Their detailed responses on characteristics were: user­friendliness; ease of booking; faster than public trans­port; easier to access and makes access to other areas better; provides first and last mile service; door-to-door and hence convenient; cost-efficient; safe; and it makes travel planning easier. Some of the answers also included: less polluting; reduced carbon emissions; and eco-friendliness. However, without any empirical evidence for India, it is difficult to corroborate that smart mobility services have replaced car trips and effectively led to environmental benefits. More than 85 per cent of the respondents believe that smart mobility use will increase, and the rest opine that smart mobility has reached its saturation point and will either stay the same or decline in the coming years. Globally, the biggest concern related to smart mobility services is that instead of luring car drivers to make the modal shift from personal to shared vehicles, these services may be taking away riders of public transport, and thus shift away from a more sustainable pathway. As a part of this survey, respondents were asked if they found a modal shift from public transport and about half of them replied that public transport riders are not moving to smart mobility services because their commut­ing choices are highly price-sensitive though they might sometimes use smart mobility services for the last-mile connectivity. The other half believes that the shift from public transport is because of comfort, flexibility, quality of service and connectivity offered by smart mobility services. The COVID-19 pandemic has also encouraged this trend. However, one respondent added that in tier-3 cities, people often have bikes and small cars of their own so these services are not popular there. Apparently, only the mobility needs of men was considered in this response as women are less likely to own private vehicles in tier-3 cities in India. When asked if car-owners are shifting to smart services, the response was mixed. Some believed that services were only used when going to places with parking problems or accessibility issues: environmentally conscious people may choose to use these services in order to reduce carbon emissions. Otherwise, these services are going through a phase where they are no longer that user-friendly and the quality of service has deteriorated over time. Another important question was about inducing new travel demand. Globally, it has been claimed by experts that smart mobility services often induce new demand rather than creating a modal shift from less sustainable to more sustainable modes. Most of the respondents agreed; attributing this to reasons such as opening up mobility to people of different ages and income groups who are not eligible to drive or cannot own private vehicles, increase in incomes of people thus allowing them to use smart services, and due to latent demand. Specifically, in the context of social equality, the survey asked the respondents if they believed that smart mobility services are attractive to different social and economic groups. The overall opinion was that only upper middle or high income families could afford these services on a regular basis. Women, tourists, and young people could also access these services for their mobility needs. As mentioned in earlier sections, smart mobility services evolved from adapting the conventional taxi model by adding smart technologies. This was done by the private sector and so it is essentially a business model which driven by profits, not social equity. Respondents were also asked if they were aware of any public-run smart mobility services and almost 94 per cent of them responded in the negative. When asked if they would like that to happen, the majority responded positively, stating reasons such as: lack of accountability and focus mainly on profits; no mass outreach in existing services; the need for standardisation and regulation; and the need for socially equitable services. The ones against the idea had reasons such as: the public sector should only plan and regulate while private players should operate services; public run services are a cost to the public exchequer and have largely proved to be inefficient; and the public sector is often not innovative enough to cope with changing rider needs. They were asked to look forward and suggest changes they would like in smart mobility services. Almost 44 per cent of them wanted them to be more attractive to all economic and social groups. They said that, given the reducing level of service, a better consumer redressal or customer care system was the next most important improvement they wanted to see. These results are given in Figure 4. 12 Smart mobility in India from an equity perspective