UC Berkeley Transportation Sustainability Research Center

Shared mobility-the shared use of a vehicle, motorcycle, scooter, bicycle, or other travel mode-provides users with short-term access to a transportation mode on an as-needed basis. Shared mobility includes various travel modes and service models that meet the diverse needs of users including: carsharing, bikesharing, transportation network companies (TNCs, also known as ridesourcing and ridehailing), and others. The following section, TravelModes, provides U.S. Department of Transportation, American Planning Association, and SAE International definitions of the most common shared mobility models. Following these definitions, this tool defines two evolving mobility concepts: Mobility on Demand (MOD) and Mobility as a Service (MaaS). Next, the tool outlines four categories of smartphone applications impacting transportation. The tool concludes with descriptions of shared mobility service models and business models (Cohen & Shaheen, 2016; SAE International, 2018; Shaheen et al., 2016a; Shaheen et al., 2017).