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5. Mar 2020
/ Germany
Ride-hailing: Universal remedy or climate killer?
Owning a private car has long since ceased to be the norm in cities. With good public transport connections, new forms of mobility such as e-scooters or ride hailing services such as Uber and Co., you can get from A to B flexibly, comfortably and quickly even without a car.

But beware: while the use of public transport, walking or cycling are real sustainable alternatives to motorised private transport, services such as ride-hailing may appear just as green at first glance, but in reality they can turn into exactly the opposite.   

A new study by the Union of Concerned Scientists shows that ridehailing produces on average 69 percent more air pollution than the original journeys it replaces 

What is the reason for this? For one thing, the concept of ride hailing itself. Because unlike ride pooling, ridehailing does not share rides. Each ride request is therefore handled individually and routes are not as is usual in ridepooling efficiently bundled according to the collective taxi motto. On the other hand, ride-hailing trips often do not replace motorised individual transport, but rather public transport or cycling.   

 

Ride-pooling beats ride-hailing  

In contrast to ride-hailing, however, ride-pooling reduces emissions by 33 percent compared to motorised individual transport. If the factor electric vehicleis added, the balance looks even more positive: A pooled ride in an electric vehicle can reduce emissions by up to 68 percent.   

This makes ride-pooling clearly the preferred means of choice when it comes to sustainable, needs-based and flexible mobility that combines the comfort of your own car with the environmentally friendly effect of public transport.   

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Perspectives from Julian Renninger (SBB) and Christine Mauelshagen (Swiss Transit Lab)

Perspectives from Julian Renninger (SBB) and Christine Mauelshagen (Swiss Transit Lab)

At the end of November 2024, the Canton of Zurich and SBB announced a pilot project for automated driving in public transport in Furttal near Zurich. The aim of the project is to gain practical insights into automated mobility services in public transport. The Swiss Transit Lab is responsible for the project management. As ioki, we provide the on-demand software for the future project. In our latest “Perspectives from” we talk to the project managers Julian Renninger (SBB) and Christine Mauelshagen (Swiss Transit Lab) about the most recent project for autonomous driving in Switzerland.

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