Iomob’s ambitions for Zero Carbon Journeys

Posted 16 March, 2021

From a sustainability standpoint, ground transportation has experienced substantial innovation. There has been an exponential growth in electric vehicle (EV) production and an explosion in newer, more sustainable business models like carsharing and micromobility services. Despite these advances, the transportation sector is not pulling its weight in achieving our common 2030 and 2050 carbon neutrality goals. The European Commission has not pulled any punches when it comes to this challenge:

“Transport represents almost a quarter of Europe’s greenhouse gas emissions and is the main cause of air pollution in cities. The transport sector has not seen the same gradual decline in emissions as other sectors: emissions only started to decrease in 2007 and still remain higher than in 1990. Within this sector, road transport is by far the biggest emitter accounting for more than 70% of all GHG emissions from transport in 2014.”

Source: https://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/transport_en

How can MaaS reduce emissions from ground transportation?

The rise of Mobility as a Service (MaaS) was praised by many for the potential positive impact in decreasing the carbon footprint of ground transportation journeys. MaaS was expected to reduce the need for private car ownership. Perhaps someday it will entirely do that. Today, however, there are roughly 1.5 billion passenger vehicles roaming our streets worldwide. It is not realistic to hit our climate targets by hoping and assuming that car owners of the world will just give up their cars en masse.

If done right, the transition will be gradually achieved by offering attractive multimodal solutions that will convince car owners to decrease their number of kilometers driven and therefore their carbon footprint. Maybe some days they won’t take their car at all, opting for a scooter or a commuter train for their daily commute to work. Other times, their schedule makes it more convenient to travel by car, booking and using the park and ride outside of the congestion zone. These use cases are all supported by Iomob’s Mobility on Demand platform. It includes the classical MaaS offering: micromobility, carsharing and public transit, but also enables rail services for long-distance trips and using the user’s own private car in multimodal planning. Iomob’s focus is multimodal door-to-door user journeys with the added feature of opting for low carbon modes of transport.

For the transport sector to join other industries in reducing emissions over the 1990 levels, many things need to be done better: making it mandatory that all new passenger vehicles are electric by a date such as 2030 through regulation; expanding EV charging networks to eliminate range anxiety; improving EV battery performance; growing the supply of renewable energy that feeds the EV fleets; expanding low-carbon public transit and rail networks; facilitating easy access to multimodal low-carbon mobility services and factoring carbon externalities into the price of mobility services. It is the latter two that led to Iomob’s sustainability ambitions.

Zero Carbon journeys powered by Iomob

Iomob’s ambitious Zero Carbon solution will help reduce the carbon footprint of mobility journeys by providing users with low and zero carbon mobility choices. Iomob’s platform will also inform users about the emissions generated by their trip and give them the opportunity to offset their impact on the environment.

Here are the steps we are currently taking under Iomob’s Zero Carbon ambitions:

We are growing the number and diversity of low or zero-carbon mobility modes connected to Iomob. This means the expansion of our micromobility inventory, supporting the filtering of EV and hybrid taxis, and integrating EV charging networks. At the same time, Iomob continues to integrate public transit and rail services.
We are partnering with global organisations to develop a service called Location-Based Carbon Offsets (LBCO). This allows Iomob to accurately estimate the carbon emission impact of different journey options and include the cost of carbon offsets in the price of the journey. Consequently, users’ travel can have a net-zero carbon impact. The offsets will be sourced from certified projects in the country or region where the journeys were booked.

Who can benefit the most from Iomob’s Zero Carbon offer?

Customers using ground transport are currently not offered the possibility to offset the carbon impact of their journeys. With Iomob’s Zero Carbon solution, transit authorities, as well as transport and travel companies, can readily offer their customers the possibility to travel more eco-friendly by offsetting the negative impact of their journeys. The carbon offsets are supporting projects fighting climate change in the communities where the journey was taken. This represents a significant opportunity not only for consumers choosing to offset their impact, but also for companies and public authorities to promote a more responsible and environmentally-friendly mobility.

Corporations that are committed to reducing their net environmental impact can offset the carbon impact generated by the journeys of their employees. This can include work-related travel or even their daily commute to work. Iomob’s Zero Carbon offering can significantly contribute to companies’ commitments to decrease their global footprint. Companies will have access to dashboards and monthly reporting of journeys booked to use for their own carbon disclosure reporting.

Climate change is one of the biggest challenges facing humanity and the transportation industry remains one of the biggest culprits. The way to make mobility more sustainable is to take an ecosystem view and to incorporate the negative externalities into the pricing of mobility choices. Iomob’s Zero Carbon solution will facilitate the offset of negative road transportation externalities for governments, corporations and society.