As the capital of Spain, Madrid is home to around 3.2 million inhabitants, who have access to a vast public transport system with 13 metro and 212 bus lines. It also influences the modal split, which is relatively equally distributed between private cars (30%), public transport (40%), as well as walking and cycling (30%) in the Madrid city. The Spanish capital is encouraging inhabitants to switch to cycling by introducing new mobility solutions.

Since Madrid is significantly larger than MOMENTUM’s other cities, mobility offers are much more diverse. At the time of MOMENTUM’s analysis, five free floating bike sharing providers, 16 e-scooter companies, as well as five electric car sharing companies with 2.600 electric cars existed in Madrid. The EMT, Madrid’s public transport operator, aims to integrate these private providers within one Mobility as a Service (MaaS) application. This “MaaS Madrid” app will also provide continuously updated travel information for entire public transport network. 

Besides these novel transport solutions, traffic problems of Madrid are a continuous point of discussion for decision-makers and citizens alike. Additionally, the revision of the sustainable urban mobility plan (SUMP), the recently established low-emission zone and the general debate about urban vehicle access regulations are all measures to reduce air pollution. Additionally, emerging transport solutions like e-scooters have intensified the discussion between the municipality and citizens about the use of public spaces.  

In order to support Madrid to plan its future transport policy, MOMENTUM is taking a closer look at three districts with different implementation levels of shared mobility. All three cases pose varying questions for the researchers. The level of access to shared mobility decreases from the central district (high access) to the suburbs (recent implementation) and districts without shared mobility.

MOMENTUM is assessing these cases by trying to answer the following questions:  

• Central district with access to shared mobility: To what extent is shared mobility used as a substitute to private car trips? 
• Suburbs with access: To what extent is shared mobility accessible to all citizens?  
• Districts without access: To what extent shared mobility services can improve public transport accessibility? 

The novelty of the MOMENTUM assessment is the implementation of shared mobility services in the forecast model. The inclusion of these variables is important, as mobility planners are struggling with freely available mobility solutions, such as e-scooters and e-bikes, simply because of their continuous change of location. The analysis of the demand is important to understand citizens’ behaviour and the potential impacts of shared mobility within the city and its mobility. 

We invite you to explore our test cases of Madrid and our other cities here.