Who is inclined to embrace green options in on-demand mobility?

Abstract

Shared on-demand mobility can be made more environmentally friendly, but this involves trade-offs in comfort and cost: electric vehicles may require higher fares due to charging time, while walking segments can reduce vehicle-kilometres-travelled at the expense of door-to-door convenience. This study examines travellers’ willingness to choose green shared mobility options using an integrated choice and latent variable model estimated from a discrete choice experiment conducted in Sydney, Australia. Respondents chose among three shared mobility options differing in walking requirements, travel times, emissions, and price, and answered attitudinal questions capturing car safety, pro-walk orientation, time sensitivity, and variety-seeking behaviour. Willingness-to-pay values are computed for five distinct user profiles. Results indicate that (i) users are generally willing to pay to reduce emissions; (ii) personalised options yield greater emission reductions than uniform policies; and (iii) regular public transport users show higher willingness to walk, highlighting potential synergies between on-demand mobility and transit.