Mobility expressions explained

New mobility services has been under development since some years with new words and expressions coming up. Here we will try to explain some of them.



ACES: Autonomous, Connected, Electric, Shared


AV: Autonomous vehicle. A vehicle that can drive without a human driver onboard or remote.
SAE Level 4 AV can drive in pre defined areas, such as a city and its sorrundings. It may in some situations need assistanse from a human driver and that can be performed remotely from a control tower. Several companies received permission to use Level 4 AVs for passenger transportation during 2020.

SAE Level 5 AV can drive without assistance anywhere.


Car sharing: Rent a car from a car pool or car rental.


D2DOD: Door2DoorOnDemand, basic description of a taxi service.

AESD2DOD: AutonomousElectricSharedDoor2DoorOnDemand, the sustainable mobility service that will replace private cars at scale.


MaaS: Mobility as a Service. All mobility except when you are driving, or using a private vehicle. Seems to be a too wide expression to be useful. Same as TaaS


PUDO: Pick-Up, Drop-Off points for shared AVs, SAV. All places where passengers can enter or leave the vehicle in a safe way.


Ride-hailing: Calling for a ride with an ordinary taxi, Uber, CabiBUS or similar service.


Ride-sharing:  Transportation services where several passengers can share the same vehicle but not necessarily travel together or go on and off at the same places, typical current use is city buses and trams. Ride-sharing with Robotaxis is a very efficient transportation system with large potential to reduce traffic and pollution if it is offered as a D2DOD service in electric minibuses. Autonomous technology will reduce the cost to a level that is very competitive to large buses and private cars.

Uber, Lyft, Didi, 99 etc. are often called ride-sharing but does not meet the above description, they are ride-hailing taxi businesses.

In 2018, SAE International deprecated the term “ridesharing” entirely, due to its widespread
use to refer to a variety of distinct and different mobility contexts, causing confusion over its
meaning and referral. 


Robobus: The word BUS usually refers to fixed line buses and public transit, while Taxi refers to door-to-door transportation.

Since CabiBUS  is a shared door-to-door service it could as well be called CabiTAXI, but since it mainly offers shared rides, as public transit, the name CabiBUS was selected. CabiTAXI.com is linked to this site.


Robotaxi:  Taxi services with autonomous vehicles. Wikipedia . Robotaxi is a very good name for a not so good service, if everyone can take a regular taxi cheaper, there will be even bigger traffic problems in the cities.  "Taxi" says it's door-to-door on order, and "Robo" says it's driverless and thus much cheaper, so far that name is very good. But we need a name for the service where you share the ride with other travelers,


RoboStaxi: Suggested name where S stands for Shared, Robo-Shared-taxi. For CabiBUS it also stands for Safe and Sustainable.


Shuttle: A vehicle, autonomous or with driver, that is used for transportations between two locations, such as between a hotel and an airport. Often misused as a name for Robotaxis.


SAV: Shared Autonomous Vehicle. An autonomous vehicle for shared rides, such as a bus or Robotaxi where rides are shared with other persons with different PUDOs.


TaaS: Transport as a Service. Same as MaaS, All mobility except when you are driving, or using a private vehicle.