Rethinking the Taxi: Case Study of Hamburg on the Prospects of Urban Fleets for Enhancing Sustainable Mobility

Abstract

Despite being a vital part of the urban mobility system, the taxi receives little attention from planners and policy makers; thus, its potential contributions to enhance sustainable mobility are often overlooked. Consequently, this paper adopts an innovative perspective to rethink the taxi for enhancing sustainable urban mobility. It takes a closer look at the prospects of urban taxi fleets for supporting the transition of a city’s mobility system towards sustainability. The work is attributed to the project “Future Urban Taxi” under the initiative “Ambient Mobility Lab” supported with funding from the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Labor and Housing of the federal state Baden-Württemberg in Germany. To relate to a specific urban context, ten German cities were previously analyzed and Hamburg chosen as a use case. The city provides good availability of both taxi and mobility data, and the municipality is comparatively open to innovative concepts (e.g., the voluntary introduction of the fiscal taximeter, allowing more flexible pricing). By analyzing the use case Hamburg, “Future Urban Taxi” focuses on two main challenges: (i) how the taxi as a vehicle has to adapt to user demand and specific urban contexts, and (ii) how the taxi as a system can be integrated into the mobility system of a city in a more effective and sustainable way. A qualitative methodology consisting of the collection and qualitative assessment of expert interviews, as well as a scenario and gap analysis, was used to assess the potential of various taxi concepts. Three future scenarios for the year 2025 were built around them to arrive at three taxi concepts—the electric taxi, autonomous taxi and shared taxis. Each of these can contribute to the sustainability of Hamburg’s urban mobility system in varying degrees. The highest contribution lies in the implementation of shared-taxi services. They are rather easy to implement and can achieve quick benefits both for the customers and taxi operators. The electrification of taxis is rated second, since it requires investments in infrastructure and new forms of operations of the vehicles. The autonomous-taxi concept is least likely to be implemented soon, even though it could offer quite a few benefits. The reason is that there are still a lot of uncertainties (technical, spatial, legal) regarding this technology. By highlighting the need to rethink the taxi, this paper offers an insightful understanding of this mobility service in the specific urban system of the case study city of Hamburg.

