Problem: The market for sustainable transport is already saturated by private cars. Providing new transport services currently involves a transition period during which they have to co-exist with the cars they are intended to replace.

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Costs are increased during this transition, creating a barrier to change. 250 million cars in Europe cost over 1.2 trillion euros per year, making it impossible for the market to respond in a balanced way to any new services.

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Transport Groups: Trading-in your car for a new one avoids a transition period during which you are paying for both at the same time. Transport Groups enable people to do this collectively; trading-in their combined cars for a combination of shared alternatives that meet the same needs. It integrates supply and demand online before changes, to car ownership and provision of new transport services, are made on the ground.​ This avoids paying for both at the same time.

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Transport Groups are Decentralise Autonomous Organisations (DAO) that allow users and providers to co-own and govern the development of new transport services in a sustainable, shared and circular economy. By involving users, it is possible to overcome several issues:

• Lack of centralised knowledge about demand

• High level of complexity

• Users controlling the money that currently pays for transport (using private cars).

Web3 for Sustainable Transport

Web3 is the next evolution of the internet, where data and value can be exchanged directly between users on decentralised networks — without relying on banks, platforms, or other middlemen. This enables more transparent, efficient, and community-driven systems for managing passenger transport. It also makes it possible to link the reduction of car ownership with related actions, assets and outcomes - such as car-free housing, active travel infrastructure, interdependent transport services, and carbon credits.

• Compatible Supply and Demand: Tokens exchanged on a decentralised network allow Transport Group members to establish supply and demand by committing to smart contracts that govern the pay-per-use rates of new services.

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Linking e-bikes & carshare use case:

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• Secure Exchange of Data: Self Sovereign IDs enable secure, pseudonymous data exchange. This allows AI to be safely used to shape transport services in response to changing demand - while protecting user privacy (SSID use case)

• Illiquidity of Cars: Collectively 'Trading-in' combined cars for combined alternatives enables capital that's locked in private car ownership to be redirected to alternatives, without a costly transition period where both are paid for at the same time. This means there is no need to significantly increase government funding.

• Clean Air Zones: Tokens allow drivers to tag their CAZ payments to the development of specific new services that will enable them to own fewer cars, turning a penalty into proactive user investment

• Tokenising Infrastructure: The capital costs of active travel infrastructure, e.g. cycle paths, can be bundled into the operational costs of shared services that are funded via pay-per-use smart contracts, allowing their interdependence to be realised.

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Brompton: Car-free work & housing use case

Capital cost of cycle paths included in the rent of car-free housing

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• Voluntary Carbon Credits: By linking the reduction in car ownership to the development of specific new services, tokens provide a transparent and verifiable way to validate carbon savings. (Link to VCC)

• Carbon Rebound Effect: By reinvesting the money saved from owning fewer cars into tokens that fund shared services, spending is redirected from high-emission activities (like air travel) to sustainable transport solutions.

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Piloting Transport Groups
A small pilot is proposed involving two users and two new, interdependent modes of transport. This is described in the following use case: Two User Pilot 

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Please don't hesitate to get in touch, the economic, social and environmental need to develop sustainable transport is urgent. The problems addressed here undermine all other efforts to provide alternatives to private cars.

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