Common Sharing or Public Sharing: A Study on the Choice Behavior of Urban Citizens in Public Travel

Abstract

Public travel is an important support for urban citizens’ production and life. As a collective choice behavior, there are different action logics behind the common sharing travel and public sharing travel in China. It is beneficial to provide public travel services to citizens and improve the performance of urban governance by sorting out the different public travel types and their inner choice logics. A fuzzy set of qualitative, comparative analyses reveals that citizens’ choice of common sharing travel or public sharing travel consists of two paths, in which user size, rule attainment, convenience, and travel distance are important triggers. The government and enterprises should improve the combined supply of each factor to enhance citizens’ public travel experience, guide citizens’ public travel choice behavior, and help the development of a common sharing travel industry so as to promote the construction of green transportation, public transport cities, and smart cities.

1. Introduction

The new type of urbanization in China has brought about the diversification of citizens’ public travel needs and the complexity of travel scenarios. During the 12th Five-Year Plan period, China proposed to “implement the priority development strategy of public transportation and vigorously develop the urban public transportation system”. “Improve the modern comprehensive transportation system” and “build a modern infrastructure system with complete system, high efficiency and practicality, intelligent green, safe and reliable” were proposed during the 14th Five-Year Plan period. Public transportation supply is gradually becoming an important people’s livelihood issue at the national strategic level. According to statistics, the number of urban public transport trips in China in 2020 is 235 million per day, is expected to be 273 million per day in 2025, and this number will reach 653 million per day in 2050 [1]. The construction of urban public transport obviously lags behind the rapid growth of urban citizens’ travel demands and has become an important factor restricting the further development of the city [2]. In China, the development of public transportation is affected and restricted by various factors such as public and private property rights, user scale, and accessibility. In addition, two main public travel modes, common sharing travel and public sharing travel, have gradually developed. The same point between the two travel modes is that the number of consumers is more than one person; the difference between them lies in the number of people who can consume them at the same time and the concept of supplement. In common sharing travel, multiple people can consume the travel service at the same time and the core idea is to reduce personal use costs through sharing services simultaneously, such as through private ride-hailing travel. In public sharing travel, multiple consumers cannot enjoy the travel service at the same time, and the core idea is the temporary separation of ownership and use of mobility vehicles for profit, such as through public taxi travel. With the advent of the era of the Internet of Things and big data, the property rights system has been further developed and the scale of online users has grown exponentially. Meanwhile, citizens have higher requirements in terms of travel accessibility and payment convenience, so the consumption model represented by the common sharing economy (which separates ownership and use rights) has become an important choice for the public when choosing public products and services.

Academic research on “public transportation service supply” began around 2009, mainly focusing on the “principal-agent” model, the boundaries of government responsibilities, supply-side structural reform, and the feasibility of marketization. The research on sustainable public transportation mainly focuses on the improvement of infrastructure and energy innovation. However, few studies have been conducted on the logic behind why citizens choose a certain mode of travel, which needs to be studied in depth in the context of the priority development of public transportation.

This study intends to provide an effective reference for the development of sustainable public transport by exploring the types of urban citizens’ travel and the logic behind their selection in China. Accordingly, this paper proposes the following research questions: (1) What are the types of public travel in cities in China? (2) What is the selection logic behind common sharing travel and public sharing travel? (3) How can the public travel choice behavior of urban citizens be guided to realize the sustainable development of urban green transportation?

2. Literature Review

2.1. Urban Public Transportation under the Internet of Things

With the expansion of cities and the rapid growth of motor vehicle ownership, how to alleviate the commuting pressure brought by rapid urbanization through public travel has become an important issue in public management. The COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally changed citizens’ usage habits of public transportation, such as the way of thinking, communication, and interaction with the environment. At the same time, the demand for public transportation mobile applications supported by Internet and information systems continues to increase [3]. The advent of the era of the Internet of Things (IoT) has promoted the rapid improvement of infrastructure construction, payment convenience, and traffic management, and has brought about rapid changes in urban public travel methods. The IoT is a network of connected things—once it is connected to the network, it can transmit and receive data from other things. This ecosystem includes four logical components: people, things, data, and processes [4]. In China, big data, cloud computing, and IoT technologies help the construction of smart cities by improving the scientific and systematic nature of urban road traffic command systems and intelligent public transportation systems [5]—especially when combined with GPS, 5G, GIS, etc. The technology realizes real-time monitoring of travel information, greatly enhances the interactivity and convenience of travel [6], and strengthens the separability of vehicle property rights and services. While helping urban public travel, due to the collection of a large amount of user data, protecting the information privacy of travelers has become one of the key issues to be solved in the intelligent reform of urban public transportation in the IoT era. “Strict information security management and personal privacy protection system It is the main responsibility that the government should undertake” [7], and the division of responsibilities and functions for other stakeholders in this process are also very important.

2.2. Common Sharing Economy and Common Sharing Travel

The common sharing economy is “an open exchange system formed by the Internet technology as the support, the network platform as the foundation, the trust as the link, and the owner’s life is not affected as the premise.” [8]. In the sharing economy model, everyone is both a producer and a consumer, and people pay more attention to the use value of products rather than private value, and to sharing rather than exclusivity [9]. The pure sharing economy refers to the leasing behavior between the supply and demand sides; however, with the intervention of the platform economy, a third-party platform is derived to organize many idle owners or companies that become product producers and suppliers to provide services for demanders’ business models [10]. At present, the definition of the economic model of “sharing economy” in academic circles is not unified. In a broad sense, “sharing economy” includes “cooperative consumption”, “collaborative production,” “collaborative learning”, “collaborative finance”, and other forms (see

Table 1. Forms of common sharing economy.

Form	Definition	Subcategory	Domestic Case
Collaborative consumption	Consumers share products and services with others without ownership	Second-hand market, product service system, collaborative lifestyle	Didi Express, Tujia Homestay, Dianping
Collaborative production	Multi-person cooperation in design, production, etc.	Collaborative design, collaborative manufacturing, collaborative assignment	Bajie.com, Witkey.com
Collaborative learning	Internet education learning cooperation and exchange platform	Open courses and courseware, skill sharing, knowledge crowdsourcing	Zhihu, Douban
Collaborative Finance	Financial credit cooperative organization	Crowdfunding, P2P social lending, complementary currencies, collaborative insurance	Crowdfunding, Lufax, Renrendai, Taobao, Ant Financial

Source: Botsman, Rogers (2015) [12].

). No matter what kind of common sharing economy it is, its essence is the sharing of personal idle items or the right to use resources, and the foundation is the construction of an open, innovative, and active platform and trust mechanism. At the same time, it faces the problems of blurred boundary definitions and lag in legal formulations and government regulations, etc. [11].

