Usage and User Characteristics—Insights from MOIA, Europe’s Largest Ridepooling Service

Abstract

New, i.e., shared and digitized, mobility services have been entering urban mobility markets around the globe. Among these new offerings is ridepooling, a mobility solution that bundles requests from passengers with similar routes in real-time and matches them with a vehicle. Ridepooling is quite novel in Germany and knowledge about users, changes in travel behavior, and impacts on the urban traffic system is scarce. To address this gap, we conducted an online survey among users and non-users of MOIA, a German ridepooling provider. Over 12,000 respondents completed the survey. The article presents results on ridepooling users’ characteristics and usage patterns. We found that MOIA users cover all age groups and are multimodal travelers—which leads us to assume that ridepooling enriches mobility portfolios and also serves as an alternative to the private car. MOIA is mostly used occasionally and, in particular, during the evening or the night. A specific focus of the article lies on users with mobility impairments as well as how and by whom ridepooling is used on work-related trips. Both topics are particularly relevant in light of changing travel patterns and transforming urban transport systems towards more sustainability.