Appendix

Detailed overview of taxi-service performance in each developed scenario

Scenario/framework core elements		Electrification of taxi fleets scenario	Automatization of taxi fleets scenario	Shared taxi fleets scenario
Goals
1	To increase accessibility	√	√	√
2	To increase mobility opportunities	√	√	√
3	To enhance communication	–	0 (depends on the format: conventional individualized taxi ride or ridesharing)	√
4	To develop trade	√	√	–
5	To develop relationships	–	–	√
6	To integrate transport solutions	√	√	√
7	To reduce mobility divides	–	0 (depends on the format: conventional taxi ride or ridesharing)	√ (typically cheaper than conventional taxi rides due to shared costs; thus service is available to more people because it is more affordable)
8	To reduce noise and emissions	√	√ (assumption: vehicles use low-emission, innovative propulsion technologies)	0 (depends on the vehicle propulsion system)
9	To reduce road crashes/congestion	0 (unless the existing fleets are replaced or else risks putting more vehicles on the road)	0 (unless the existing fleets are replaced or else risks putting more vehicles on the road)	√ (optimizing existing fleets)
Criteria
1	Transportation and capacity/utility/functionality	0 (this taxi service may not yet contribute to an effective and well-performing system but improvements are in progress)	X (not yet in place)	√ (this taxi service contributes to an effective and well-performing system)
2	Safety and human protection	0 (subject to human error, current system may be adequate but improvements are ongoing)	X (an adequate human-oriented system is not yet in place)	0 (subject to human error, current system may be adequate but there is still room for service improvement: vocational training of taxi drivers/service providers)
3	Cost and infrastructure/resource demand	0 (this taxi service may still involve moderately high costs particularly for infrastructural set-ups, but may contribute to an efficient and resource-optimizing system: higher performance with low energy consumption, use of renewable energy)	0 (this taxi service may involve costly vehicles and infrastructural set-ups, but may also contribute to an efficient and resource-optimizing system assuming the vehicles use low-emission, innovative propulsion technologies)	√ (this taxi service contributes to an efficient and resource-optimizing system: leverage existing fleets to meet increasing mobility demands)
4	Environment and land impact	0 (this taxi service may contribute to a location-friendly system, unless the existing fleets are replaced or else urban space is undermined: more vehicles on the road)	0 (this taxi service may contribute to a location-friendly system, unless the existing fleets are replaced or else urban space is undermined: more vehicles on the road)	√ (this taxi service contributes to a location-friendly system: optimize existing fleets to create more urban space)
5	Socio-cultural scenario and behavior	√ (this taxi service respects the values and ethics of the local community: sustainable development, Energy Transition/Energiewende in Germany)	X (this taxi service may violate the values and ethics of the local community: human safety, social issues such as putting taxi drivers out of work)	X (this taxi service may violate the values and ethics of the local community: criminal activities, irregular low wages with reference to Uber‘s controversial business model)
Challenges
1	Cognition	0 (shared meaning but inconsistent judgment on mobility problem/challenge: reduce carbon emissions at the expense of urban space, “obvious” solution to overcome unsustainable transport emissions but could lead to unintended consequences of inherently shifting carbon emissions from transport to energy sector)	X (various meanings and inconsistent assessment of mobility problem/challenge: part of smart mobility trend, reduce carbon emissions at the expense of urban space when existing fleets are not replaced but more vehicles are put on the road instead)	√ (shared meaning and consistent assessment of mobility problem/challenge: reduce carbon emissions by means of optimizing the existing fleets)
2	Coordination	√ (this taxi service leverages a coordinated approach to embark on a shared course: reduce carbon emissions)	–	√ (this taxi service leverages a coordinated approach to embark on a shared course: reduce carbon emissions by means of optimizing the existing fleets)
3	Cooperation	√ (currently able to create mutual advantage through close cooperation but there is still room for improvements: roll-outs with larger fleets to encourage rapid uptakes, expansion of charging infrastructure, subsidies)	–	√ (currently able to create mutual advantage through some cooperation but there is still room for improvements: integrate into public transport chain for supporting multimodality and mobility-on-demand)
Components
1	Means (tools to deliver mobility service)	√ (vehicles and infrastructure are available but there is still room for improvements: innovations for vehicle propulsion systems, charging infrastructure)	X (vehicles and infrastructure are not yet widely available since the technology is still in its early phase of development and testing)	√ (leverage existing fleets)
2	Carriers (persons and/or organizations)	√ (extensive range of expertise especially technical expertise to professionally and systematically carry out the system development process)	X (related expertise is limited to an exclusive group with the capacity to professionally and systematically carry out the system development process)	√ (extensive range of expertise to professionally and systematically carry out the system development process)
3	Networks (physical and/or virtual pathways)	√ (networks are in place but may be subject to improvements: remote sensors and monitoring devices, V2G technology)	0 (networks are in place but is subject to improvements since the technology is still in its early phase of development and testing)	√ (networks are in place but may be subject to improvements: GIS, Internet of Things)
4	Objects (to be transported)	√ (passenger transport/courier/medication/blood banks/logistics)	√ (passenger transport/courier/medication/blood banks/logistics)	√ (passenger transport)
5	Actors* (directly/indirectly impacted by the overall mobility system) *not an exhaustive list	√ (realizing this taxi service will involve city authorities, local policymakers/regulators, taxi companies/cooperatives/call centers, taxi drivers, new mobility service providers, smartphone app developers, end-users/local communitiesa, electric utilities/energy providers, charging infrastructure providers, technology providers)	√ (realizing this taxi service will involve city authorities, local policymakers/regulators, taxi companies/cooperatives/call centers, taxi drivers, new mobility service providers, smartphone app developers, end-users/local communities, technology providers)	√ (realizing this taxi service will involve city authorities, local policymakers/regulators, taxi companies/cooperatives/call centers, taxi drivers, new mobility service providers, smartphone app developers, end-users/local communities)
Intelligence assets
1	Individual intelligence	√ (extensive expert knowledge on electric vehicles)	√ (limited expert knowledge on autonomous vehicles)	√ (extensive expert knowledge on shared mobility)
2	Community intelligence	√ (large expert communities for electric vehicles)	√ (currently remains as exclusive expert communities for autonomous vehicles)	√ (large expert communities for shared mobility)
3	Artificial intelligence	√ (adequate virtual infrastructure in place, but improvements are ongoing: V2G technology, sensor technology)	X (inadequate virtual infrastructure because the technology is still in its early phase of development and testing)	√ (adequate virtual infrastructure in place, but improvements are ongoing: GIS, big data analytics, Internet of Things)
Actions
1	To build the required technology infrastructure and tools	0 (current infrastructure and tools are inadequate and constant service improvements are in progress)	X (proper infrastructure and tools are not yet in place for this taxi service)	√ (current infrastructure and tools are moderately adequate, but there is still room for service improvement: smartphone app development)
2	To define the mobility service-related economic, policy and regulatory framework	√ (current policies and regulations may be adequately defined for this taxi service but improvements are ongoing)	X (respective policies and regulations are not yet in place for this taxi service)	X (current policies and regulations are inadequately defined for this taxi service, thus the call for ongoing improvements: human safety, data security, privacy issues, flexible pricing models)
3	To develop the social behavior, education and human capital competencies required to deliver the mobility service	√ (current initiatives may be adequate but more are constantly developed to deliver and promote this taxi service)	X (respective policies and regulations are not yet in place for this taxi service)	√ (current initiatives may be adequate, but there is still room for further development to deliver and promote this taxi service)
4	To develop the public/private business and entrepreneurial setting for launching the mobility service	√ (current setting is adequate, but more are constantly developed to launch and advance this taxi service)	0 (current setting may be inadequate, but there is room for further development to launch and promote this taxi service: smart mobility)	√ (current setting may be adequate, but there is still room for improvement to launch and advance this taxi service: ICT innovations, big data analytics, Internet of Things)

1. ^aCan refer to individuals or public/private organizations such as university, hospital, company, etc.
2. Legend based on the analyzed data
3. ∙ “√“: favorable
4. ∙ “X”: unfavorable
5. ∙ “0“: neutral
6. ∙ “—“: not applicable/not indicated in the analyzed data