Different from the difficulty in obtaining and the homogeneity of services in the traditional public travel field, the Internet common sharing travel field tries to provide a highly efficient space–time matching mode of supply and demand to integrate the decentralized transportation by re-examining the relationship and structure of the material and information in the era of big data. Travel needs focus on improving the accessibility experience of individuals to facilitate the individual needs of travelers [13]. As a typical way of urban common sharing travel, shared bicycles, shared mopeds, and shared cars—which integrate mobile payment, GPS positioning, run-flat tires, shaft transmission, fashionable appearance, and parking anytime and anywhere—have attracted a lot of investment in a short period of time and have quickly occupied the short-distance travel market in cities [14]. However, as an emerging travel option, the negative externalities of common sharing travel cannot be ignored. Over-placement, illegal parking, deposit management, and traffic accidents are limiting the healthy and orderly development of the shared travel industry. In response to these problems, the government and enterprises have tried to achieve sustainable development of shared travel through technical and institutional means to achieve placement and parking management, regulate the operational behavior of enterprises, and improve public perception [15].

2.3. Sustainable Public Transportation

The sustainable development of public transportation is the main direction taken by efforts to deal with environmental problems worldwide. The use of clean and renewable energy is the direct measure of the sustainable development of public transportation to deal with environmental and energy issues, which can range from variants and scenarios of electric bus implementation to decision-making algorithms that support electric bus implementation based on technical, organizational, economic, and ecological perspectives on reducing the use of fossil energy buses [16]. At present, the relative separation of urban non-motorized transportation and public transportation infrastructure and the lack of public cycling facilities are common problems, so the spatial integration of motorized transportation infrastructure and non-motorized transportation infrastructure can effectively improve the mobility of public travel and the degree of infrastructure sharing [17]. The use efficiency of public transportation service is also an important measure of sustainability, with traditional research arguing that affordability is the main determinant. However, a study in Kumasi, Ghana, shows that availability is the main determinant of public transportation efficiency—factors such as comfort, vehicle condition, affordability, and travel time are less influential [18]. Under the influence of a series of anti-epidemic measures taken by the global response to COVID-19, social and economic life have been greatly affected, and public transportation is no exception. Informal public transportation has been most affected, and the impact is mainly reflected in the increase in carrier fees and the outflow of passengers to other types of travel modes, so the financing capacity has become an important indicator of the sustainable operation of the current public transportation [19].

Sustainable public transportation not only affects the economy and environment of cities, but also has the potential to improve social equity and promote social inclusion. The study finds that the physical properties of transport infrastructure combined with the non-physical properties of society can create opportunities for individuals to succeed. Therefore, to reduce the negative impact of austerity, public funding should be diverted to areas of greatest need for more efficient use [20]. Furthermore, promoting the development of sustainable urban public transportation can create sustainable mobility and enhance social inclusion. How to ensure greater equality of socially disadvantaged groups in transportation and improve the efficiency of their transport services requires a measurement of the relative space gaps for supply and demand, and it is essential to balance over-served and under-served states [21]. As the main financing body in public transportation, the effective financing led by the central government can effectively provide citizens with an affordable transport safety net, undertake the obligation to ensure the mobility of each citizen, and alleviate social exclusion based on mobility, which further promotes social inclusion [22].

2.4. Review of Existing Research

The existing research on public travel has reached a consensus on the conceptual distinction between the common sharing economy and the traditional economic operation model. Furthermore, it has discussed the development direction of the common sharing economy operation model from the aspects of platform construction, credit mechanism, financing channels, and concept construction. The research on shared bicycles has been especially fruitful. Research on sustainable public transportation in cities has also been explored in terms of energy transformation, spatial integration, and availability of infrastructure, etc. However, there is still a lack of research on the choice of public travel modes and sustainable public transportation in the context of the IoT and the common sharing economy. The existing research results mostly stay on the discussion of public and private modes, and there are few studies on the nature of the common sharing mode and collective action. From the perspective of sorting out modes and exploring paths, the research on common sharing supply and sustainable supply of public travel services is generally at a relatively preliminary stage.

3. Research Design

3.1. The Selection of Research Method

Charles C. Ragin proposed a qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) method in 1987. Different from the traditional linear correlation analysis idea, he analyzed the relationship between conditions and results based on set theory and Boolean algebra, which evaluated the non-linear relationship between variables and dependent variables from the perspective of set rather than correlation and used Boolean algebra algorithms to formalize the logical process of thinking. As a data analysis method based on cases, QCA aims to obtain the combination of conditions leading to the occurrence or non-occurrence of the outcome variable by studying the relationship between the combination of different condition variables and the outcome variables.

The research question of this paper is whether the travel mode of urban citizens is common sharing travel and aims to explore which variables will occur or not occur when citizens choose common sharing travel. Therefore, the research problem of this paper is suitable for adopting the idea of multi-factor concurrency, for which QCA is best suited. In addition, the suitable number of samples analyzed by QCA is more than 10 but less than 100. This study selected 18 types of public travel modes; citizens are not affected by only a single factor when choosing a certain mode of travel, but by a combination of multiple factors. Therefore, the research method of QCA can more deeply and scientifically explain the mechanism of action between independent variables and dependent variables.

3.2. The Selection of Samples

According to Benoit Rihoux and Charles C. Ragin’s case selection criteria, cases used for comparative analysis must have sufficient similarity in a particular dimension. Sufficient background and characteristics (constant) must be shared between cases, which is the first factor for case selection. The second standard for case selection is heterogeneity and diversity characteristics—that is, cases with positive and negative results must be included [23]. There are many types of public travel for citizens, and their common feature is that they travel by a mode of transportation that they do not own. However, such means of transportation can be owned by enterprises, public departments, or even individuals. Therefore, there are both commonalities and major differences between different types of public travel. At present, the supply of public transportation in China is mostly run by the government and commercial platforms. A small number of private car owners who are engaged in travel sharing are gradually moving closer to standardized commercial platforms. Compared with many emerging travel platforms, the following travel modes have higher average daily users and orders, and their operations are successful and representative. Therefore, the following travel platforms are selected as the source of case data for non-government public travel service entities (see

Table 2. Main public travel modes in China.

