Shared mobility in Europe: A cluster analysis approach

Abstract

As the sharing economy develops rapidly, a comprehensive overview of the situation on the European shared mobility scene is becoming increasingly necessary. This paper analyzes the state of shared mobility in European countries and observes how European countries can be segmented based on the populations' participation in the economy of shared mobility. We observed 12 indicators of shared mobility in 26 countries of the European Union, for which the data were available. We used the K-means algorithm of cluster analysis. The results show that the highest percentage of shared mobility users belongs to the group of educated and young people aged between 16 and 35. In addition, three segments of European countries were obtained using cluster analysis. Cluster analysis reveals apparent differences in the use of shared mobility websites and applications, as well as differences in education and income among segments. Additionally, the results indicate that the geographical position of the country does not affect the placement within the cluster, as the second and the third cluster contain countries from different parts of Europe. The results of our analyses can be helpful in decision-making and allocating marketing and transportation resources to specific target markets, as well as for development of market-entry strategies in specific markets.

Keywords

• sharing economy
• shared mobility
• european countries