Whether it’s your company’s own fleet, business trips, or employees’ commutes: the topic of mobility will become increasingly important for companies in the coming years. Several factors are driving this trend, such as the need to meet environmental standards, the growing emphasis on employee satisfaction, and rising cost pressures. However, those involved in a company’s mobility management often find it challenging to meet these demands with the resources available.

In this blog post, we briefly present the ten most important developments in the field of mobility management that will help companies overcome these challenges.

1. Multimodality

In many companies today, corporate mobility is still viewed very schematically. For example, employees always use the same mode of transportation for their commute, drive a company vehicle to visit clients, and take their company car on business trips. The concept of multimodality challenges this rigid approach by integrating various modes of transport into a comprehensive mobility solution. Instead of focusing on the means of transport, the emphasis is on determining the best way for a person to travel from A to B. The great advantage of multimodality is that it allows individuals to choose the most suitable mode of transport based on their specific situation.

2. Shared Mobility

In cities, more people are using rented e-scooters, bicycles, or cars to cover certain distances. This trend is rooted in the concept of shared mobility, which involves the shared use of transportation options from the private sector. Shared mobility enhances the utilization of these resources, thereby reducing mobility costs and conserving resources. This concept can be effectively applied to corporate mobility by making a company's vehicle fleet more flexible or incorporating external sharing services into corporate mobility planning.

3. Sustainability 

Climate change requires a rethink across society as a whole, which has long since reached the business sector. In terms of mobility, it is irrelevant whether companies set their own sustainability targets or must comply with the new EU Directive on Sustainability Reporting (CSRD). What matters is that this opens up a vast field of action. In the long run, no company can avoid engaging in active mobility management. This approach will focus on reducing the carbon footprint and establishing sustainability reporting that meets specified criteria.

4. Mobility Budgets

As mentioned at the beginning, sustainability, cost control, and accommodating employees' needs are among the greatest challenges of mobility management. One effective solution here is to create mobility budgets. The company provides employees with a specific budget that can be used for individual commutes or business trips. Employees then choose from a pool of transportation options based on their situation, availability, and preferences. Mobility budgets can have a monetary value, but they can also include CO2 or kilometer allowances. To strengthen this approach, the German government plans to introduce a flat-rate tax on mobility budgets starting in 2025, which will also cover sharing services.

5. Telematics

Data is one of the most valuable resources for the mobility management of tomorrow. Technical solutions are needed to gather this data, which involves monitoring vehicles in use and generating, transmitting, and evaluating data from them. Telematics systems provide this capability and are advancing rapidly. Alongside improved data protection, telematics solutions enable increasingly comprehensive and detailed analyses of vehicle and engine data, distances traveled, and overall fleet performance. They also open up new possibilities for coordinating vehicle fleets. Telematics solutions are tailored to various industries and applications, from logistics and courier services to order management for craft businesses and service providers

6. Date-Driven Evaluation of Mobility Behavior

One of the strategic challenges of mobility management is providing appropriate capacities and resources, which may include financial means, CO2 resources, and the size and equipment of the company's vehicle fleet. Determining a company's actual mobility needs can be challenging in practice. With the right digital tools, however, companies can now gain clarity through data-driven evaluations of mobility behavior. These tools provide precise data on distances traveled, travel times, and modal split, i.e. the means of transport used.

7. Autonomous Driving

Various studies explore how and when different modes of transport will operate autonomously through digital control. What is certain, however, is that autonomous driving will be implemented gradually over the next few years. There are numerous potential applications for autonomous driving in corporate mobility, ranging from self-driving vehicles in freight transport to autonomous logistics vehicles and shuttle buses on company premises. Last but not least, companies will benefit from the future use of autonomous driving in public transport, making mobility services in public spaces more attractive and efficient.

8. Artificial Intelligence

Like many other areas of private and professional life, artificial intelligence will increasingly influence mobility management in the near future. This advancement opens up a wide range of use cases, including AI-supported assistance systems for vehicles. For example, tools are being developed to ensure vehicles are parked correctly in public spaces to avoid parking tickets or to automatically activate an emergency assistant in the event of an accident. AI will also become more and more important in mobility planning, enabling better predictions of vehicle fleet utilization and more accurate travel time forecasts.

9. E-Mobility 

Despite recent stagnation, e-mobility is poised to have a profound impact on corporate mobility and mobility management. The expansion of e-mobility, coupled with efforts to reduce and shift traffic volume, represents a pivotal tool for companies aiming to significantly reduce their carbon footprint in the mobility sector. However, this expansion requires a fundamental rethink of mobility management. For instance, it requires the adoption of new calculation and cost models for vehicle acquisition and maintenance, the establishment and management of charging infrastructure, and a different approach to fleet service and operation. One potential objective is to achieve end-to-end integration of energy supply, encompassing power generation, storage, and charging infrastructure.

10. Mobility Platforms

Under the label of Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS), digital platform solutions have emerged in recent years that are revolutionizing mobility management. These solutions facilitate the complete digitalization of corporate mobility, encompassing everything from fleet management to employee mobility. Mobility platforms enable companies to consolidate and manage data from multiple providers, simplifying the implementation of complex mobility strategies. They allow for comprehensive transportation planning, provide employees with access to various services through a single app, and enable mobility managers to monitor all relevant data via a dashboard. In short, the digitalization of mobility data is pivotal to shaping the mobility management of tomorrow.

The Bottom Line

These developments underscore how significantly mobility management will evolve in the coming years, presenting both new challenges and substantial opportunities for action. If they haven’t done so already, companies should prioritize corporate mobility on their internal agenda as soon as possible to ensure they remain ahead of the competition.