Travel Mode		Typical Practice	Feature
Government to customer (G2C)	Public bus	BRT, bus	Ownership and management rights belong to public transport company which is in charge of the public sector. Users only have short-term use rights and enjoy un-differentiated standardized services.
	Public rail transit	Subway, light rail, streetcar	The ownership and management rights belong to the rail transit company which is in charge of the public sector and participates in the construction. Users only have short-term use rights to enjoy un-differentiated standardized services.
	Public bicycles	Municipal public bicycle	Ownership and management rights belong to the public sector (transportation bureau, urban management bureau, bus company), and users only have short-term use rights to enjoy un-differentiated standardized services.
Business to customer (B2C)	Shared bicycles, Shared mopeds, Shared electric vehicles	Hello Bike, Green Orange Bike, Meituan Bike	Enterprises have ownership and management rights, and users enjoy short-term use rights and un-differentiated standardized services.
	Shared car, Shared bus	Shouqi gofun, E vcard, Panda car	Enterprises have ownership and management rights, and users enjoy short-term use rights and customized services.
	Car rental	Car dealership	The enterprise has the ownership and management rights, and the user only obtains the right to use within a certain time limit and enjoys highly customized services.
	Taxi	Taxi company	The company has part of the management rights, the driver has the ownership and part of the management rights, and the user enjoys a certain level of customized services.
Customer to customer (C2C)	Private ride	Carpooling group based on WeChat and QQ	Privately owned means of transportation and ownership, and users enjoy customized services with certain permissions.
Customer to business (C2B)	car-hailing	Didi Chuxing, Dida Chuxing, Cao Cao Chuxing	Private ownership of vehicles and transfer part of the management rights to enterprises, provide standardized customized services through enterprises.

Source: Self-made by the author.

).

3.3. The Selection of Variables and Hypothesis

According to the established research question, the dependent variable selected in this paper is the urban public travel mode, and the independent variable is the factor influencing the choice of travel mode.

Regarding how to define the type of urban public travel mode (“common sharing” or “public sharing”) as the dependent variable, Jeremy Rifkin believes that in the economic model of growing sharing behavior, and in the situation that ownership and use rights in the traditional property rights theory are highly consistent, it is almost impossible to have a market; the separation of ownership and use rights is the property right support for rapid economic and social operations in the future [24]. Although the public sharing economy only has large number of simultaneous consumption users, it is not a public welfare behavior that enables users to obtain services at the lowest cost from the perspective of the purpose of action or marginal usage cost. According to the characteristics of the common sharing economy and the characteristics of public travel, this paper uses the three dimensions of “action purpose”, “the level of marginal cost of a single trip”, and “whether property rights are separated” as the criteria for judging the dependent variables.

In the selection of independent variables, some scholars have verified the relationship between gender, age, income, residential location, and other factors and citizens’ travel behavior [25]. This study attempts to begin with an analysis of public choice regarding collective action dilemmas, focusing on the effects of action scale and rule attainment on public travel mode choice. The Internet travel platform has weakened the limiting factor of scale through disintermediation and reintermediation, and a series of breakthroughs in the market economy [26]. Due to the huge scale of initial investment in the field of public travel, the marginal cost of its unit product supply depends on the number and frequency of transactions, so the size of users in a single trip (the number of people traveling at the same time in a single trip) is an important factor. The key to the rules of consensus between consumers and suppliers lies in the establishment of trust. As a form of social capital, trust is a set of behavioral norms that members of the group abide by [27]; it is a rational market economic behavior generated by the repeated rational games, which can reduce transaction costs [28]. Existing research divides trust into institutional trust and interpersonal trust according to social functions [29]. From the perspective of cooperative transactions, trust is divided into individual characteristics trust, institutional trust, and reputation trust [30]. There are also studies that divide trust into governmental trust and social trust [31]. In public travel activities, trust at the institutional, interpersonal, individual, and reputation levels is expressed especially as the user’s trust in the platform and the driver, which directly affects the user’s willingness to travel. Therefore, mutual trust is a key factor in reaching rules between users and travel service providers. In addition, according to practical experience and respondents’ feedback, convenience is an important factor influencing whether users choose this travel mode; it can be measured by reservation availability, mobile payment availability, and transportation accessibility. Meanwhile, travel at different distances will inevitably result in choosing different types of travel tools—that is, the distance of travel will affect the type of travel tools and the travel mode; therefore, this paper adds “travel distance” as the independent variable (see

Table 3. Selection and assignment of dependent variables and independent variables.

Role of Variable	Name of Variable		Source of Variable	Assignment Standard of Variable
Dependent variable	Type of trip (Y)	For profit (Y1)	Marcus Felson, Joel Spaeth [32]	Public sharing is for profit and the cost of a single trip is borne by a single person, otherwise it is common sharing.
		Marginal cost (Y2)
		Separation of property rights (Y3)	Jeremy Rifkin [24]	The ownership and use rights are separated or not.
	Scale of user (X1)		Mancur Olson [33]	Whether it can be consumed by multiple users at the same time.
Independent variable	Difficulty to reach the rules: trust	B2C trust (X2)	Questionnaire feedback Firsthand experience	Inevitably deposit is zero, and no deposit is one.
		C2B trust (X3)	Wang Hongli, Chen Zhuo [34]	The consumer fully trust platforms and drivers is one, otherwise it is zero.
	Convenience	Appointment availability (X4)	Questionnaire feedback Firsthand experience	The time and place of travel can be reserved is one, otherwise it is zero.
		Payment convenience (X5)		The payment method is a client and mobile payment is one, otherwise it is zero.
		Accessibility (X6)	Quarmby [35] Stopher [36] Deacon, Sonstelie [37] Qin Ping [38]	The distance apart from the origin and the destination.
	Travel distance (X7)			The distance traveled by transportation.

Source: Self-made by the author.

).

Based on the needs of existing research and research purposes and the relationship between the condition variables and outcome variables, this paper proposes the following research hypotheses:

Hypothesis 1.

The larger the number of users is, the more likely citizens are to choose common sharing travel.

Hypothesis 2.

The higher the level of trust between consumers and service providers is, the more likely citizens are to choose common sharing travel.

Hypothesis 3.

The higher the travel convenience is, the more likely citizens are to choose common sharing travel.

Hypothesis 4.

The longer the travel distance is, the more likely citizens are to choose common sharing travel.

3.4. The Design and Distribution of Questionnaires

To measure the different types of public travel and their influencing factors, this study designed a questionnaire and distribute it online through the questionnaire star APP. The questionnaire includes ten questions; the first nine questions include the profitability, marginal cost, accessibility, travel distance, payment convenience, number of peers, and mutual trust, which are difficult to accurately judge through the author’s actual use. The tenth question is open, which is used as supplementary instructions for the other factors that the respondents think have an important influence on the choice of personal travel mode.

The questionnaires were distributed in Beijing, Tianjin, Zhengzhou, and Qinhuangdao, and the samples covered multiple levels of cities, including provincial-level municipalities, provincial capital-level cities, and prefecture-level cities. A total of 512 questionnaires were recovered, and 473 valid questionnaires were obtained—excluding invalid questionnaires with incomplete answers and highly similar responses. By processing the data of the obtained valid questionnaires, the basic information of the characteristics of different travel types can be obtained (see

Table 4. Characteristics of different types of travel modes.

