By Klaas Damstra, PhD researcher at the Groningen Centre of Energy Law and Sustainability.

Reducing emissions from road transport is necessary to combat climate change. In the European Union, transport is a major contributor to greenhouse gas (GHG) emission as well as air and noise pollution. Over 70% of these GHG emissions are caused by road transport, with 60% of these emissions coming from passenger vehicles (European Environmental Agency, 2026). This requires us to shift from fossil fuels towards smart and sustainable mobility alternatives (European Commission, 2020).

Some of these smart and sustainable alternatives, such as electric vehicles (EVs), autonomous vehicles (AVs), or Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS), depend on digital platforms and data (Vellinga & Hailevich, 2025). The integration of EVs requires real-time data and digital innovations, like smart charging (charging batteries during off-peak hours) or bi-directional charging (discharging the battery), to unburden our congested electricity grids. AVs use data from sensors to create artificial awareness of their environment and use software and AI to identify objects, determine safe and optimal routes, and model appropriate driving behaviour (Van Brummelen et al., 2018). MaaS depends on digital platforms and real-time information on shared vehicles and public transport to effectively facilitate intermodal transportation. In this changing mobility landscape, the twin transition remains highly relevant. This blog addresses how digitalization not only facilitates this shift towards sustainable mobility, but can also cause digital inequities for vulnerable groups.

Digitalization and carsharing

Carsharing is a mobility service granting users temporary access to a car. The user then pays based on travel distance and rental duration. These services can be organized by professional companies, such as GreenWheels, through peer-to-peer platforms, or within dedicated groups of users. Carsharing can have various environmental and economic benefits. These include a decrease in emissions and pollutants, road congestion, parking spaces, and a diminished reliance on and use of private cars (Litman, 2024). Moreover, users can reduce their transport costs if they travel less than 10.000 km per year, as carsharing costs become increasingly expensive with greater total travelling distances (Litman, 2024).

To operationalize carsharing and provide these benefits, current practices rely on digital platforms such as mobile applications, websites, and online payments (Damstra, 2026; Durand, 2022). These digital platforms contain real-time information about the availability, location, and price of the shared vehicle(s). For example, most carsharing applications display a local map with available cars within proximity of the user accompanied with prices. The user can simply book the preferred car with a single click on a button. This provides users with fast access to shared vehicles, as the digital platform and real-time data allows users to easily book, (un)lock, and pay for the vehicle. This makes carsharing instantly accessible, efficient, and convenient (Nansubuga & Kowalkowski, 2021).

Moreover, government interventions strengthen this trend by mandating providers to integrate digital tools. In the Netherlands, municipal regulations for carsharing contain various obligations to gather and share data (Damstra, 2025). Municipalities might require providers to use digital platforms or implement other digital tools for their carsharing activities. For example, Gemeente Nijmegen (2025) requires commercial shared cars to be (un)locked via digital smart locks and an app. Some Dutch municipalities, like Gemeente Den Haag (2025), also provide subsidies for the installation of technologies and IT in vehicles for the purpose of facilitating carsharing activities.

The digital divide

While digitalization in carsharing can effectively facilitate carsharing and unlock its benefits, it can also lead to digital inequities under vulnerable groups. In particular, carsharing becomes increasingly inaccessible to people who are affected by the digital divide. This phenomenon concerns the gap between different societal groups in terms of their access to digital infrastructure, devices, and skills. This is caused by various socio-demographic and socio-economic factors, such as age; gender; race; education; and income, as well as personal attitudes and perceptions (Lythreatis et al., 2022).

As a result, a wide variety of groups are negatively impacted by digitalization in carsharing. Research has shown that elderly persons, women, racial minorities, people with lower income and education levels, or people living in rural areas face digital inequities in transport services (Durand et al., 2022). This includes shared mobility and carsharing, public transport, or using (intermodal) transport at mobility hubs (Durand et al., 2022; Garritsen et al., 2025). For these groups, it is more difficult to access and use digital devices like smartphones, browse the internet, or make digital payments.

It is necessary to ensure that carsharing providers adopt digital platforms that is understandable and user-friendly. Alternatively, non-digital accessing methods, such as physical keys for (un)locking and or cash for payment, can alleviate these digital inequities (Dill& McNeil, 2021). These non-digital alternatives can, however, lead to administrative and labour costs affecting the operational costs and efficiency. Governments might, therefore, want to consider adopting regulation and measures to stimulate more inclusive forms of shared mobility (Damstra, 2026).

Governments’ role in inclusive mobility

With those emerging digital inequities in carsharing under the twin transition, it remains necessary to adopt regulatory and policy frameworks to ensure that mobility and transportation resources remain accessible for transport vulnerable groups. Indeed, mobility is fundamental to reach essential goods and services like health, education, or food and ensure social participation and access to economic opportunities (Lucas et al., 2016). The COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns further exemplified the necessity of vulnerable groups to mobility. During the 2020 lockdown in the Netherlands, 64% of high-income workers and 40% of low-income workers switched to working from home (Von Gaudecker et al., 2020). Similar findings based on income were also found in other countries (Maestripieri, 2021; Lou et al., 2020). It shows that some vulnerable groups tend to be less flexible in reducing their mobility patterns compared to more privileged groups.

Consequently, this requires governments to adopt legislation, regulation, and policy that promote inclusive forms of mobility. As is also highlighted in recent reports, governments must adopt an appropriate vision and strategy on the twin transition (Muñoz de Bustillo Llorente, 2024). Such a vision should not only unlock the benefits of the twin transition in mobility, but also limit its negative effects like digital inequities and social exclusion. Only then can we ensure that the twin transition contributes to a more inclusive and sustainable mobility system.

References

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Durand, A., Zijlstra, T., Van Oort, N., Hoogendoorn-Lanser, S., & Hoogendoorn, S. (2022). Access denied?: Digital inequities in transport services. Transport Reviews 42(1), 32-57.

European Commission. (2020, December 9). Communication from the commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions: Sustainable and smart mobility strategy: Putting European transport on track for the future (COM/2020/789). https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex:52020DC0789

European Environment Agency. ‘EU new Emissions Trading System (ETS2) and Social climate fund: Mechanisms, challenges and conditions for a fair decarbonisation in road transport’. (March 5, 2026). https://www.eea.europa.eu/en/analysis/publications/emissions-reduction-from-transport-in-europe-how-the-ets2-will-help-this-sector-meet-its-climate-targets

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