As you will remember, we wrote previously about the challenges entering a market with a carsharing or any other shared mobility service. Working on ways to support sound investment decision-making, Movmi proposed and created a Shared Mobility City Index.
Now we worked with Invo360, a France-based company to launch a global study, the Shared Mobility City Index (SMCITM). We are very exited to share not only the launch of the website, listing 56 cities spanning from North America to Europe, but also the launch of global report. It is comprised of detailed reports on each individual city and contains information such as general data on climate and demographics, the current shared mobility landscape as well as data on commuting patterns, public transit availability and the political landscape. The global report is available here.
We will present you each of our top 15 cities in North America in more depth over the following months, starting with our first today: Ottawa.
Ottawa is the highest ranked city in the North American Shared Mobility City Index (SMCITM), and ranked #4 on the global SMCITM.
The Shared Mobility City Index (SMCI) describes how well different cities globally support Shared Mobility, including car-sharing and bike-sharing.
Ottawa is not only the capital of Canada but also the political and technological center of Canada and features a high standard of living and low unemployment.
Density
Ottawa, although the highest ranked city within the NA SMCITM, is also the least dense city in the North American SMCITM, with a density of 820 inhabitants per square mile.
Mobility Patterns
Mobility Patterns look mostly at alternate modes of transportation instead of driving as a single person in a car – the available data is sources mostly on census data, which looks at commuting patters – which mode of transportation residents use to go to and from work every day. On Mobility Patterns, Ottawa is the highest scoring city in the North American SMCITM. scoring 9 out of 10 possible points. A higher score means that more residents use alternate modes of transportation instead of driving as a single person. Almost 25% of Ottawa’s residents are using public transit, 9% are biking and 6% are walking.
Sustainability
For Sustainability, we looked – among other things – at political support in forms of sustainability plans towards Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHG) reduction and plans to reduce traffic, e.g. supporting alternate modes of transportation and what we call mobility. Ottawa scores high on Sustainability, and is among the highest scoring cities in the North American SMCITM on Sustainability. Ottawa’s sustainability plan includes said mobility plans and goals for CO2 reduction. Additionally, Ottawa offers parking permits for station based carshare providers and has incentives for developers to support carsharing.
Shared Mobility Services
For Shared Mobility Services, we looked at carshare providers and bikeshare providers currently operating in the city. Ottawa is the highest ranking city on the North American SMCITM on Shared Mobility Services, scoring 9 out of 10 possible points. It has 3 carshare providers, Vrtucar, Zipcar and StudentCarshare. All of them are station-based. At the time of creation of the SMCITM, Ottawa was the only city in the North American SMCITM featuring not only 1 but 2 Bikeshare providers.
Parking
Lastly, we looked at the average annual cost of a downtown Garage. We divided that by the average annual household income for residents to get a comparable number throughout North America. Ottawa’s Parking Cost in a downtown garage are comparably low, costing 2.9% of the annual household income. Higher parking cost downtown are a good incentive to use alternate modes of transportation.
Ottawa is a good example on how a major city in North America can be a leader in shared mobility. Supporting alternate modes of transportation in many ways and also showing that more than one carshare or bikeshare provider can coexist in the same city, even though they use the same business model (all carshare providers in Ottawa are station-based for example).
You can find out more about the SMCITM here.
Contact us here to learn more about carsharing in Ottawa or the SMCITM .