CASE	ID	X1	X2	X3	X4	X5	X6	X7	Y1	Y2	Y3	Y
City bus	1	90–120	Yes	Yes	No	Low	Low	Short and medium	Low	Low	Yes	Common sharing
Inter-city bus	2	90–120	Yes	Yes	No	Low	Low	Medium and long	Low	Low	Yes	Common sharing
Subway	3	1000–2000	Yes	Yes	NO	Medium	Low	Medium and long	Low	Low	Yes	Common sharing
Track tram	4	9–120	Yes	Yes	NO	Medium	Low	Medium and long	Low	Low	Yes	Common sharing
Intercity train	5	600–1000	Yes	Yes	NO	Medium	Low	Long	Low	Low	Yes	Common sharing
Public bicycles	6	1	Yes	Yes	No	Low	Low	Short and medium	Low	Low	Yes	Common sharing
Offline taxi	7	1–4	Yes	No	No	Low	High	Short, medium, and long	High	High	Yes	Public sharing
Online taxi	8	1–4	Yes	Yes	Yes	High	High	Short, medium, and long	High	High	Yes	Public sharing
Offline car rental	9	1–7	No	Yes	Yes	Higher	High	Short, medium, and long	High	Powerful	Yes	Public enjoyment
Online car rental	10	1–7	No	Yes	Yes	Higher	High	Short, medium, and long	High	Powerful	Yes	Public enjoyment
Shared bicycle	11	1	No	Yes	Yes	High	Medium	Short to medium	Medium	High	Yes	Public sharing
Shared moped	12	1	No	Yes	Yes	High	Medium	Medium and long	Medium	High	Yes	Public sharing
Shared car	13	1–5	No	Yes	Yes	High	Low	Medium and long	Medium	High	Yes	Public sharing
Online express car-hailing	14	1–4	Yes	Yes	Yes	High	High	Short, medium, and long	High	High	Yes	Public sharing
Online special car-hailing	15	1–4	Yes	Yes	Yes	High	High	Short, medium, and long	High	High	Yes	Public sharing
Online luxury car-hailing	16	1–4	Yes	Yes	Yes	High	High	Short, medium, and long	High	High	Yes	Public sharing
Online private hitch-hiking	17	1–6	Yes	Yes	Yes	High	Higher	Long	Low	Medium	Yes	Public sharing tends to common sharing
Private hitch-hiking	18	1–6	No	No	Yes	High	High	Long	Low	Low	Yes	Public sharing tends to common sharing

Source: Self-made by the author.

).

4. Case Description and Analysis

4.1. Case Description

In Asia, Europe, North America, Australia, and other major economic regions in the world, with the popularization of big data, cloud computing, IoT, and intelligent algorithms, the business and consumption of public travel service supply have been integrated, and various new forms of public travel have been derived. Among the public travel modes mainly supplied by the public sector and mainly operated by emerging Internet platforms, the following eight types of public travel can be distinguished from the characteristics of the means of transportation and operation mode.

4.1.1. Public Bus Travel

In the field of public bus travel in China, there are general line buses, special line buses, BRT, and inter-city buses operated in the city. Buses can usually accommodate 9–120 people. Passengers do not need a deposit; they only need to apply for a physical bus card or an electronic card or scan the payment code on their mobile phone to get on the bus. Due to the agreement between the bus company and government departments, there are strict requirements for fare setting, station construction, departure times, and service quality, so passengers have a strong degree of trust in various bus trips. Regarding the availability of reservations, in this type of travel, passengers can only take the bus at a fixed time and place. Passengers need to go to the station to take the bus and then go to the destination after getting off at the fixed station, so the accessibility and convenience are not high. In terms of travel distance, in addition to the longer inter-city bus travel distance, general line, special line, and BRT are all suitable for short- and medium-distance travel in the city. Singapore’s bus routes are mainly operated by Smart and SBS Transit, which provide trunk, feeder, express, town-link, and high-quality bus services. In Singapore, the cost of air-conditioned buses ranges from 0.8 to 1.7 SGD, and that of non-air-conditioned buses ranges from 0.7 to 1.4 SGD. The payment methods are mainly cash and EZ Link cards. In general, the profitability of public bus travel is very low, with the exception of some long-distance special lines or cross-city buses that may charge tens to hundreds of RMB (such lines are mostly independently contracted by local enterprises). The cost of a single trip usually ranges from one to several RMB. There are also different discounts for the elderly, disabled, soldiers, and school-age students, while the difference between the income and expenditure is subsidized by the government. Therefore, from the comprehensive consideration of the non-profit and the low cost of a single trip, public bus travel is a typical common sharing travel operated by companies and supported by government finance.

4.1.2. Urban Rail Transit Travel

Depending on the width of the carriage, each carriage of rail transit can accommodate more than 200 to 300 people, and each subway generally consists of about six carriages, so a single subway can transport about 1000 to 2000 passengers. In Chinese mainland, subway passengers can get on the train by purchasing physical cards offline, applying for electronic cards online, or paying by scanning payment codes offline. In Hong Kong, WeChat payment, Tencent ride codes, MTR mobile, and Alipay HK can all be used to pay travel expenses online, while Octopus card is the offline option. Similar to public buses, subways have fixed departure times and platforms, and accessibility is not very high. In terms of cost, the subway consumption is slightly higher than that of the public bus, especially in terms of consumption for medium and long distances (such as airport lines). Although the subway is generally constructed by government bidding enterprises for the joint construction in BOT or BT models, the government still has great decision-making power over the operation of the subway. In order to prevent the fares from being too high, the subway companies have been losing money under government financial subsidies. Therefore, this mode of travel belongs to the common sharing travel jointly operated by the government and enterprises.

The tram has been gradually withdrawn from the stage of history due to the occupation of ground transportation resources and slower speed. Only in very few cities does it retain short lines of operation; its travel characteristics are consistent with the subway except for its slower travel speed. Taking the Beijing–Tianjin inter-city train as an example, passengers can buy tickets online through 12306 APP or offline through the ticket office. The train is generally eight to twelve cars, and there are about one hundred people per car (except for the dining car). Trains can generally carry between 600 and 1000 people. However, from the perspective of reservation and accessibility, inter-city trains are far less convenient than subways and buses. In this type of travel, the stations are located in railway stations, which are suitable for cross-regional and cross-city travel. The price of inter-city trains is generally 30 RMB/100 km, which has advantages in speed and price compared with inter-city buses. Because its price is low and it is a service jointly operated and managed by the Railway Corporation and the Ministry of Transport for the purpose of serving the development of the national economy, it is classified as common sharing travel.

