Digital Platforms and the Future of Urban Mobility: Metadata and Documentation, 2020-2023

Relationships between (often private) digital mobility/transport platforms and cities and urban contexts have become better understood in recent years. Much work has focused on individual or small number of platforms and their relationship to a particular city or small numbers of cities. Less well-developed is i) understanding of what the implications of multiple (often dozens) of digital mobility/transport platforms are for existing metropolitan public transport systems and ii) for how urban and metropolitan public authorities can shape the platformisation of metropolitan public transport systems.

To build better understanding of these issues, the data collection strategy of this project involved 1) a programme of documentary analysis and 2) a programme of 74 semi-structured interviews. The documentary analysis involved documents grouped as: ‘Greater Manchester other case study material’; ‘Greater Manchester public authorities’; ‘Intermediaries, consultancies’, ‘Miscellaneous’, ‘National government and agencies’; ‘North East other case study material’; ‘North East public authorities’; ‘Platform providers’ (with sub-categories of: ‘Car-share and car clubs’; ‘DDRT’; ‘MaaS and journey planning’; ‘Micro-mobility’; ‘Public transport operational and RTI’; ‘Ride-hailing’; ‘Ticketing and payment); ‘Traditional transport providers’; ‘West Midlands other case study material’; ‘West Midlands public authorities’. Interviews were undertaken with multiple representatives within metropolitan transport authorities, including in areas of strategy and innovation, digital transformation, bus reform, future mobility, infrastructure, and ticketing, with national level policymakers, various platform companies, transport operators, local authorities and academics.