Sustainable Transport and Mobility—Oriented Innovative Startups and Business Models

ABSTRACT

Sustainability-oriented transport and mobility solutions hunt for engineering and management innovations. Both are primarily adopted by startups—ambitious and dynamic forms of organization stimulated by technical and technological progress. In this paper, the original definition of a startup as the new organizational form has been proposed, and the most relevant trends in green transportation and mobility solutions have been discussed. The paper also seeks knowledge about new business models of sustainable transport and mobility-oriented innovative startups. For this purpose, descriptive statistics of about 200 transport-oriented startups have been produced, based on the results of quantitative research in 2016–2019 in Poland, and the most appealing solutions are presented. Business models of sustainability-oriented transport and mobility startups have been mapped and analyzed. Green innovations in transport concern mainly products and business models. The studied startups can be divided into responding to challenges in designing new equipment, vehicles, and infrastructure (including electromobility) and those offering solutions in managing transport processes, fleet, and passenger transport—especially micro-mobility in cities public transport. Analyzing the profitability of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)-oriented startups, we concluded that startups related to “hardware” projects (vehicles, infrastructures, drones) need more financial support or strategic partnership than service-oriented projects. We also hypothesized that “hardware” startups contribute more to “greening” transportation and mobility sector processes than startups offering services, which requires further in-depth research.