The capital of the Netherlands, Amsterdam, faces significant urban mobility challenges, including high parking pressure, limited urban space and growing social inequality in mobility access. The Smart Mobility Program of the Municipality of Amsterdam envisions a more accessible, sustainable and safe mobility system, which asks for a mobility transition. Shared mobility, an alternative to private car ownership, plays a key role in the transition. This graduation project, conducted in collaboration with the Smart Mobility Program, explores the potential and broader adoption of Mobility as a Commons (MaaC), a cooperative concept where residents collectively manage, own, and share vehicles. Based on the principles of Commons, MaaC offers a community-driven bottom-up approach to shared mobility that is affordable and accessible and contributes to social cohesion and sustainable resource management.

The project's goal is to design a human-centred strategy that drives the broader adoption and integration of MaaC by addressing the needs, motivations, and barriers of Amsterdam residents. While the current approach to MaaC primarily focuses on practical aspects such as insurance, permits, and parking, this research bridges the gap by adopting a human-centred approach to designing the strategic roadmap.

To understand what and how to design, research was conducted on Amsterdam’s mobility system, behavioural change, and cooperative sharing. Generative user research was conducted on residents’ needs, motivations and barriers ensuring a human-centred approach. The findings show that MaaC is a viable, feasible and desirable mobility for both the Municipality and its residents. It has the potential to be a valuable tool in Amsterdam’s mobility transition, addressing key challenges such as parking pressure, affordability and accessibility. However, barriers such as unfamiliarity, finances, organisational complexity, habitual mobility behaviour and attachments to private cars hinder broader adoption.

To address these challenges, the project studies four behavioural change theories to understand how to design for behaviour change and comprehend the complexity of the various contexts. In addition, user research on two neighbourhoods in Amsterdam provided valuable insights into the various residents’ needs, motivations and barriers. All these insights have been translated into six need-based personas that form the foundation of the human-centred design approach.

To guide the Municipality, a strategic roadmap is designed. It provides a structured, human-centred framework for stimulating broader adoption, focusing on key resident groups and tailored strategies for various contexts. The Diffusion of Innovation theory provided a framework for managing the complexity of the various residents, needs and attitudes. It helped integrate the various adopter segments through the need-based personas into the roadmap. Both early adopters of shared mobility and more hesitant resident groups are considered, demonstrating that MaaC can be successfully adopted in various contexts. The key learning is the role of the Municipality. The bottom-up approach of MaaC asks for the Municipality to take on the role of facilitator, supporter and collaborator.

By reducing reliance on private vehicles and offering affordable, accessible and community-driven mobility, MaaC has the potential to be an effective tool in Amsterdam’s mobility transition towards the envisioned sustainable city.