbon emissions and their environmental impact and the on-demand passenger transport sector must also play its part in this regard”. Ultimately, he concludes, “the EU needs to promote a “green” shared transport mode, which is integrated with the public sector”.
In line with the EU recommendations, Campos believes that “To promote the use of shared transport on demand in cities for transfers from home to the office through the use of technologies, the development of tax advantages by the Public Administrations is crucial, by considering remuneration in kind, since it is a technology after the development of the regulatory framework of the Personal Income Tax Lawin a clear case of regulatory development slower than the technological one”.
