Fleets of shared vehicles replacing buses and cars "could cut carbon emissions by 30%"

Fleets of shared vehicles replacing both buses and private vehicles could cut a city's emissions by nearly 30%, according to a new report for the International Transport Forum at the start of the climate change conference in Paris.

The work for the OECD forum involved developing a simulation platform to model the impact of completely replacing current road transport with bookable, door-to-door shared taxis, eight-seater mini-vans, and tested this for Lisbon. Of three scenarios tested, 'ridesharing plus taxi-bus,' in which users choose between shared taxis or taxi-buses, metro/rail, walking or cycling, "shows the strongest reduction in CO2, with fewer miles driven and only 71.9% of the current daily transport emissions of the Portugese capital.

"Key to these reductions in both vehicle-kilometres drive and CO2 emitted are high-occupany levels. The average occupancy rates achieved almost doubles, from 1.2 to 2.3 passengers... the efficient allocation of spare capacity in the shared fleet makes it possible to provide the same mobility with dramatically fewer cars - comprehensive shared mobility services could take more than nine out of ten cars off the streets of a mid-sized city like Lisbon".

The report is one of six produced by the ITF as world leaders meet to discuss emission targets. The forum highlights that transport carbon emissions generate nearly a quarter of global CO2 emissions, and its reports also consider how to achieve low-carbon mobility for mega cities in China and India, and the carbon impact of aviation and freight.