Digital platforms and the future of urban mobility
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Manchester
Department Name: Alliance Manchester Business School
Abstract
Digital platforms are pervasive. In 2015 every one of the top ten trafficked US websites was a platform and platform businesses hold each of the top eight spots in Chinese web traffic rankings. Many platforms that are being experimented with appear to be reconfiguring urban services. That is to say, they are disrupting the ways in which urban services and systems such as mobility, energy, water and waste are currently organised.
Urban platforms pose challenges and opportunities for many areas of urban life. Here we focus on one domain of urban platforms, urban mobility, where a large number of platforms are emerging in different ways and to a variety of ends in particular places. These include, for example platforms that focus on ride-hailing (e.g. Uber), journey planning (e.g. CityMapper), on-demand bus services (Vamooz), mobile ticketing and fare management (JustRide), carpooling (Faxi), and bicycle sharing (BIXI).
While there is much debate about digital platforms in general as a macro phenomenon, much of this is 'place-blind' and consequently misses much of what is happening on the ground in different urban areas. The overarching aim of the research is to understand how digital mobility platforms are re-shaping city-regional transport systems and their governance - and what the geographical and social implications, opportunities and challenges of this are. To address this aim, the project has four objectives:
1. To critically analyse the various global trajectories of urban platform innovation and how they are imagined and organised;
2. To assess how knowledge and policy associated with these various urban platform innovation trajectories circulate between urban contexts;
3. To investigate how these trajectories combine and embed in city-regional contexts and with what implications for socio-spatial re-organisation;
4. To develop pathways to societal impact via city-regional transport strategy and policy and through wider public debate on urban transport policy and the future of urban mobility.
We plan to integrate the research findings into a contribution towards the overarching aim of the proposal, i.e. how and why global trajectories of urban platform innovation combine and embed in specific city-regional contexts. The integrated findings and how this can help us to anticipate the future of urban mobility, will be presented in a book-length monograph.
As well as having significant implications for academic debate, the proposed emphasis on mobility platforms and city-regional restructuring is equally significant to city-region transport strategy and policy development - especially given the fast changing and highly unpredictable characteristics of this innovation area. The UK national government recognises the future of mobility as a critical challenge and English city-regions and other sub-national areas as key places for 'fostering experimentation and trialling' (DfT, 2019). Through both its Industrial Strategy (IS) White Paper and its Future of mobility: urban strategy, Government seeks to position the UK as becoming a 'world leader' in shaping the future of mobility as we are 'on the cusp of a profound change in how we move people, goods and services around our towns, cities and countryside' (HM Government, 2017, p.48).
Those engaged in city-regional transport policy are faced with profound challenges about what the future of urban mobility looks like and require up to date, policy-relevant research that identifies current mobility patterns and how various new urban mobility service innovations may reconfigure these to meet strategic priorities and current and future mobility needs. Through building relationships with city-regional policymakers, addressing this research need has the potential to contribute to closing a knowledge gap for policy development.
Urban platforms pose challenges and opportunities for many areas of urban life. Here we focus on one domain of urban platforms, urban mobility, where a large number of platforms are emerging in different ways and to a variety of ends in particular places. These include, for example platforms that focus on ride-hailing (e.g. Uber), journey planning (e.g. CityMapper), on-demand bus services (Vamooz), mobile ticketing and fare management (JustRide), carpooling (Faxi), and bicycle sharing (BIXI).
While there is much debate about digital platforms in general as a macro phenomenon, much of this is 'place-blind' and consequently misses much of what is happening on the ground in different urban areas. The overarching aim of the research is to understand how digital mobility platforms are re-shaping city-regional transport systems and their governance - and what the geographical and social implications, opportunities and challenges of this are. To address this aim, the project has four objectives:
1. To critically analyse the various global trajectories of urban platform innovation and how they are imagined and organised;
2. To assess how knowledge and policy associated with these various urban platform innovation trajectories circulate between urban contexts;
3. To investigate how these trajectories combine and embed in city-regional contexts and with what implications for socio-spatial re-organisation;
4. To develop pathways to societal impact via city-regional transport strategy and policy and through wider public debate on urban transport policy and the future of urban mobility.
We plan to integrate the research findings into a contribution towards the overarching aim of the proposal, i.e. how and why global trajectories of urban platform innovation combine and embed in specific city-regional contexts. The integrated findings and how this can help us to anticipate the future of urban mobility, will be presented in a book-length monograph.
