A backseat for drivers: Autonomous driving will be the backbone of shared urban mobility in Europe

Introduction

Autonomous driving (AD) has long been seen as the savior of shared mobility, finally making ride hailing and ride pooling services profitable by eliminating the cost of paying the driver. Pilot projects are underway across the globe, however the key question remains: when will AD technology, regulation and public acceptance align and reach the point where driverless vehicles start to transform the personal mobility landscape?

To answer this question and quantify the scale of the opportunity for AD to push forward the use of shared mobility services in Europe, we built the Berylls Mobility Model to assess the impact of key drivers including technology, political will and regulatory readiness on driverless urban mobility in 544 European cities across 35 countries.

The results of our extensive modeling show a decisive shift toward self-driving ride hailing and ride pooling services over the next decade. Our key findings include:

• AD vehicles will account for 50% of the distance travelled with ride sharing services in European cities by 2035
• The European urban mobility market will grow by 56% to €802bn by 2035, but the market share of private cars will shrink to 60%, from 67% now
• By the end of 2035, we expect there will be between 500,000 and 1.2 million AD cars used for ride hailing and pooling