Impact of digitalization of public transport and city mobility on traffic structure and on-road emissions

Abstract

Introducing digital services for urban and intercity mobility significantly influence the travel mode decisions of passengers. In order to analyze the changes in the transport habits of citizens triggered by the digitalization of public transport, we apply the Markov regime-switching model. The proposed approach has ability to indicate and model periods in the considered time series with substantial differences in their statistical characteristics, that makes it especially appropriate for estimation of business model innovation effect. In our case the Jacksonville Transportation Authority vehicle revenue miles negative trend turns to positive in the period after introducing digital services for their passengers. Our results demonstrate that introduction of digital services for passengers makes public transportation more attractive and increase the number of trips that use those transport modes compared to personal car usage. Observed shift of transport habits to lowemission travel modes reduces on-road emissions directly as well as indirectly by reducing congestion and time spent in traffic.