4.1.3. Municipal Public Bicycle Travel

The concept of public bicycles originated in Europe. In 1965, an environmental protection organization called Provos in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, launched the “white bicycles” plan, which painted a batch of ordinary bicycles white and parked them in public areas for citizens to use freely. In view of the extremely high damage rate and loss rate, the Bycyklen public bicycle plan implemented in Copenhagen, Denmark has strengthened the material quality of vehicle tires and implemented a deposit system. This operation model then extended to other countries rapidly. In China, public bicycles are generally operated by government departments. Although municipal public bicycles can be used without a deposit and the credibility of municipal operations is strong, they face restrictions such as an inability to reserve vehicles online, low coverage density, and inconvenience in terms of picking up and returning the vehicles. The price of a single trip of a municipal public bicycle is generally 1 or 2 RMB, and the specific price depends on the travel time and distance. Some areas will adopt the incentive policy of being free for the first two hours, which is the solution for the “last mile” travel. The travel solution is non-profit, so it belongs to common sharing travel.

4.1.4. Taxi Travel

In addition to the above types of inclusive public travel modes mainly participated in or led by the government, online Internet travel platforms and offline taxi travel are also an important part of urban public travel. Taxi travel is the earliest customized public travel service. The number of people in a single trip is one to four, and passengers can ride without paying a deposit. In Chinese mainland, most of the payment methods are cash and payment code scanning, although some taxis are connected to third-party platforms such as Dida Travel and AMAP for online orders. Thanks to its customized pick-up and drop-off service, passengers do not need to walk very far to reach the destination from the starting point when choosing a taxi. It is suitable for short-, medium-, and long-distance travel at all stages, and is suitable and attractive for travel groups who pursue travel accessibility. However, due to the nature of its business operations, the government has weak guidance for it. In some third- or fourth-class cities, the starting price of taxis is 5–8 RMB within two kilometers, while the starting price in first- or second-class cities can reach 10–15 RMB. Beyond two kilometers, charges vary from 1 to 3 RMB per kilometer, and the price of taxis in most cities will be higher after ten o’clock in the evening. The starting price and mileage of taxis in Taiwan are based on the regulations of the county and municipal governments, and there is little difference. Taking Taipei as an example, the starting price within 1.25 km is 70 TWD, and will be increased by 5 TWD for every 200 m; another 20 TWD will be charged at night. In view of its strong profitability, it is a typical for-profit public sharing travel.

4.1.5. Car Rental Travel

Car rental travel is also an option for offline public travel. Especially when traveling and organizing team building, more consumers will choose this customized travel method. In car rental travel, different models can be selected according to the number of people traveling, with one to eight people being the most common. However, car rental companies generally need to charge a certain deposit, and the deposit usually ranges from several thousand to tens of thousands of RMB. After returning the car, the companies will check the car’s condition and return the deposit after a certain period of time (usually one month) if there are no violations or other problems. By connecting to third-party platforms and placing advertisements, car rental companies can reserve the time and place of car pick-up and return through telephone, official website, WeChat, and other channels in addition to offline transactions—which has great advantages in terms of payment convenience and accessibility. Car rental is generally charged daily, if the time is exceeded, additional fees can be paid according to user’s needs. The rental price per day ranges from tens to thousands of RMB. Thailand, a country in Southeast Asia that is dominated by tourism, has a very developed car rental business. Local companies, such as Thai Rent A Car, Bizcar rental, and other international chain car rental companies such as Avis, Budget, and Hertz, can be chosen, and the rent is generally 500–3000 USD. Due to the characteristics of being highly customized and profit-oriented, car rental travel is defined as public sharing travel.

4.1.6. Shared Bicycle, Moped, and Car Travel

The shared travel platform simplifies the user’s payment process to the greatest extent through the APP to find nearby vehicles, reserve vehicles and use time, and make online settlements, but users need to pay a certain deposit before using the car (which can be returned at any time). Shared bicycles have attracted a large number of short- and medium-distance travel groups due to their large number and convenience to pick up and return, while shared mopeds and shared cars are mainly aimed at medium- and long-distance travel groups. Whether it is a shared bicycle, shared moped, or shared car, it must be used and settled in a fixed parking area (space) when it is picked up. Especially, the current pick-up and return points of shared cars are not widely covered, resulting in poor travel experiences. Compared with taxi and car rental travel, the marginal cost of shared platform travel is lower, but still higher than that of public bus and rail transit travel. In the context of share, shared travel tends to be stable, although the major travel platforms have collectively raised prices; the price of shared bicycles has risen from 1 RMB per hour to about 6 RMB per hour and the price of shared mopeds has increased to 6–10 RMB per hour. Considering that the deposit and usage charges of shared cars are higher, the shared travel in the market has gradually developed into a highly profitable public sharing economy, which recovers huge costs and achieves early profit through expanding the scale of users and increasing the frequency of usage. In Australia, it took less than three years from the initial containment for local governments to actively participate in the car-sharing business. Uber entered the Australian market in 2012, facing resistance from the taxi industry, the government, and other parties. By March 2016, the State Department of Finance, Services, and Innovation (DFSI) had become the first government agency in the state to provide shared travel services for civil servants—civil servants can choose the most appropriate way to travel in terms of car rentals, shared cars, and public transportation [39]. It can be seen that the status of shared bicycles, cars, and mopeds in public travel has gradually been recognized by the whole society.

4.1.7. Online Car-Hailing Travel

In October 2010, Uber officially launched the first App Uberblack in San Francisco, opening a new era of online taxi booking on the Internet. As Uber entered more and more countries, online car-hailing has gradually become the main choice for citizens’ public travel based on its convenience and economy. Online car-hailing is divided into ride-hailing, express, special car, and luxury car according to the model and service quality (from low to high). Among them, with the exception that the users of the ride-hailing cannot accurately set the number of common travels, the number of trips for other models is determined by the users themselves and is generally one to four people. Users of these types of travel modes do not need to pay a deposit—they only select the travel time and starting location on the mobile APP, and then a highly customized pick-up service can be realized, which is suitable for traveling various distances. Especially when traveling across regions and cities, online car-hailing has more advantages in terms of price and accessibility. From the perspective of the unit price of travel distance, including the starting price and the price per kilometer, the price of online car-hailing is the same as that of taxis without platform subsidies. The price is also higher than that of inter-city buses and inter-city trains, so its profitability is very obvious. However, sometimes, some non-professional part-time car-hailing drivers will take orders out of consideration for sharing the cost of fuel and toll, so the price of such rides is relatively low, and sharing is also strong. Therefore, online express car-hailing, special car-hailing, and luxury car-hailing are divided into public sharing travel. Online private hitch-hiking is divided into public sharing but also tends to common sharing travel.

4.1.8. Private Hitch-Hiking Travel

Before the rise of online car-hailing travel, private car owners had started the hitch-hiking business through group chats on social platforms such as WeChat and QQ. Whether they are part-time or full-time hitch-hike owners, the charges are far lower than those in the taxi market. The price is basically the same as the inter-city bus price. This mode of travel integrates the advantages of online reservation and payment, being extremely the high accessibility offline, and occupying a large market share in the travel market of about 20 to 100 km. Passengers reach a consensus on travel time and location with the driver through WeChat, QQ, or telephone, and pre-pay part or all of the fare online. The specific information cannot be well grasped, so there are safety hazards in the travel process. In terms of price, because most of the drivers of this type of travel are practitioners who often travel between cities and provinces. They often have the original intention of sharing fuel costs to reduce travel costs, so their prices are much lower than taxis and online car-hailing. It is defined as public sharing but tends to common sharing.

