Developing a Novel Crowdsourcing Business Model for Micro-Mobility Ride-Sharing Systems: Methodology and Preliminary Results

Abstract: Micro-mobility ride-sharing is an emerging technology that provides access to the transit system with minimum environmental impacts. Significant research is required to ensure that micro-mobility ride-sharing provides a better fulfilment of user needs. In this study, we propose a novel business model for the micro-mobility ride-sharing system where light vehicles such as electric scooters and electric bikes are crowdsourced. This new model consists of three entities, the suppliers, the customers, and a management party, which is responsible for receiving, renting, booking, and demand matching with offered resources. The proposed model has the potential to allow the suppliers to define the location of their private e-scooter/e-bike and the period of time they are available for rent, match it with a particular demand, and then offer suppliers the opportunity to get their e-scooters/e-bikes rented and returned at the end of the renting period to the same (nearby) location. The management party will need to match the e-scooter/e-bike to a series of renting demands with the last demand as a destination very close to the initial location of the e-scooter/e-bike at the start of the renting period. One potential advantage of the proposed model is that it shifts the charging and maintenance efforts to a crowd of suppliers.