The Environmental Impacts of Digitally Enabled Mobility Platforms

Mobility services, shared modes, electrification, and automation have been transforming how cities are planned and how individuals travel. These platforms are the services that are available to individuals on an as-needed basis for short-term transportation purposes. Even though the main mission of digitally-enabled mobility platforms is to provide a reliable transportation option to everyone, these platforms can trigger environmental sustainability externalities. They have the potential to become one of the green solutions to unsustainable practices in urban areas. This could be achieved by the efficient use of these platforms causing a decrease in energy consumption, emissions, and congestion. In this dissertation, we aim to chart a new direction in Information Systems literature and to investigate the relationship between digitally-enabled mobility platforms and environmental sustainability. In the first essay, we discuss the total causal impacts of bike-sharing platforms on air quality as well as heterogeneous impacts. Air pollution is a universal problem that needs to be tackled by countries for better air quality and public health. The demand for the mobility of individuals as well as goods by road makes the problem of air pollution especially critical. In the second essay, we explore the underlying causal mechanisms between ride-hailing platforms and traffic congestion as well as the underlying mechanisms. Despite the increasing number of scientific studies and projects, the debate on the impact of ride-hailing services on congestion has produced conflicting results and has thus far failed to reach a convincing consensus on this important research question that has serious implications for urban policy. Moreover, we still lack knowledge of how much of the impact on traffic congestion is related to the indirect effect of the ride-hailing platforms. Overall, the central theme of this dissertation is to provide causal evidence that strengthens our understanding of the relationship between digitally-enabled mobility platforms and their impact on environmental sustainability.