4.2. Case Analysis

4.2.1. Construction of Truth Table

The independent variables selected in the study include both categorical variables and continuous variables, so we cannot only use clear sets for analysis. Instead, we can use fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis to calibrate the data. According to the fuzzy set of qualitative comparative analysis, it is necessary to calibrate the variables for which the values are not between zero and one. There are several values between complete membership (1) and complete non-membership (0), and there is also a maximum fuzzy point (0.5) that does not belong to either. Among all the independent variables and dependent variables, except for the separation of property rights and the reservation ability (which only have values of zero and one and can be directly determined), the other variables are continuous values that need calibration.

According to the collected questionnaires and the data obtained from actual use, the values of B2C trust, C2B trust, payment convenience, travel distance, marginal cost, and profitability between 0–10 points are counted and directly reduced to the values between 0–1. The maximum fuzzy point is set as the average value of the statistical results of this variable; for the number of users who consume at the same time, one person and ten people are set as two anchor points that do not belong at all and belong to multiple users who consume at the same time. The number of people who may be taking a taxi or carpooling is set as the maximum fuzzy point (see

Table 5. Raw data.

CASE ID	X1	X2	X3	X4	X5	X6	X7	Y1	Y2	Y3
1	115	0.85	0.88	0	0.798	0.282	0.59	0.358	0.373	1
2	115	0.85	0.818	0	0.783	0.262	0.763	0.463	0.4	1
3	1000	0.825	0.91	0	0.87	0.24	0.758	0.433	0.395	1
4	115	0.875	0.835	0	0.765	0.285	0.675	0.453	0.445	1
5	700	0.875	0.808	1	0.8	0.23	0.788	0.423	0.448	1
6	1	0.55	0.785	0	0.83	0.375	0.488	0.41	0.425	1
7	3	0.775	0.663	0	0.748	0.37	0.66	0.668	0.713	1
8	3	0.75	0.698	1	0.793	0.357	0.66	0.608	0.728	1
9	5	0.475	0.643	1	0.728	0.345	0.695	0.653	0.708	1
10	5	0.425	0.603	1	0.763	0.375	0.695	0.64	0.703	1
11	1	0.35	0.773	1	0.813	0.35	0.465	0.45	0.495	1
12	1	0.475	0.75	1	0.765	0.36	0.518	0.47	0.553	1
13	5	0.475	0.703	1	0.728	0.362	0.658	0.568	0.615	1
14	3	0.725	0.708	1	0.833	0.382	0.643	0.62	0.715	1
15	3	0.725	0.708	1	0.833	0.355	0.643	0.61	0.75	1
16	3	0.725	0.708	1	0.833	0.402	0.643	0.685	0.785	1
17	5	0.675	0.663	1	0.763	0.367	0.7	0.523	0.715	1
1 8	5	0.7	0.545	1	0.705	0.4	0.71	0.538	0.713	1
Maximum Fuzzy point	4	0.5	0.736	0.5	0.78	0.339	0.651	0.532	0.593	0.5

Source: Self-made based on the results of questionnaire survey and official statistics.

). In the measurement of the price of a single travel trip, and considering that the travel distance of inter-city buses, inter-city trains, private rides, and online rides is relatively long, the price cannot be directly compared with bicycles, buses, etc. Mopeds and bicycles have different travel distances, so the variable of single trip travel price is used as a reference to correct the assignment of the variable of marginal cost. In the measurement of the dependent variable, regardless of whether the trip type is “public sharing” or “common sharing”, the separation of property rights always takes a value of one (after calibration it is 0.95), so this condition can be simplified directly and is no longer used as a follow-up analysis parameter. For the definition of whether the type of travel is public sharing or common sharing, the average value between zero and one is determined by adding up the calibrated marginal cost and the value of profitability. Considering the assignment attributes of profitability and marginal cost, the anchor point of the dependent variable is set to 0.5. After calibrating the original data with fsQCA3.0 software, the truth table of 18 cases is obtained (see

Table 6. Calibrated table.

CASE ID	X1	X2	X3	X4	X5	X6	X7	Y1	Y2	Y3	Y
1	1	0.89	0.84	0.05	0.56	0.38	0.43	0.27	0.25	0.95	0.26
2	1	0.89	0.72	0.05	0.51	0.34	0.72	0.40	0.27	0.95	0.34
3	1	0.88	0.88	0.05	0.77	0.29	0.71	0.36	0.27	0.95	0.32
4	1	0.90	0.75	0.05	0.49	0.38	0.55	0.39	0.32	0.95	0.36
5	1	0.90	0.69	0.95	0.57	0.28	0.76	0.35	0.32	0.95	0.34
6	0.05	0.57	0.64	0.05	0.66	0.54	0.32	0.33	0.30	0.95	0.32
7	0.27	0.84	0.43	0.05	0.47	0.54	0.52	0.71	0.71	0.95	0.71
8	0.27	0.82	0.46	0.95	0.54	0.52	0.52	0.62	0.73	0.95	0.68
9	0.62	0.46	0.41	0.95	0.45	0.51	0.59	0.68	0.70	0.95	0.69
10	0.62	0.39	0.37	0.95	0.48	0.54	0.59	0.67	0.69	0.95	0.68
11	0.05	0.29	0.60	0.95	0.61	0.51	0.30	0.39	0.38	0.95	0.39
12	0.05	0.46	0.54	0.95	0.49	0.52	0.35	0.41	0.45	0.95	0.43
13	0.62	0.46	0.47	0.95	0.45	0.53	0.52	0.56	0.54	0.95	0.55
14	0.27	0.79	0.47	0.95	0.67	0.55	0.49	0.64	0.71	0.95	0.68
15	0.27	0.79	0.47	0.95	0.67	0.52	0.49	0.62	0.76	0.95	0.69
16	0.27	0.79	0.47	0.95	0.67	0.57	0.49	0.73	0.80	0.95	0.77
17	0.62	0.74	0.43	0.95	0.48	0.53	0.60	0.49	0.71	0.95	0.6
18	0.62	0.77	0.31	0.95	0.43	0.57	0.62	0.51	0.71	0.95	0.61

Source: Self-made after calibration by fsQCA3.0.

).

4.2.2. Necessity and Sufficiency Analysis of a Single Independent Variable

QCA mainly analyzes how the combination of the respective variables affects the dependent variable, but there may be the same antecedent condition in different cases; therefore, it is necessary to analyze such variables separately to determine whether they are a necessary or sufficient condition to cause the results (see

Table 7. Necessity and sufficiency analysis of single factor of “public sharing travel”.