As well as having significant implications for academic debate, the proposed emphasis on mobility platforms and city-regional restructuring is equally significant to city-region transport strategy and policy development - especially given the fast changing and highly unpredictable characteristics of this innovation area. The UK national government recognises the future of mobility as a critical challenge and English city-regions and other sub-national areas as key places for 'fostering experimentation and trialling' (DfT, 2019). Through both its Industrial Strategy (IS) White Paper and its Future of mobility: urban strategy, Government seeks to position the UK as becoming a 'world leader' in shaping the future of mobility as we are 'on the cusp of a profound change in how we move people, goods and services around our towns, cities and countryside' (HM Government, 2017, p.48).
Those engaged in city-regional transport policy are faced with profound challenges about what the future of urban mobility looks like and require up to date, policy-relevant research that identifies current mobility patterns and how various new urban mobility service innovations may reconfigure these to meet strategic priorities and current and future mobility needs. Through building relationships with city-regional policymakers, addressing this research need has the potential to contribute to closing a knowledge gap for policy development.
Planned Impact
Our project responds to needs identified through reviewing public and policy debates and discussions with city-regional transport policymakers. There will be two sets of beneficiaries of the research project:
1) City-regional transport innovation strategy and policymakers - The principal beneficiaries of the research will be the Metropolitan Transport/Combined Authorities (MTA/CAs) in Greater Manchester, NECA/NoT and the West Midlands. Key stakeholders in the MTA/CAs have been involved in discussions about the shape of the project that has sought to take account of how they may benefit from the research. The Innovation, Strategy and Policy teams of the three MTA/CAs have expressed strong support for the research project (see attached letters of support). They currently face profound challenges about what the future of urban mobility looks like and require up to date, policy-relevant research to meet strategic priorities and current and future mobility needs. Specifically, they see the benefits of the research for their own work to be:
* The rapid response insight that the project team can provide to meet MTA/CAs' strategic requirements in relation to formulating strategy and policy around the future of mobility.
* The global database analysis of dominant global trajectories of urban mobility platformisation - to illustrate to them the multiple potential strategies of urban platformisation.
* The analysis of the global front-runner models of urban mobility platforms promoted by key intermediaries, that illustrates the strategies of key intermediaries and first-mover city-regions.
* Comparative analysis of three city-regions to facilitate learning across locations about opportunities and challenges for incorporating platforms to enhance transport effectiveness and its governance.
2) National policymakers, intermediary groups and civil society groups related to the future of mobility and digitalisation - including national policymakers (DfT), innovation intermediaries (e.g. Connected Places Catapult and POLIS), and representatives from civil society groups (e.g. Campaign for Better Transport); where the research's findings will be relevant to wider debates about the use of platforms for other urban services - described by some as the 'uberisation of public services'.
Our research project seeks to challenge this 'uberisation of public services' perspective in two ways. First, it questions the implicit private-vendor led view of urban service platformisation; secondly, it seeks to move beyond singular representations of platform possibilities beyond the uber platform model, which has become a prevalent way of seeing urban contexts as recipients of platforms. Our research project articulates alternatives to this view of urban platforms, driven by urban, public authorities, civil society, and hybrids of these groups and platform vendors. This challenges a dominant societal narrative about platforms, the social interests that promote them and how they operate. National policymakers, intermediary groups and civil society groups could benefit from an appreciation of these alternative models of organising urban platforms in the following ways:
* Via the project website, which will host a blog series from the growing international community of researchers in this area.
* Through the publish discussion pieces the will be publish in a range of media channels (Discover Society, Guardian Long Read, Prospect Magazine, and The Conversation) to inform a wider public debate. reach wider interested audiences: for example.
* A stakeholder workshop (including MTAs and CAs, from across the UK, intermediaries (e.g. Connected Places Catapult and POLIS), national policymakers and representatives from the national media), will discuss these ideas of alternative models of urban platforms, how to incorporate them into policy and practice and what the benefits of this are.
1) City-regional transport innovation strategy and policymakers - The principal beneficiaries of the research will be the Metropolitan Transport/Combined Authorities (MTA/CAs) in Greater Manchester, NECA/NoT and the West Midlands. Key stakeholders in the MTA/CAs have been involved in discussions about the shape of the project that has sought to take account of how they may benefit from the research. The Innovation, Strategy and Policy teams of the three MTA/CAs have expressed strong support for the research project (see attached letters of support). They currently face profound challenges about what the future of urban mobility looks like and require up to date, policy-relevant research to meet strategic priorities and current and future mobility needs. Specifically, they see the benefits of the research for their own work to be:
* The rapid response insight that the project team can provide to meet MTA/CAs' strategic requirements in relation to formulating strategy and policy around the future of mobility.
