Fast-moving targets: Challenges and trends in the corporate mobility market 

It’s easy to recognise that current solutions and standards aren’t rising to the
three biggest current mobility challenges:

• Capacity: How can we keep Dutch citizens moving? How do we make the best use of available space and transportation modes? And how can we do this with a decentralised decision-making structure in the Netherlands? Mobility as a Service (MaaS) offers a beacon of hope, but we have yet to see full acceptance and optimum application.
• Sustainability: How do we reduce the ecological impact of an increasing demand for transportation? Our need for mobility is causing carbon emissions to keep rising. Traveller and cargo stakeholders are struggling to reduce, measure and track the carbon footprint as the demand for transportation increases. We need more drastic measures to address how we move from point A to point B while reducing the overall carbon footprint. 
• COVID-19 impact: How mobility will look like in the long run remains uncertain. Will we predominantly work from home? Will we still use public transport in the same way we did before? Will other modes of transportation arise? This makes any predictions on both the future demand and supply of mobility very difficult, hence making it very complex for government bodies and private companies to adapt. 

Dutch corporations have an important role to play in shaping better country-wide mobility, but many of their own corporate mobility policies are not flexible or forward-thinking enough to cope with all concerns. Now there is a unique chance to change. Current circumstances have resulted in a weaker demand for mobility, with an opportunity to reduce mobility costs and free up funds for other investments. CEOs and CHROs should be assessing potential scenarios and recalibrating their corporate vision and policies to help move the Netherlands,
as a whole, toward a sustainable, safer and seamless mobility system.  

Forces of change

Unfortunately, tailoring a corporate mobility policy to such goals is complicated by design, because of the large pool of stakeholders involved: employees, the board, HR, procurement, IT and risk, as well as any type of fleet support department. Besides these internal stakeholder complexities, we also see the following four fast-changing forces that influence the Dutch corporate mobility market and should be factored into policy revision.

1.     Need for mobility

Big picture: COVID-19 will continue to make mobility needs highly uncertain. Forty-nine per cent of the Dutch workforce want to work from home (WFH) more in the future and work travel is diminishing as digitalisation of work accelerates. Even when freedom and confidence to travel is restored, 20 per cent of public transport users expect to look for alternatives. Moreover,
safety and public-transportation regulations are subject to become stricter.  

Next move: Corporate leaders should be asking themselves, How much mobility do we need?

2.     Sustainability

Big picture: Fifty large Dutch companies, including Deloitte Netherlands, have pledged to halve their carbon emissions for corporate mobility by 2030 (compared to 2016).  The Dutch government decided that in 2030 each sold car must be electric. And employees have applauded their employers’ social and environmental commitments – even showing greater productivity. Regardless
of these positive steps, it’s still difficult to create a future-proof mobility policy that balances sustainability with costs for staff.

Next move: Corporate leaders should be considering, How sustainable do we want to be?

3.      Surge of new mobility modes and providers

Big picture: Incumbents, along with a wide range of new mobility providers, have launched an array of new and successful modes of transportation in the Dutch market in recent years. Examples are shared cars, electric scooters and car/bike subscriptions. They’re all poised to improve congestion and increase access to transportation for traditionally underserved communities. These concepts are often also enticing to new users, presenting an incentive for corporations to boost staff satisfaction by making them available for their employees. But this growing range of providers is creating a scattered landscape – an unconsolidated market, blocking full use of their potential. Corporate entities cannot (and often wish not to) interact with a long list of providers, as they want to avoid operational and financial complexity. Moreover, many new players’ standards for IT, security or (financial) operations are insufficient, limiting their ‘right to play’ with big corporations or compliance with government policies or regulations.  

Next move: Corporate leaders should be deciding, How much will we make use of new forms of transportation?

4.      MaaS gaining ground

Big picture: For MaaS to fundamentally change the mobility ecosystem in the Netherlands, the government has to re-determine the rules of the mobility game (a.o. implement mobility income tax). In addition, public and non-public transport service providers need to own their role on a MaaS platform. Finally, travellers need to adapt their travelling behaviour – with employees enabled by refined corporate mobility policies.

Next move: Corporate leaders should be seeking to answer, How does our mobility policy need to change, to benefit from the full potential of a MaaS platform (once available)?

How to adapt?

Given the current challenges of capacity, sustainability and changing mobility needs, most current mobility policies are no longer fit for purpose.  Figure 1
shows that 5 out of 6 potential future scenarios demand that companies
seriously reconsider their mobility arrangement.