Antecedent Condition	Consistency	Coverage
X1	0.649682	0.637500
X2	0.924629	0.689628
X3	0.748408	0.708543
X4	0.786624	0.633333
X5	0.856688	0.809428
X6	0.854565	0.933875
X7	0.850318	0.836990

Source: Calculated by fsQCA3.0.

and

Table 8. Necessity and sufficiency analysis of single factor of “common sharing travel”.

Antecedent Condition	Consistency	Coverage
X1	0.782051	0.698958
X2	0.937063	0.636580
X3	0.981352	0.846231
X4	0.604895	0.443590
X5	0.921911	0.793380
X6	0.766900	0.763341
X7	0.849650	0.761755

Source: Calculated by fsQCA3.0.

). In general, necessary conditions needs to satisfy the coverage (Xi ≤ Yi) ≥ 0.9—that is, if the probability of cases including the condition when the result appears is greater than or equal to 0.9, the condition can be judged as a necessary condition; if the consistency (Xi ≤ Yi) ≥ 0.8, that means that when the probability of the result occurring when the condition occurs is greater than or equal to 0.8, the condition can be judged as a sufficient condition.

As shown in the table, in the univariate necessity and sufficiency analysis of “public sharing travel” as the outcome variable, X₂, X₅, X₆, and X₇ had consistency values greater than or equal to 0.8, and X₆ had a coverage rate greater than or equal to 0.9; therefore, accessibility can be regarded as a sufficient and necessary condition for the result of public sharing travel. In the univariate analysis with “common sharing travel” as the outcome variable, X₂, X₃, X₅, and X₇ had a consistency greater than or equal to 0.8, and a single condition variable with a coverage rate greater than or equal to 0.9 did not exist. The consistency of C2B trust reached 0.981352 and the coverage rate was 0.846231, which is relatively close to the standard of sufficient and necessary conditions.

So far, among the four research hypotheses proposed in this paper, the correlation assumptions between the four independent variables of user scale, trust, convenience, and travel distance and the dependent variable of shared travel are all invalid, so there are no necessary and sufficient conditions that lead citizens to choose common sharing travel.

4.2.3. Path Analysis Based on Combination of Antecedent Conditions

In the analysis through fsQCA3.0, seven independent variables and the independent variable “travel type” were included. If we set the frequency of the occurrence of cases as greater than or equal to two; the consistency as greater than or equal to 0.8; and set the number of users who consume at the same time, the trust between consumers and suppliers and the travel distance as present, while the other variables are present or absent according to the practice, we can fund the combined antecedent conditions for the travel types of “public sharing travel” and “common sharing travel” (see

Table 9. The combination of antecedent conditions for “public sharing travel”.

Configuration	Intermediate Solution
	1	2
X1		●
X2	●
X3
X4	●	●
X5	●	⊗
X6	●	●
X7		●
Number of cases	4 (16, 14, 8, 15)	5 (18, 10, 13, 17, 9)
Consistency	0.994728	1
Raw coverage	0.600849	0.467091
Unique coverage	0.180467	0.0467092
Overall solution consistency	0.647559
Overall solution coverage	0.995106

Source: obtained after the operation of fsQCA3.0. Note: frequency cutoff = 2, consistency cutoff = 0.993698. Assumptions: X₁ (present), X₂ (present), X₃ (present), X₇ (present). ● represents the existence or high membership score of the condition, and ⊗ represents the absence or low membership score of the condition.

and

Table 10. The combination of antecedent conditions of “common sharing travel”.

Configuration	Intermediate Solution
	1	2
X1	●	●
X2		●
X3		●
X4	●	⊗
X5	⊗	●
X6	●	⊗
X7	●	●
Number of cases	5 (18, 10, 13, 17, 9)	2 (3, 2)
Consistency	0.815909	0.990196
Raw coverage	0.418415	0.353147
Unique coverage	0.31352	0.248252
Overall solution consistency	0.666667
Overall solution coverage	0.871951

Source: obtained after the operation of fsQCA3.0. Note: frequency cutoff = 2, consistency cutoff = 0.859702. Assumptions: X₁ (present), X₂ (present), X₃ (present), X₇ (present). ● represents the existence or high membership score of the condition, ⊗ represents the absence or low membership score of the condition.

).

In the combination of conditions wherein the travel type is displayed as “public sharing travel”, it can be seen that the paths of X₂ * X₄ * X₅ * X₆ and X₁ * X₂ * X₄ *~X₅ * X₆ * X₇ have high consistency and coverage, which correspond to four and five cases, separately, with a total consistency of 0.647559 and a total coverage of 0.995106. The cases corresponding to the first path are online car-hailing (express, special car, and luxury car) and online taxis. In this public sharing type of travel, service providers often trust consumers and do not receive security deposits in advance. Moreover, the travel time and location can be booked online. The convenience and accessibility of online payments are high, but the number of users and the travel distance are unlimited. This is suitable for single travelers or no more than four people traveling at the same time, as well as for short-, medium-, and long-distance travel. The second path corresponds to hitch-hiking (private or online booking), car rental (online or offline), and shared cars. In this type of travel, multiple people often travel at the same time while the travel time and location can be determined. The high accessibility and long travel distance are the main characteristics of this type of travel, but the payment method is mainly offline payment and not convenient, and the trust between service providers and consumers is low. Therefore, this type of travel is often used in temporary group trips between relatives, friends, and strangers, such as tourist rental cars and long-distance carpooling.

In the combination of conditions wherein the type of travel is displayed as “common sharing travel”, it can be seen that the paths of X₁ * X₄ *~X₅ * X₆ * X₇ and X₁ * X₂ * X₃ *~X₄ * X₅ *~X₆ * X₇ have high consistency and coverage, corresponding to five and two cases, separately, in which the total consistency is 0.666667 and the total coverage is 0.871951. The first path is hitch-hiking (private or online booking), car rental (online or offline), and shared cars. This path is consistent with the second path of the public sharing travel, in which the average price per kilometer remains low despite the minor profitability, and the agreement between the business and consumer is reached at a lower cost, which has common sharing characteristics. Car rental and shared car travel are both customized travel methods—the consumers’ pursuit is accessibility and long travel distance. Most consumers of this travel type do not have high requirements for payment convenience but try to share the travel cost with multiple people while enjoying customized travel services, so it has a certain degree of common sharing. The second path is the subway and inter-city buses; a large group can travel at the same time, it has obvious public welfare attributes, and it has the advantages of low cost and flexible travel distance in intra-city and inter-city travel. This kind of travel mode is led by the government and is more trustworthy. Although the travel time and place cannot be reserved, and the accessibility is low, it is still the first choice for the daily travel of the general public.

