The Effects of Mobility as a Service and Autonomous Vehicles on People’s Willingness to Own a Car in the Future

• Main Authors: Timo Liljamo, Heikki Liimatainen, Markus Pöllänen, Riku Viri
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2021-02-01
• Series: Sustainability
• Subjects: car ownership; automated vehicles; Mobility as a Service; MaaS; survey
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/4/1962

Car ownership is one of the key factors affecting travel behaviour and thus also essential in terms of sustainable mobility. This study examines car ownership and how people’s willingness to own a car may change in the future, when considering the effects of public transport, Mobility as a Service (MaaS) and automated vehicles (AVs). Results of two citizen surveys conducted with representative samples (N_AV-survey= 2036; N_MaaS-survey= 1176) of Finns aged 18–64 are presented. The results show that 39% of respondents would not want or need to own a car if public transport connections were good enough, 58% if the described mobility service was available and 65% if all vehicles in traffic were automated. Hence, car ownership can decrease as a result of the implementation of AVs and MaaS, and higher public transport quality of service. Current mobility behaviour has a strong correlation to car ownership, as respondents who use public transport frequently feel less of a will or need to own a car than others. Generally, women and younger people feel less of a will or need to own a car, but factors such as educational level and residential location seem to have a relatively low effect.