Environmental impacts of shared mobility: a systematic literature review of life-cycle assessments focusing on car sharing, carpooling, bikesharing, scooters and moped sharing

ABSTRACT

Evidence about the environmental impacts of shared mobility is fragmented and scattered. In this article a systematic literature review is presented. The review focuses on assessments that use Life-Cycle Assessment to quantify the environmental impacts of car sharing, carpooling, bikesharing, and scooter/moped sharing. The results of these assessments were analyzed, as well as the factors that influence these impacts. Business-to-consumer car sharing, peer-to-peer car sharing, carpooling, bikesharing, and scooter/moped sharing can all cause gains and losses in terms of changing the environmental impacts of passenger transportation. The findings presented here refute unconditional claims that shared mobility delivers environmental benefits. Factors that influence changes in environmental impacts from passenger transportation from shared mobility include travel behaviour, the design of shared mobility modes, and how such schemes are implemented, as well as the local context. Local governments and shared mobility organisations can benefit from the analysis presented here by deepening their understanding of these factors and considering the life-cycle phase where the greatest impacts are caused.

KEYWORDS:

• Shared mobility
• life-cycle assessment
• environmental impacts
• car sharing
• micromobility sharing

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Taru Jane, Andrius Plepys, and Oksana Mont for providing me with guidance and feedback on this article. I would also like to acknowledge my colleagues at IIIEE who provided feedback during the process, especially Steven Curtis. Thanks to the reviewers of this article for their time and constructive comments. This article is part of a PhD thesis and is included in the printed version.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program [grant number 504 771872].