Our new website is currently under construction and will be launching soon. Please explore some of the use cases in the menu above. The following text is an introduction to Transport Groups.
Decentralising shared transport
Achieving modal shift by developing new shared transport services requires the integration of both supply and demand.
Integrating demand requires two steps:
1. Identifying users who have compatible need to make the same journey at the same time or to use shared assets at different times
2. Making collective decisions about how to allocate household transport budgets; private cars or shared alternatives
Collective decisions can be made by agreeing to smart contracts on a decentralised blockchain. These automatically enforce the ‘I will if you will’ rules agreed upon by users and providers:
– If these new services are provided, we will use them and cover their costs
– If users agree to cover the cost of these new services, we will provide them
A decentralised approach using smart contracts allows users and providers to collaborate without leaving their separate silos.
1. Knowledge – the data layer
Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) and spatial grid rasters anonymise user data so it can be safely shared and analysed. This privacy preserving data layer identifies compatible participants, enabling them to form a Transport Group by committing to shared rules in Layer 2.
2. Shared executable rules – the governance layer
Users and providers collectively decide to form a Transport Group by agreeing a smart contract on a decentralised blockchain. This manages what services are provided and how their combined costs are covered. Agreeing the smart contract online, before changes are made on the ground, avoids a transition when new services coexist with the cars they aim to replace, the increased cost of which is a barrier to change. Combining layers 1 and 2 integrates demand. Layer 2 is described in more detail below.
3. Linking assets – the infrastructure layer
Users can direct the Transport Group’s smart contract to make the provision of one new service conditional on provision of another new service. The costs of multiple new services can be pooled and linked with the equity required to develop them. This layer integrates transport provision online before it is provided on the ground.
Shared executable rules
In a decentralised transport marketplace, smart contracts enable users, providers and assets to act collectively. This makes it possible to address problems that result from these elements operating in separate silos. Transport is a good case as users and providers currently have no way to connect and assets are controlled by individual participants.
Agreeing a smart contract to manage shared, executable rules ensures needs will be met and costs will be covered, before changes to car ownership and transport provision are made on the ground. Private cars can then be collectively traded-in for a combination of shared alternatives that meet the same needs. As with any trade-in, this avoids paying for both at once.
The increased cost, shown below, of paying for new services at the same time as the cars they aim to replace is a barrier to change. A decentralise approach avoids this allowing money, which is currently used to pay for cars*, to be reallocated to sustainable shared alternatives. *£150 billion per year in the UK.
From hope to commitment
Transport providers currently hope that if they provide new services, enough people will use them to cover the cost. Users hope that if they sell their cars, the new services they need will be provided. There is a lot of hope that other people will collectively do something but no way to collectively commit to it.
Users and providers need a way to commit to shared, executable rules that say ‘I will if you will’:
– If these new services are provided, we will use them and cover the cost
– If users agree to cover the cost of new services, we will provide them
Before describing how transport might change, it helps to recognise that we already rely on shared, executable rules in other parts of everyday life.
Executable rules
Where no single participant controls the rules, but everyone relies on them.
Electricity supply: Electricity grids don’t hope demand and supply match. They use executable rules to continuously balance many producers and many users within constraints. Cost recovery is built into the rules. We already run energy like this, many users, many providers, shared rules. Transport is stuck in one-to-one contracts where users and providers can only hope that demand and supply match.
Contactless payments: When you tap a contactless payment card, four or five organisations coordinate in seconds under shared rules; banks, networks, merchants, without trusting each other one-to-one. EMVCo is owned and governed by six card networks, which enforce the EMV rules. Rules are agreed once, then executed billions of times.
That’s what executable rules look like at scale. Smart contracts make them work for transport. Instead of hoping that the provision of multiple new gap filling services is matched by a change in behaviour by multiple users, rules and conditions need to be agreed before changes, to car ownership and transport provision, are made on the ground. This allows a combination of cars to be collectively traded-in for a combination of sustainable, shared alternatives; shared journeys and shared transport assets.
Transport
Transport needs a new mechanism not because it’s special, but because it lacks a trusted central authority which makes executable rules work elsewhere. Electricity grids work because a regulated system operator sets the rules. Card networks work because a small number of powerful intermediaries set the rules.
Problem: In other systems there is regulation, monopoly, or institutional authority to host and enforce rules. These don’t work for transport where each target user already manages their transport needs independently, using private cars. Providers and users all operate separately in their own silos, millions of them. They need something independent they can all trust to execute the rules, without needing to agree directly with each other.
Solution: The technical challenge of ensuring shared, executable rules remain independent and trustworthy, is being solved by emerging ‘human-centric machine economy’ infrastructure, such as peaq. This decentralised approach uses smart contracts to govern Decentralised Autonomous Organisations (DAO) within a physical infrastructure network. Members of a DAOs can act collectively by agreeing a smart contract that executes shared rules. In the UK however, DAOs are not yet able to act as legal entities. The DUNA Act in Wyoming makes this possible. A pilot is proposed in Wyoming that will demonstrate the benefits of decentralising shared transport to UK policy makers.
DUNA
In 2024, the DUNA actwas established in Wyoming and in 2026 Alabama and West Virginia also signed (DUNA: Decentralised Unincorporated Nonprofit Association). This paves the way for DAOs to have legal status. In a transport context it allows multiple users and providers to collectively own and control assets. As a legal entity, a Transport DUNA will now be able to sign contracts, open bank account, insure, tax and buy/sell vehicles, pay fines etc. It allows multiple stakeholders to share control and responsibility for transport assets. Piloting a simple Transport DUNA in the US will allow policy makers around the World to adopt legislation that is similar to the DUNA Act.
Pilot use case: Vanpooling + carshare + ebikes
In many US states, long commutes lend themselves to vanpooling, where a small group of commuters share use of a minibus, and take turns to drive. Conventionally, commuting by vanpool allows you to leave your car at home. The proposed pilot goes one step further, enabling households to reduce the number of cars owned. By agreeing the ‘I will if you will’ smart contract, private cars can be traded in for a vanpool vehicle combined with the other modes of transport required, as shown in the figure above. Participants vanpool to work, share access to the vehicle at other times and ride ebikes for local trips. In this example there would be a saving of almost $4,000 per household per year, creating real incentive to change. Members of a real life Transport DUNA would decide themselves what they collectively need to replace their cars; a bottom-up rather than a top-down approach.