* The global database analysis of dominant global trajectories of urban mobility platformisation - to illustrate to them the multiple potential strategies of urban platformisation.
* The analysis of the global front-runner models of urban mobility platforms promoted by key intermediaries, that illustrates the strategies of key intermediaries and first-mover city-regions.
* Comparative analysis of three city-regions to facilitate learning across locations about opportunities and challenges for incorporating platforms to enhance transport effectiveness and its governance.
2) National policymakers, intermediary groups and civil society groups related to the future of mobility and digitalisation - including national policymakers (DfT), innovation intermediaries (e.g. Connected Places Catapult and POLIS), and representatives from civil society groups (e.g. Campaign for Better Transport); where the research's findings will be relevant to wider debates about the use of platforms for other urban services - described by some as the 'uberisation of public services'.
Our research project seeks to challenge this 'uberisation of public services' perspective in two ways. First, it questions the implicit private-vendor led view of urban service platformisation; secondly, it seeks to move beyond singular representations of platform possibilities beyond the uber platform model, which has become a prevalent way of seeing urban contexts as recipients of platforms. Our research project articulates alternatives to this view of urban platforms, driven by urban, public authorities, civil society, and hybrids of these groups and platform vendors. This challenges a dominant societal narrative about platforms, the social interests that promote them and how they operate. National policymakers, intermediary groups and civil society groups could benefit from an appreciation of these alternative models of organising urban platforms in the following ways:
* Via the project website, which will host a blog series from the growing international community of researchers in this area.
* Through the publish discussion pieces the will be publish in a range of media channels (Discover Society, Guardian Long Read, Prospect Magazine, and The Conversation) to inform a wider public debate. reach wider interested audiences: for example.
* A stakeholder workshop (including MTAs and CAs, from across the UK, intermediaries (e.g. Connected Places Catapult and POLIS), national policymakers and representatives from the national media), will discuss these ideas of alternative models of urban platforms, how to incorporate them into policy and practice and what the benefits of this are.
Organisations
Publications
Hodson M
(2023)
How have digital mobility platforms responded to COVID-19 and why does this matter for 'the urban'?
in Urban Studies
Hodson M
(2024)
Urban infrastructure reconfiguration and digital platforms: Who is in control?
in Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions
Hodson M
(2021)
Global technology companies and the politics of urban socio-technical imaginaries in the digital age: Processual proxies, Trojan horses and global beachheads
in Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space
Marvin S
(2023)
Post-pandemic cities: An urban lexicon of accelerations/decelerations
in Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers
| Description | Passenger transport authorities in metropolitan areas in England should strengthen their strategic control over city-regional public transport systems, including the integration of digital mobility platforms such as Uber, if they are to deliver better services, a group of University of Manchester experts has argued. Writing in On Infrastructure - a newly released collection of articles from Policy@Manchester - Professor Michael Hodson, Professor Andrew McMeekin and Dr Andrew Lockhart describe how, over the last 15 years, digital mobility platforms for ride hailing like Uber, bike sharing like Beryl, e-scooter rental like Lime and journey planning apps like Citymapper have become common in urban societies. "They are often seen as 'disrupting' the organisation of existing public transport systems and creating competition," the authors explain. "Yet these platforms can be strategically incorporated into existing systems by public authorities aiming to address public policy priorities and improve systems. They also address sustainability challenges, especially in accelerating the shift away from personal car use." Hodson, McMeekin and Lockhart acknowledge that digital systems and existing transport systems can be organised in different ways, but add, "policymakers and public bodies must navigate the tension between contributing to public policy goals and creating new markets and commercial opportunities for private platform providers." They continue: "Given this dilemma, there is a need for bodies such as the UK Department for Transport (DfT) to develop a clear position in response." The University of Manchester academics contend that establishing who controls platforms, "has profound implications at city-regional scale, where transport authorities must consider how the public good is best served by the opportunities they provide." They write: "Strategy at this scale needs to decide how platforms and the existing transport system should be organised and which transport services, infrastructures and sources of data should be under public control. This clearly requires a framework to support challenging and ongoing conversations on this issue within combined authorities and transport authorities, and with national government." Drawing on their own research and expertise, Hodson, McMeekin and Lockhart reveal that they have developed a framework, known as the Urban Digital Stack, to assist policymakers in considering how multiple platforms should be organised in relation to existing urban public transport systems. "Looking at how multiple platforms can be shaped and organised by existing urban decision makers and public transport systems, we focus on how platforms can add to the existing landscape of urban public transport systems," they explain. "The tool explores what social and political challenges this raises for the control of existing and digital forms of infrastructure, and implications for the organisation and ownership of data." They add: "The Stack does not provide simple prescriptions. Its purpose is to help urban policymakers and decision makers to think about and to debate key challenges and questions with colleagues and other stakeholders and to support them in developing strategies and plans for responding to the challenge of digital mobility platforms." |
