A balanced market in which various services and transport modes compete fairly and collaborate efficiently is vital to building and sustaining mobility services’ profitability. Such a market should accommodate services so they can capture value across all four dimensions—value to the individual, society, environment, and economy.

Cities and regulators also play a significant role in building a balanced market. They can enable the integration of mobility services or incentivize providers through specific regulations. Furthermore, they can directly influence some of the key cost levers of mobility services through pricing of public space (e.g. on-road parking) and infrastructure (e.g. roads or waterways). This internalization of the cost of infrastructure is already common practice for practically all other modes of transport and is expected to be increasingly implemented in urban areas—as London and other cities have already done. But any regulation should reflect societal value and be equitable for all participants.

The core of mobility’s profitability relies on uptime and efficient use of vehicles. To maximize both, service providers should pool their fleets into a single, seamless platform. Today, most mobility companies operate separate services within their fleets. By combining all fleets, mobility companies could improve their vehicles’ uptime and maximize profits. Additionally, companies can optimize fleet utilization by using artificial intelligence (AI) and analytics. Both technologies support mobility applications such as predictive maintenance and demand forecasting.

Service providers should avoid segmenting customers along vehicle ownership and mobility usage. Instead, they may find it more effective to adapt to the changing demands and values or mindsets of customers. After all, service providers risk losing customers to competitors if they don’t guide their customers along a transformational journey. Mobility players need to build close-to-ownership models that reflect existing services, while public transport providers need to focus on innovating their services.