Urban dwellers are sick of cars

The people want more public transport, micromobility, and cycle lanes, new McKinsey research shows

Private vehicles are still the dominant transport mode across the globe, but more people are planning to switch to public transit and micromobility, a new McKinsey survey finds.

The latest McKinsey Mobility Consumer Pulse Survey includes nearly 31,000 online responses collected in December 2022 from “current mobility users” across 15 countries.¹ The bad news is that nearly half of respondents (49%) said they use a private car most often to get around (more than three times per week). The good news is that more respondents plan to decrease their use of private vehicles (30%) than increase it (20%), with a quarter of respondents in urban areas thinking about ditching their cars entirely. And the modes most people plan to use more in the future are 1) public transit and 2) micromobility.

Planning isn’t the same as doing, but the McKinsey survey paints a picture of an urban demographic ready to move past cars—if given sufficient alternatives. Per McKinsey, consumers are increasingly making mobility choices based on sustainability considerations, travel efficiency, and improvements to the urban landscape, rather than pure cost. When asked what changes they’d like to see to their local mobility system, the 11,462 respondents in urban areas picked:

1. Better public transport (52%!)

2. Better micromobility infrastructure (37%)

3. More electric vehicles (35%)

You’ll note that micromobility infrastructure is significantly more popular than additional shared mobility services. This is an interesting data point, suggesting there is broader support and enthusiasm for expanding things like protected cycle lanes than bringing in more shared devices to cities. That makes sense if you consider that 1) people who don’t use shared mobility might still own a personal bike or scooter and want more micromobility infrastructure and 2) after several years of rapid expansion by rental bike and scooter companies, urban infrastructure development is slower moving and probably a bigger barrier at this point to uptake.

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The last point I want to pull out from the McKinsey survey is that even urbanites still want to be able to access a car sometimes. This goes back to the point about sufficient alternatives. It’s not that city dwellers are in love with their personal cars, it’s that there are some activities for which having a car is undeniably easier and more convenient.

McKinsey surveyed people about their interest in using “microcars”—tiny cars with three or four wheels and small engines, sometimes also called “bubble cars.” Of respondents who expressed interest, the most (48%) said they would consider using a microcar for grocery shopping, followed by leisure activities (37%) and commuting to work (35%). And yeah, that makes sense! Having a car is a big asset for grocery shopping, because, speaking from personal experience, there is a real limit on how many groceries you can carry back from the store yourself. Leisure activities aren’t always on the public transit map or in cycling distance. The goal shouldn’t be to get rid of all cars always, but to give people the options they need to replace as many trips as possible with other modes, and to get a car when they really need it.

1. Australia, Brazil, China, Egypt, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Norway, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States.