| Exploitation Route | See the section above for a summary of what has been discovered as a result of the research and the implications of this for policy. |
| Sectors | Transport |
| Description | Submission to UK Parliament Transport Committee (2023) request for topics for an Inquiry on Our Future Transport |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Contribution to a national consultation/review |
| Description | 3. 'Digital Platforms and the Future of Urban Public Transport 2050'. Workshop co-convened with Urban Transport Group and hosted by Transport for London to discuss our work |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | 'Digital Platforms and the Future of Urban Public Transport 2050'. Workshop co-convened with Urban Transport Group and hosted by Transport for London to discuss our research - included representatives from Transport for London, Transport for Greater Manchester, Transport North East, Transport for Wales, Transport for West Yorkshire, and Merseytravel. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Digital Platforms, COVID-19, and the Re-shaping of Urban Mobility, Policy@Mcr - Andy Lockhart, Mike Hodson & Andrew McMeekin |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | This blog summarised, for policymakers and a general audience, a typology of way in which digital platforms were being adapted to accelerate and decelerate urban mobility circulations as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The blog was published and disseminated via the University of Manchester's dedicated Policy@Mcr unit. The blog was sent directly to urban policymakers across the UK. It was also circulated via the Sustainable Consumption Institute's Twitter account. The blog has been summarised by the following website and media outlets: https://www.myscience.uk/news/wire/new_report_on_the_impact_of_digital_platforms_and_covid_19_on_urban_transport_systems-2022-manchester https://techilive.in/new-report-on-the-impact-of-digital-platforms-and-covid-19-on-urban-transport-systems/ https://techxplore.com/news/2022-01-impact-digital-platforms-covid-urban.html https://www.newsbreak.com/news/2484789265984/new-report-on-the-impact-of-digital-platforms-and-covid-19-on-urban-transport-systems |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://blog.policy.manchester.ac.uk/posts/2022/01/digital-platforms-covid-19-and-the-reshaping-of-u... |
| Description | Policy workshop on how digital platforms are shaping urban mobility in a time of COVID-19 and after |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Workshop with policymakers from three English city-regions and a national organisation that supports city-regions (nine people). The focus of the workshop was on critically discussing draft findings from our public report on how digital platforms are shaping urban mobility in a time of COVID-19 and after. Discussion and critique from the workshop informed a revised final report (November 2021). |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Practitioner Workshop on the Future of Urban Transport Systems in a Digital World with AECOM managers |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Following a public lecture given by one of the project team, we were invited by the Cities Lead North at AECOM to lead a practitioner workshop involving selected managers and members of their staff. The workshop, involved 12 people in total, and focused on the future of urban transport in a digital world. Key themes that were generated by the project's research were used to frame a context-setting presentation and a structured debate. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Public report: How digital platforms are reshaping urban mobility in a time of COVID-19 and after (November 2021) - Andy Lockhart, Mike Hodson & Andrew McMeekin |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | The project produced a public report that focuses on the unprecedented disruption that COVID-19 has caused to urban transport systems around the world, at times bringing the vital circulation of people and goods that cities depend upon to a grinding halt. In the context of the global pandemic, debates about the future of urban transport have only intensified, with many questioning whether COVID-19 could usher in a more permanent shift in urban mobility and the ways cities are organised. The report contributes to these debates with a specific focus on the role of digital platforms in shaping these dynamics. Drawing on 60 examples of platform-based responses from across the world, the report identifies a series of trends with far reaching implications for the future of urban transport and poses important questions for urban transport authorities and policymakers. The public report has been made freely available on the project website. Its availability has been circulated via social media (Twitter) and the mailing list of our academic home, the Sustainable Consumption Institute. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://documents.manchester.ac.uk/display.aspx?DocID=57580 |