An ICT solution for shared mobility in universities

Abstract

The aim of this study is that of depicting the novel architecture of a vehicle pooling platform—i.e. CityRide. Such a platform and, hence, this paper, adopt a broader amplitude compared to the traditional carpooling initiatives. In fact, this initiative is the first, to authors’ knowledge, to include and to be dedicated to any kind of vehicle. The architecture of the platform is composed of a logistics optimization module (LOE) integrated with a social networking (SE) one. Such an integration is not available in other carpooling platforms so far, thus proving the innovative characteristic of CityRide. The platform has been designed by following a determinant-driven approach, which considers key social innovation user-related factors in order to identify and address the implementation of the main features of the SMOB project. The adoption of CityRide in a Southern Italian university acts as an application scenario. The study has been conducted with a qualitative research approach about carpooling associated with the SMOB project case study.