5. Research Findings and Policy Suggestions

5.1. The Findings of This Study

This paper takes the separation of property rights, user scale, trust, convenience, and travel distance as independent variables, and the type of travel as the dependent variable for analysis. It explores the paths that lead to public sharing travel and common sharing travel. By exploring the influencing factors and the paths of urban citizens’ travel choices, the following findings are drawn.

First of all, public sharing travel and common sharing travel are the two main types of public travel in Chinese cities. Public sharing travel includes taxis, rental cars, shared cars, online car-hailing, and online hitch-hiking. Common sharing travel includes public buses, subways and other rail transit, shared bikes, public bikes, and shared mopeds. The standard for the division of these two types of travel is mainly based on the level of marginal cost and profitability; the separation of property rights as a generally accepted condition has no difference between them. Among them, although the shared cars, online hitch-hiking, and private hitch-hiking belong to public sharing travel in terms of score, they have a tendency to be common sharing travel due to their price advantages compared with taxis and online ride-hailing. The unit price of shared mopeds is gradually rising, and the profitability and marginal costs are high, so it has a certain attribute of public sharing.

Secondly, common sharing travel generally occurs under the premise that the travel distance is long, the number of people who can consume it at the same time is large, and the degree of mutual trust between the business and consumer is high. Traditional public transportation such as subways, buses, and inter-city trains under the leadership of the government belong to this category. Although the existing shared bicycles, shared mopeds, and shared cars have advantages in payment and accessibility, the unit price gradually deviates from the route of low marginal cost, which will inevitably become a kind of public sharing travel. In 2020, it was predicted that the size of China’s common sharing transportation market will drop by 15.7% year-over-year [40]. The reason for this is that, as the market becomes saturated with demand and the common sharing economy continues to consolidate, some pseudo-demanded shared goods will be eliminated and gradually withdrawn from the sharing economy and converted into market behavior.

Finally, trust of B2C, bookability, and accessibility are common factors in the two paths of public sharing travel, and such travel is more customized. The large number of consumers and long travel distance are common factors in the two paths of common sharing travel, and such travel generally does not pursue excessive customed services but focus on the travel cost of unit distance. Regardless of the type of travel, all of them have requirements on the accessibility of the transportation infrastructure, the ability to obtain and process big data, and the protection of personal privacy information. During the period of the 14th Five-Year Plan, China plans to systematically lay out new infrastructure; accelerate the construction of fifth-generation mobile communications, industrial Internet, and big data centers; and improve the depth of transportation access in rural areas and border areas. Progress, such as “big data platform of public transportation” has been made. Therefore, the government should support and lead the construction of information sharing platforms between government and society, optimize the user demand calculations, and improve the accessibility while promoting the healthy development of the common sharing travel economy. It should then provide strong policy and practical support for the layout of smart cities, green transportation, and public transport cities.

5.2. The Policy Suggestions

A sustainable public transportation system is a transportation system that is digital, environmentally friendly, and meets the needs of citizens. In the context of the rise of the common sharing economy and the implementation of the carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals in China, how to achieve the sustainability of urban public transportation requires not only understanding of the citizens’ needs, but also putting forward requirements for the public sector.

First of all, in the face of a travel field that is too profit-driven and does not pay much attention to the common sharing economy concept of sharing and saving, the government can reduce the marginal cost of a single service provided by service providers through financial subsidies, formulating industry norms, increasing the frequency of use, and promoting these public travel methods to the non-profit common sharing method instead of the profit-driven public sharing method. Subways and buses are typical common sharing travel modes regulated by the government. At the same time, the marginal cost of shared bicycles and shared motorcycles is gradually rising. After several rounds of price wars for shared travel since 2015, only a few oligopolistic companies have monopolized the shared travel market. The marginal cost of it has deviated from the original intention of common sharing, so it is in urgent need of government guidance on its operations. However, China’s common sharing travel is moving closer to the public sharing travel, which focuses on commercial operations. The Chinese government has not yet adopted administrative measures to regulate it, which reflects that the Chinese government is still conservative in promoting the common sharing economy model in the field of public travel.

Secondly, for the construction of sustainable public travel platforms, the government should support or lead the construction of information sharing platforms between the government, enterprises, and society; optimize user demand algorithms; improve accessibility; and promote the healthy development of a common sharing travel economy—in order to provide strong policy and practical support for wisdom cities, green transportation, and public transport cities. During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, China will systematically lay out emerging infrastructure; accelerate the construction of fifth-generation mobile communications, industrial Internet, and big data centers; and improve the depth of transportation access in rural and border areas. On the National Low-Carbon Day on June 15, 2022, as the first research result of the carbon inclusive cooperation network, the Publicity and Education Center of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, together with the China Environmental Protection Federation, the China Internet Development Foundation Digital Carbon Neutrality Special Fund, the Green The Inclusive Carbon Neutrality Promotion Center, and the Carbon Neutrality International Research Institute, jointly released the “Research Report on Digital Tools Supporting the Public Green Travel”, which encourages the establishment of a “government-led, market-regulated, all-involved and universal action” diversified carbon-inclusive mechanism, using digital technology to help cities build a low-carbon and green smart transportation system. In the future, more laws and policies are needed to ensure the sustainable construction of public travel platforms, such as the anti-monopoly law on the common sharing economy and the law on the standardized operation of the platform economy. A unified law on how to characterize and regulate travel modes urgently needs to be introduced.

Finally, the promotion of sustainable public travel methods and the establishment of a sustainable public transportation system need to be close to the needs of citizens and respond to the immediate demands of citizens while being environmentally friendly, cost-effective, and technically feasible. It can be put into practice through building mutual trust and rights protection mechanisms between the business and the customer, improving the accessibility of public transportation and the convenience of payment, and strengthening the non-motorized supporting facility of public transportation. At present, almost all cities in China have planned separate parking spaces for shared bicycles, shared cars, and other public travel tools, ensuring the convenience of picking up and returning cars without affecting the urban public space. The payment methods for public travel such as bicycles and taxis are also gradually becoming more convenient. WeChat payment and Alipay have been the most popularized in the payment of various public travel modes. Increasingly standardized operation supervision systems in taxis, subways, and buses have provided a guarantee for citizens when choosing public transportation. With the development of sustainable public transportation, local governments should improve the sustainability and development momentum of urban public transportation in terms of clean power, common sharing travel, customized services, and improved accessibility under the carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals.

5.3. Deficiencies and Discussions

Due to the limited knowledge, this paper has not yet explored the internal logic of collective action behavior of public travel from the theoretical level other than on the organizational scale and rule attainment (e.g., trip purpose, user age, and city size); therefore, the theoretical framework and constructed indicator system have limitations. In the future, we can further improve the indicator system from the perspectives of transaction cost theory and citizen heterogeneity and focus on scientific stratified sampling when collecting data to ensure a more reasonable distribution of data samples in terms of geography, city size, and age group.